Fa Yuen Street 花園街，Mong Kok, Kowloon, HK

No matter what changes have been made in this street, we can still see the unchanged melody. I was somewhat surprised to see Na Ra Ya has a store here.

6pm on the subway platform of Mongkok

Took it right away before the train door was closed. It's at 6pm something and I grabbed this special moment of no one around on the platform (as they including me were packed in the train already), while many people took the escalator upward and there went a special 600D ad. plus this gentleman sitting next to Canon. :) Used LR to adjust the horizontal angle a bit since I was standing a bit left to the scene. It just reminds me of the 600D TV ad's feature song "Give me that Slow Knowing Smile" (performed by Lisa Ekdahl).

The Place, Langham Place (Hotel), Mongkok, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Guess I should mark on the diary 14th Nov., 2009 lunch time is the most horrible time. Now it's not only Chuan Spa turning into the worst place (no service, no cleaning, no air-con, no water, except the bill; maybe we really don't comprehend of being nothing, kind of zen.) on the top of this 5-star luxury hip hotel, but also the restaurant outlets follow the same standard. The Place was once pretty good under the Langham London management as from my last try of 4 years ago. This time it dropped from top to zero. OK, the horrible journey begins....

1/2. see it's not crowded and it's a Saturday noon time in Mongkok! So this phenomenon is already subsiding warning for us.

3. the Langham tower can be noticed from almost any corner of downtown area. 4. the open area for the alternate air needed.

5. the hotel tower. 6. the mall inside.

7. oysters are so so but better not get it if they are not 80% fresh. The Caesar salad is average. The fruit prawn salad is interesting. The prawn is very pounding. You can find a round one for playing table tennis. 8. Highly discouraging you not to take their sashimi... The 2 mini cold dishes are interesting - tasting a bit bitter but they are not bitter gourd. While writing this, my friend called me about getting sick after 4 hours of the buffet and I suggest for a doctor visit.

9. The prime rib is another interesting food. The outside is much much burnt but the inside is very cold and even you can taste some icying in it. So I would think they put this one out of the fridge and immediately put this in the oven for quick high heat roasting. So the result is outside is burnt but inside is stilled iced. Then the duck smelled. First time I ate a smelling duck! The lamb rack is dry and yet a bit cold. Pasta soft outside but hard inside. Those chefs must be in a hurry for something. The veggie is with some mud inside the stem. So I left almost 95% of the food on the plate. 10. Teppanyaki beef with veggie. The first time I tried teppanyaki with Chinese dark soy sauce and it actually tasted like the Cantonese style stir fried beef/onion with flat rice noodle. BTW, it's very salty.

11. The rice is semi-cooked but it's not risotto. The BBQ bun is too wet inside. The Chinese sausage bun has kind of coconut smell. You know what? It's because of the sausage wrap and the sausage may be some very cheap lousy quality sausage without any wine in it and that's how that interest coconut smell came from. 12. So as I was still very hungry and I thought the safest food is bread. Wow! When I had a bite on it, there was some frost inside the bread! So awful! Looks like I am eating food from a plane crash in Himalaya mountain!

13/14. OK, my lucky came - waffle. Sorry they are not warmly done, but at least it's room temperature, not icy or frosty!. So I took 2 to fill my stomach. The mini-cakes are just ok. However, the appetite was totally spoiled.

Then I couldn't help calling the house manager and complained "first all the food are in a very constant quality but bad side. Let's say the prime rib. If the chef didn't have enough time to roast it, cut that in slices and grill them. Don't cook like that. Wasting food. So then the breads are also frosty inside? What are they doing in the kitchen?". So the manager kept on saying sorry sorry "we will do our best next time.". Then I was a bit annoyed "don't say sorry. Walk the walk! Later on, you should try each plate of the food and to get what I meant, and think about yourself how to improve it. Don't say "do the best next time. When the prime rib is so lousy, I thought I should get something to fill my stomach as I am still hungry, but even a simple food breads can be that awful. You guys are ruining the professional image of your UK founder. If it's just only 1-2 food like that, I wouldn't complain but they are all horrible.". So she then had nothing to say but agreed to try that later though I don't think she would.

Tung Tak HK local snack shop 通達小食店, Yaumatei/Mongkok, Kowloon, Hong Kong

During the year from 1997 to 2004, this local snack shop is like my canteen for lunch as it's just opposite to my office on Pik Street. At that time the shop was just only one unit but now it has expanded to the next door unit with lots of customers waiting in line. Happy to see them grow. The food is not special but it has some nostalgic food such as 豬油渣麵 (fried pork fat noodle) and their local snacks like steamed rice roll, mini-stall noodle 車仔麵....etc. The food quality is pretty good but the prices are very cheap. I recall I used to order the preserved veggie pork noodle soup and it's just HK$13.

1. the menu and the sauces. 2. I guess this street stall siu mai is the most popular snack after fish balls. HK$8 for 10 pieces. If you order one snack, you can just add HK$4 for a nice soya milk. It's pretty good too.

