Anti Pig Piracy!

Besides facial masks, there’re also fake McDulls around! This is more painful than fake masks! Totally despicable! You can spot them in Ladies Market and Mongkok in Hong Kong, many parts of Malaysia and China. To get the real thing, go to McQuarter in HK and some Mu Ee outlets in Singapore. The difference in quality is obvious.

Here’s how you spot the differences between the 2, so you’ll know if you’re getting the real deal, like antiques:-

Real on left, faker on right

Head : McDull always bigger proportionate to his body
Ears : real one has large, thick ears
Nostrils : Real one’s closer together and in dark brown
Eyes : Real one has pea-sized eyes, not kidney bean size like his imposter
Limbs : real one has fingers. You can squeeze his hand/leg and the fingers will open up
Mouth : lower down and ark brown. And he hardly sticks out his tongue.
Hair : real one has longer, smoother, healthier hair

One special feature you can always look for on the real thing is the drop of sweat. There’s always a tag, sort of certification on his left hand.

As for McDull’s friend, McMug, I leave the authentication job to his family/fan club.

It's a Legend

Attended a friend’s wedding last Saturday.

The Legends at Fort Canning has always given me a good impression until last Saturday’s wedding. The 10-course banquet started at 8.45pm. The second dish was served only at 9.30pm. Between 11-11.30pm, 3 dishes were served. Before dinner, we spotted dirty napkins, crockery. In between the dishes, the waiters and even captain forgot about our drinks request, toppled my glass of red wine. It was so bad and slow that we requested for a jug of water to ourselves so we could fill up our own glasses. Sometimes the waitress would plate the dish for us, sometimes she would leave all 10 bowls/plates there, we were so confused and the lag between them putting down the dish and us eating the food was a good 10 mins at least. Those at our table told the waitress in the end we prefer to DIY.

Thankfully, food was good and the souvenir was pretty, useful. And yes, there was fish - pomfret to be specific!

My friend staying in the north managed to catch the last train home.

BTW, was very touched to receive the invitation to me and McDull, very specifically.

Things i learned in HK

Wellcome, the Fairprice equivalent of Hong Kong certainly left my friends a deep impression. This picture reminded me of the incident.

We were buying strawberry oreos and snacks as gifts when my 2 friends dashed out of the shop saying they saw a rat. Since cockroaches are friends I see every now n then at home (I love flying ones – more challenging), so I was quite ok with their distant relative. I went to pay up but the cashier took my money and jumped off when she saw the rat. It was a pathetic little fellow, skinny and a little wet. It might have licked the packaging of my oreos but certainly not th e cookies themselves cuz its legs were really long n skinny.

Next, the store manager, the only male staff I guess, had to try capture the rat with a waste paper bin, but it went under the atm machine, and he waited. Not easy being a store manager yah?

Open your eyes and ears and you’ll learn something new every day. I heard at the MTR a kid pestering his dad to buy him a toy. His dad saved his wallet n pacified him by telling him (in Cantonese) “This is nice but not so suitable for kids 小朋友”. So smart!

Take note of the faces in this photo

Yes, these are the selfish souls who pretended 2b sleeping, reading, playing n their handphones…anything but see the poor old man standing in front of them looking for a seat. It was such a relief to them when the old man finally got a seat. Suddenly, they could all look up.

If only i had taken the photo from a better angle to capture all the faces clearly. And a better camera instead of my lousy hp camera!

I’ve sent this to ST stomp, if it doesn’t get in there, at least I have you guys to help me forward the photos. Thanks!

HK Part 2

I didn’t expect to be back in Hong Kong so soon after my visit in Oct last year, but I had a wonderful time eating, shopping and catching up with my friends. The standard of Cathay Pacific though, has dropped tremendously - headset not working, lousy food, flight delay...you name it.

Whenever I travel I try to explore new places. Even though Hong Kong is a city I’ve been to many many times, I still manage to discover new things every time – new clothes for one! And of course, my passion is always FOOD besides taking slow walks like an elderly.

Walking tours:

Fanling
Far up in the north almost next to China. Nice, historical walled villages (围村/老围- since the Qing dynasty), some of which will be demolished to make way for the rail connecting to Guangzhou or Shenzhen.

The biggest Taoist temple in HK, next to Fanling station, serves good vegetarian food.

Kowloon Walled City, Kowloon Tong
It's a park in the midst of housing estate. Suzhou-style garden built during Qing dynasty. Now just an area residents cut across after buying their veggies etc.

Wanchai
Historical churches, open market which stand in contrast right next to the city’s tallest skyscrapers.

Stanley
Go anytime but during dragoon boat festival for a nice walk by the beach n chill out at the cafes. We went right on 端午节.

Back shopping in Kwai Fong. Nice sweet coconut drink (with red bean or pearl) on overhead bridge linking the shopping paradise (a complex) and shopping mall next to it. McQuarter is in the mall!!! If in Mongkok, go to Argyle Centre for cheap clothes, though slightly more ex than kwai fong.

Food:

Hui Lau San
Well known for its mango desserts but the curry fishballs with squid and radish are equally yummy!

