On Ordering Chicken Feet and Other Adventures

The harbor at night, viewed from the highest point
in Hong Kong, Victoria's Peak. It was windy!

Greetings from Hong Kong! Xīn nián kuài lè! I've been here nearly a week, I know, but Hong Kong is a bustling, busy city and it definitely took a few days for me to get my bearings, shake off the lingering jet lag, and experience enough to give me something to write about.

Now, I could do a minute by minute recap of the last few days, but clearly what everyone really wants to hear about are the misadventures that come from being in a city where I know none of the language and can read and recognize nothing. Let me preface this by saying that I've not yet gotten sick and not yet tasted anything that I truly didn't like or had to spit out. Which I think means I'm not trying hard enough! I will try harder.

So, the food. Believe it or not, I've not had much rice in my diet as of yet: most of my meals have consisted of noodles, which are similar to (but much better than) ramen noodles in the states. I've tried an assortment of additions to these noodles - that's how I discovered that I apparently like shrimp roe! Also, the thing so far that has made my stomach turn the most was the gray beef meat balls I sampled on my noodles for dinner tonight. Yes, the menu picture I pointed to was labeled "beef," but what kind of beef and what part of the cow were definitely in question. The fish ball additions to my noodles I tried on the first day were much more to my liking.

Mmmm, chicken feet

Dim sum is a very traditional way of trying and tasting everything, and I've been out to several dim sum places with much success.  Yesterday we found a tucked away dim sum place for lunch, and my friend who I met in Hong Kong was happily in charge of marking which dishes we would like. So, imagine our surprise when our food starts arriving and not one but two orders of chicken feet are presented to us! Turns out she had marked 305 for chicken feet instead of 405 for the meat dumplings we had wanted to try. And then menu was translated into English, too, so she had no excuse! Alas. Chicken feet seem pretty common, and are cooked in a variety of ways. These were pretty tender and the sauce on them was delicious, but trying to taste them with chopsticks was a chore and I'm not entirely sure what part of them you're supposed to eat. The good thing is that I can say that I've tried them, and thus not feel guilty avoiding them in the future.

Unfortunately, that's not the only strange new food I've tried vaguely against my will. Today, while wandering around a bit by myself, I was looking for somewhere to sit and have a cup of tea. I found a place where people seemed to have tea cups in front of them, and, as I looked around seeming confused, the woman behind the counter asked what I would like. I said "chá" (tea) a few times until she nodded, repeated "chá" back to me, and ushered me to a seat. I felt accomplished for all of about two seconds. It was then that I noticed a few things. One, the things I had thought were tea cups in front of the other patrons were actually full of some kind of dark gelatinous mass that they were eating with a spoon. Two, there were all kinds of turtle art all over the walls. I was not in a tea shop at all, but some kind of alternative healthy food cafe serving mostly this strange jelly that I still have not identified. It was then, looking at a menu with English translations, that I realized that the type of tea they had was "Nourishing Turtle Tea." Based on the newspaper clippings decorating the walls, featuring pictures of turtles being harvested, I'm guessing that my tea was actually turtle soup. It was nourishing, and delicious, but probably not what I would have ordered had I been paying more attention. Sorry Dad! If I go back, I'm going for the bizarre jelly. Wish me luck.

I am sure this is only the beginning of a long list of food misadventures. But hopefully there will be plenty of egg tarts, sweet pork dumplings and cold milk teas (my current favorites) to get me through the food accidents in my future!

Let me know if there's a Chinese food you've heard of you think I should try, or want more pictures of the food I've been eating!