3. steamed rice roll with sweet sauce, sesame sauce and soy sauce with sesame together - HK$8! I guess 99% of the kids in HK would love this snack. So good and their steamed rice roll is in a perfect texture. 4. 3 mixes 三溝 - HK$12. This is a street stall fusion food - fish patty chunks, lettuce pieces and mini-bowl fins (魚肉生菜溝碗仔翅) . This fusion food came out about 10-15 years ago.

5. 碗仔翅 mini-bowl fins - of course, at just HK$11, how can you have the real shark's fin but it's actually quite a healthy snack if we don't count the msg. At least it has black fungus, pan fried egg slices and some pork slices. So do you remember we need to put some sesame oil, white pepper powder and red vinegar? One of my favourite street stall snack! 6. steamed rice roll HK$10. Right after I took this photo, I showed it to my Taiwanese friend. She then told me "how can you compare it to ours in Yung He Town in Taipei?". I dared to reply her "do you know this one and the shop at Fu Hsing South Rd in Taipei city are the very few shops which would make this kind of rice roll to the order of the customers, rather than massively produce it and wait for the customers to buy them in line. So when the rice roll stays for more than 5-10 minutes, the deep fried Chinese doughnut would become soften and the moisture would get in the "hair-like" pork, the whole tasting texture is so different. The renowned Yung He town's Xi Hai (四海 - actually the name should be Xi Hai but it's in Yung He 永和 and that's why people call it as Yung He and later on most shops called themselves as Yung He.) massively produce their rice roll, BBQ pastry and their soya bean milk is either warm or slightly chilled which I really hate. So I really don't recommend people to go try that so-called original shop as I have tried that one almost 10 times already. 10 times turn out the same quality. That's how I told my Taiwanese friends and not to spoil that original shop. So Tung Tak keeps on making this rice roll freshly to the order of customers. A very important point! That's why I like Tung Tak.
7. see how crowded outside of the shop.

Sai Yeung Choi Street, Mongkok, Kowloon, Hong Kong

This time I passed by the lower part of Sai Yeung Choi Street and Fa Yuen Street. Much different from 6 years ago where I used to check around when my office was nearby.

1. This shopping mall was once a golden place for any "cheap" game and computer softwware as well as "cheap" CD/VCDs. Well, this is the place I am not allowed to get anything. So you know what "cheap" is referred to - $100 for 10 CDs. 2. Dundas Street has now been with many snacks/drinks shops. If you wanna "sweep the street (meaning in Cantonese dialect as "trying snack one by one and taking them all", this is the place.

3/4. This shop is just opposite to the "rubbish station" in Dundas street. In taking these 2 photos, the lady in red shirt spoke "!#$x%*y$#z you, no photo!". Then as you would notice, why at 7-8pm, there is no one around and I can take these 2 photos without anyone blocking me, as compared to all other shops at least crowded with 5-6 people. If her attitude is like that, they would have a very "chill-out" income revenue. So please take it as an example for your business - never act like her!

5. So when you go on seeing the other photos, you would know why there are quite many drink shops. Get cool! 6. See this shop crowded with customers. This told this one must be good. It's at the junction of Dundas Street and Sai Yeung Choi Street.

7. the side at Said Yeung Choi Street. How busy they were. 8. Hollywood Center - still survives and the super bright commercial board for the Panasonic GF1 - a very nice DSLR for micro 4/3 and also very controversial in photography industry. This is something really exciting about the extensive choices of cameras. When today many young girls carry a heavy weighted Canon 5D, there are some DSLR developing their cameras on their other end. I got a chance of talking to a professional photographer and was told that his fellows prefer to take photos with either micro 4/3 or 4/3 since the image would be sharper due to its stronger focal engine power. That tells why 4/3 still survives when everyone talks about full frame.

9. A shop selling quite a wide range of Tamron lens at bargaining prices. 10. This restaurant Silver Dragon is the business tea restaurant in Sai Yeung Choi Street, but personally I don't recommend trying it, unless you want more complimentary things in your drink and meals.

11. I guess there are around 5-6 Broadway electronic shops just only in the section of Sai Yeung Choi Street (between Dundas St. and Argyle St.). This one is even bigger than all the others - at least 3 storey and a big floor. 12. See how those shops extend their neon light boards.

13. Those super commercial boards are one after the other. BTW, the whole Sai Yeung Choi Street, Tung Choi Street are blocked for pedestrians. Also, for those who find smoking offensive to themselves, please refrain from walking around here. Since the Government banned all the indoor places for smoking, those smokers got so "open" and smoked around you in the street. So now we can on the contrary "indirectly smoke" more often than before because at least you wouldn't "smoke" unless you went in those smoking area. 14. Look at this guy without his both palms. He made this painting and furthermore he painted it on a mat, not on the ground! So thoughtful!

15/16. Another view to Sai Yeung Choi St.

17. Another super ad. board. This girl GEM is now called as "super lung" singer, like Eliza Chan, Jenny or Roman Tam...etc. She started to sing at 14 and spent 2 years on singing before she released the album. 18. Tung Choi Street but widely known as Women's Street. Anyway you can get anything and it doesn't mean you should be a woman to shop in this street or only women you can see.