Yuen Long
Sheng Li beef noodles. Very QQQ beef balls and they serve great lemon + coke (冻柠乐). Lemon tea + Ribena is 冻柠宾 and so on.

Back to my favourite Japanese restaurant! Only about S$50 for a sashimi platter!

Tsim Sha Tsui

Sun Kei in dilapidated building on Granville - MUST try the cheese ramen cuz even Louis Koo n all have been there. The cheese ball ramen is my favourite, other than the pig's neck meat. Not easy to locate though. Me n my friend couldn't find this tiny shop the day b4 n ended up eating oily bee hor fun n rubbery singapore fried bee hoon.

Happy Valley
Saw paparazzis at work, taking pictures of some celebrity (we thought he looked like Ron Ng Cheuk Hei) at the atm across the road. So I took a photo of the paprazzis. Went for porridge and ‘zhar leung’ at the shop next to it n told the lady boss about our encounter. Surprisingly, she said Ron Ng is no big deal. Raymond Lam Fung and his mom popped by just last week. My HK friend then told me celebrities like Anita Yuen are regulars!

Causeway Bay
This place serves pretty nice beancurd, though I remeber I had better ones In Sham Shui Po many years back.

Sheung Wan
Fantastic porridge! And the fish cakes also nice!

Central
Shen Heung Yuen – an open air stall that sells nice ketchup soup base noodles, honey lemon crispy bun. Lots of people, nice food but overrated.

The one at Cui Hua tea restaurants is better.

Gau Kei beef noodles – very beefy and sweet! The queue outside even b4 it opened said it all.

Lin Heung Lau – one of the oldest teahouses. Go for the 60s HK atmosphere, don’t (bother to) focus on the food. Ye Shanghai in Marco Polo hotel is posh n frequented by celebrities like Edison Chan, but food is overpriced n nothing fantastic. Go if you have $ to burn.

McDonalds launched a new dip for chicken mcnuggets last week when we were there – the Singapore honey mustard sauce. We Singaporeans never knew it existed!

Probably one of the grossest posters around.


Saw McDull so very often in HK this time! He’s on a roll!!! Even endorsing Canon and Microsoft products.

Got a fakie McDull from my boss this morning. My sis refused to take it from me. Even she said she couldn’t accept anything more than the real thing. LVs can be fake, but not McDull. But I appreciate the gift.

Flavours of Hong Kong

Went to Crystal Jade HK café at OC last Friday for supper cuz the dinner at Hot Tomato at 313 wasn’t filling.

I had grilled salmon + aglio olio for $12.90 (before GST). The side salad with the very citrus mango dressing is very refreshing but the dressing was also used on the salmon, which drowned out the taste of the fish. The fish was cooked just right, and I liked the excessive olive oil on the spaghetti. For $2.90, you can upgrade the ala carte order to a set meal which comes with soup (it was very campbell mushroom for that day which I couldn’t take) and gelato.

My more satisfying meal was at Crystal Jade. The setting is very HK café. Me and friend shared a set for $13.90, since she was craving for soup noodles and me, chee cheong fun (the sweet and sesame sauces are perfect with the steaming hot, soft cheong fun!). The hot, thick corn drink was a pleasant surprise. We had enough tea and cold drinks for that day, so this was the only choice we could go with. I highly recommend it! No better way to end a Friday evening.

A friend left for hong kong the following day and gave each of us a photo montage as parting gifts. Here’s mine – but don’t understand why my photo taken during our PJs party was chosen….so ah ma!

No GSS but Singapore Eats

Tried out a new flavour of noodles from koka – purple wheat noodles. Really healthy (but a little boring. Great food when sick or when u feel sinful). Absolutely no msg and instead of being fried like traditional noodles, it’s baked dry. Maybe because I’ve been deprived of proper human food the past one month, these mildly flavoured noodles tasted really good. Can bake it with cheese, throw in pork chop if you like. For big eaters, you need at least 2 packets. The packaging looks good too. Think it’s about $3 (cuz mom paid for it).

Went to the popular Japanese restaurant Ootoya at orchard central for dinner. Really quite popular as it takes 30 mins to get a table and the Q gets pretty long after 8pm (why? People eat so late?). There’re also quite a lot of Japanese customers. It took an 30 mins for them to recook a pot of rice that went bad, so we practically waited from 7.30pm before we got to eat at 8.30pm. The waiters were imported from the Philippines I guessed. They served with a smile but what we asked for never seemed to arrive – be it tea, food, not during the first attempt. They just went “ok, ma’am” then walked away. No follow-up.

Food is good (way better than Ma Maison). Can only comment on the pork cutlet with miso sauce (quite unique!) cuz that was about the only few things I could eat. The pickles you see blow went to my friend. Had only a few slices of mushroom to avoid the supposedly poisonous spores.

The chilli powder was really good. Spicy!

And why was I in orchard? For the great singapore sale of course! Had wanted to buy something quite badly. But what sale? A pathetic 10-20% off. In the US, sales mean 50-70%. All I bought were sunblock and hair conditioner, and from Toa Payoh. How fulfilling…

And glad to say that chickens n eggs are now back on my plate!