My cooking: veggie, fish and soup 清炒學斗，冬菜蒸黃花魚，老樹黃瓜日月魚嚮螺豬𦟌湯

In summer time, we have to eat more lightly by getting more fish and melon/gourd. The baby bak choy 學斗 is in season now. I would prefer stir frying it with little chopped garlic and ginger. No need to put much garlic or ginger as that would spoil the nice fragrant of this baby green. 2. Yellow fish steamed with preserved veggie (冬菜). Paid HK$18 for a nice yellow fish at about 18 oz in weight. Put some ginger slices and preserved veggie and cooking oil. Then steam it at high heat for about 9 to 10 minutes. No need to put soy sauce. Eat it together with the veggie and ginger. So good. 3. This soup is good for the summer time and the dried conch and sun-moon fish (kind of a shell fish) are good for nourishing your body 滋陰 and especially good for your liver. Yellow squash is good for clearing your cumulative heat from your body. Remember to put a nice (soaked) dried tangerine peel. The meal is about HK$60 in total. Again, it depends what you get. Though the food prices are going up, if we spend wisely, we can still have a nice balanced meal. We don't necessarily eat swimming garoupa or a freshly killed chicken. I sometimes bought a plate of small fishes at HK$10. It's good for us to show it to the kids to eat more wisely and to know how to eat fish and how to take out the bones. Don't always get them frozen fish filet or some fish with less bones. The kids get to learn.

My cooking: Bitter gourd omelette 苦瓜菜脯煎蛋/Steamed abalone

1. More than half of my family members don't like bitter gourd. However, when I passed by the veggie stall and found out this seasonal bitter gourd, I had to go against the majority. In order to make them try this, I cut the gourd in very thin small slices and with some chopped preserved turnip (soaked for a few minutes to make it less salty) to make it more aromatic. First heat the pan and without any oil, to low-med. heat to slightly pan fry the gourd slices. Until it gets a bit soft (not too soft), turn off the heat and put some sugar to make the gourd a bit sweet. Then batter the egg with some sesame oil and little salt. Put the gourd and turnip in it. Then heat the pan at medium to med-low heat to pan fry whatever shape of omelette you feel like.

2. Ap Lei Chau food market is so good that we can find a wide variety of wild catch seafood. Lately we found some wild catch abalone (check on the shell if it's with some seaweed like color and in straps with some brown color. These are the wild catch ones.). Don't let the shops clean the abalone for you. Don't be lazy. Do the cleaning by yourself. So get a soft brush (e.g. soft tooth brush) to clean the outer skirt and the surface of the abalone (I also clean the shell too). No need to be very entirely clean. Just to clean those you feel a bit sticky. This way, the abalone won't get shrunk and so the meat wouldn't be too tough. So be happy with them when you clean them, like you are giving the abalone a "spa treatment". Then remember abalone is one of the few seafood need to be steamed at med-low heat for about 8-10 minutes (depending on how many and how big of the abalone), because that wouldn't make them suddenly stress up and so the meat texture would be too chewy. I would put some nice (soaked) dried tangerine peel slices for the steaming, with a final touch of some hot boiling cooking oil and sliced scallion.

Tuesday delight: afternoon tea at Flavors, Renaissance Ratchaprasong BKK

Got a request for rewinding to Renaissance Bangkok. There it goes for a nice afternoon tea. Yes, somtam and Pad Thai for afternoon tea. I like the somtam though it's not very local (less sweet and salty). The Pad Thai is pretty good with some very nice and fresh tiger prawn. Lemon tart is very refreshing and not too sweet. The drink ginger ale mojito is very surprising to me. Highly recommended.

A sunny Sunday yawning lunch at The News Room, Quarry Bay HK

The Press Room on Hollywood Road, The Classified in Tin Hau and now with this one The News Room in Quarry Bay (Taikoo Place) - serve Euro-American cuisine from all day breakfast like yoghurt cereal, soup/salad, sandwich/grilled to authentic seafood platter with a wide variety of wine. It's been here for just a few days and I couldn't wait for giving it a try the past Sunday. There I had a lazy lunch, starting with a fresh orange juice (HK$38) and a smoke salmon bagel (HK$92). Their signature News Room burger is pretty nice too (HK$98).

Open the gate. Open the gate.

Whenever I see these walls, I often recall how the last emperor Pu E run and cried for "open the gate... open the gate".

Tai Hang (Tung Lo Wan as Causeway Bay), HK

Checked around this area but didn't visit any of the shops. A bit interesting to have other shops like car repairing, laundry or pet shop next to the restaurants. Photo 4 is the hit place as it has a meat patty like a mini-pyramid. BTW, the shore line used to be along the Tung Lo Wan Road where it takes a big U dip of this area. The U shape was Tung Lo, and now no more as it's reclaimed to the shelter area.

Pearl river delta, Canton Province China

On the left bank of the river is Pang Yu 番禺 and Nan Sha 南沙. As you can see, there are many small branches of the river creating a bed for fish and rice/veggie and what we call it as "town of the rice/fish 魚米之鄉". Down below the cloud, it's Bao An 寶安, and in the old time it covered Hong Kong; so that's how we as HK natives would write their provincial place as Bao An.

Invisible breakfast at Beijing Marriott City Wall

On the first day, I came to this cafe for a breakfast and didn't take much, even didn't feel like taking photos on the food. It's simply because I saw someone (on the 2 tables on the right and far left of photo 2) who use their bare hands to get the food. By now it's known why there were so many photos of my earlier post for Pearl (the Chinese restaurant). :)

Ancient intelligence

1. It's about 1:30pm.

2. a weather observatory built in Ming dynasty.

Beijing Marriott City Wall

This hotel is about 5 minute walk from Beijing train station and another 5 minute walk to the subway station Jian Guo Men 建國門. The hotel has 4 towers comprising of around 1,000 rooms. The hotel has been maintained in a pretty good condition with some ancient Chinese decoration due to its location close to the ancient city wall observatory (built in Ming Dynasty - to be reported later). That's why it's called city wall. It has 5 restaurants - Italian (too bad the Italian restaurant closed on Sunday and Monday), Hawker (SE Asian), Pearl (Chinese), City Wall Bistro (big coffee shop), Java's (cafe serving breakfast and lunch for Marriott members or selected guests) and a lounge. Facilities include a heated swimming pool, a gym with quality euqipments and a spa. The hotel has a large no. of conference rooms. Re the swimming pool, too bad I was again forced to leave because of some people (as on the same situation on my Singapore trip about the swimming pool of hotel Park Regis). What's more, this time it's with 4D experience - the extra "D" is smell. :)

Deluxe Room, Beijing Marriott City Wall

The room is in good order, clean and tidy. Most important is very good at sound proof. The only complaint is on the air-conditioning that it can't go lower to 25 degree though it doesn't bother me much. However, quite a no. of hotels (except Regent and Sofitel Wanda) have this kind of air-conditioning problem.

Frozen hottie

Looks familiar? Check with our buddy and I found 4 different things. To be posted later. Part 2: 1. cream hat is less curly and the Froyoman is in layer. 2. Face is different. 3. Mouth is different too. 4. the hands. :)