Winter Best Choice?!! Snacks?

Clay Pot Rice 

This is Rice and your favourite toppings cooked in a clay pot, there are many ingredients choice, such as pork, chicken, beef, Chinese sausages, etc. Don't forget to add the soya sauce which the shop made them, the sauce is the essence of the clay pot rice, if you do not add it in, it will be dry and tasteless. It is usually put on the side of the table and you can decide how much soya sauce you want to add in.
Also, do not mix all the rice at once, you should leave some rice in the edge of the clay pot and let them rest, after 5 mins, it will become a crunchy rice crust!

Price: 5-6 pounds
Recommendation: Four Season Clay Pot Rice (HK)

Sandwiches

Unlike sandwich in UK, most of the sandwiches are hot serve in HK, except the one selling in the convenience store. The bread will be toasted into golden colour, the fry egg is the best part, as it is fo fluffy and you can smell it as well, you can choose to serve with ham, beef or chicken meat.

Pineapple Bun

Pineapple bun is the most representative pastry in HK. The upper part of the bun is crusty and sweet, and the lower part is a fluffy bun. If you are having it in restaurants, usually you can choose to add a butter slides inside. You must try this combination! As they will heat the bun and put the freezing butter inside, which makes it taste so special! It is called Pineapple Bun doesn't because it taste like pineapple, but the bun looks like a pineapple.

Egg Tarts

It comes from Portugal, they remain a combination of an egg yolk based creamy custard in the center of little cups of pasty dough

Hotpot for all seasons

It is the winter best choice to have hotpot in Hong Kong, there are also lots of Hotpot restaurant in Glasgow.

Hotpot is very popular in Hong Kong for all seasons. Actually, in most Asian countries they also have hotpot, for instance, Thai Suki, Shabu-Shabu & yakiyaki in Japan, Jjigae in Korea.

We can always choose from a wide choice of dipping sauce:
You can choose your favourite sauce and toppings and mix them in your sauce plate

Also, some shops now are providing even 4/6 soup base in one pot!

Etiquette of having hotpot:

• Separate the utensils for raw and cooked food:
• It happens to everyone. You simply forgot about that shrimp, or mushroom, or beef, or whatever delicious thing you were cooking just a few minutes ago. Now it's lost in a sea of fish balls, vegetables, and tofu. Do rescue it, but don't do it by swishing your eating chopstick back and forth in the broth. My friend likes to call this manoeuvre "chopstick washing." Use a hot pot strainer to track it down instead!

• 
  
• Make sure it's your food:
• It's just sitting there, bobbing in the broth, waiting for someone to scoop it up, put it on their plate, sauce it, and eat it. It could be a piece of lobster tail or a slice of chicken, but whatever it is, make sure it's yours. Not sure? Check if anyone has already staked their claim on it.
• Don't mix 2 soup base:
•  Having more than one kind of broth available is a good thing, so don't ruin it. Maybe not everyone can eat spicy food. Or maybe you just like having two broths because you can. This means that it's not nice to begin cooking a piece of food in one broth and then finish cooking it in the other broth. As this is the reason for having 2 soup base. Respect the divide: No crossing over.

• 
  

Indecisive? Greedy? Choose Cart Noodles

Among all the Hong Kong food, the one I like the most is Cart noodles, since it can give you up to 200 of combinations and all ingredients including noodles type, soup base and toppings are all your own choice.

It named as cart noodle because, in the 50s, the vendors are selling it using carts (shown as below) on the roadside. Now, there are no more carts on the street due to a safety and hygiene problem, but we can still enjoy it inside the restaurants where specialise in cart noodles.

Also, it serves quickly and in a low price, the soup base also varies among different shop and it is difficult to cook it at home.

Step 1: Find a seat

When we entered into a cart noodles shop, we usually find seats by ourselves, then you will see the chopsticks and spoon and order sheet placed on the table. Do not expect the sitting will be super comfortable, as they will keep the tradition of using wooden foldable table and circle chair, but what more you can ask for the 3 pounds meal.

Step 2: Decision and Decision

The order sheet must be placed on the table and you can circle all the ingredients you want.

 You will need to choose the toppings, noodles, soup base and drinks. The shop of the photo in the left has given 58 choices of toppings, ranging from vegetables, meat, beef, pork and balls. 14 kinds of noodles choice and 6 sauces. The price is based on what you have ordered and we usually order 3-4 toppings.

Cart noodles shop must have at least 6 types of noodles choices which makes you never tired of enjoying it!

Then we need to choose our favourite toppings out of 30-60 choices....

It can serve quickly as actually all toppings are cooked already and this is also why they are so tasty, it the toppings has already soaked in all the sauces.

My favourite toppings include squid, fish balls and beef!

Step 3: Enjoy!

The ordering sheet is placed under the bowl once its ready, sometimes there will be the staff serve you and sometimes you need to pick it by yourself, depends on the size of the shop.

Don't forget to have a try of the chilli oil on the table if you are spicy lovers! You can always find the best chilli sauce and oil in cart noodles shop!

Shops in Glasgow: Genting

Icy drinks? Cha Chaan Tang Drinks!

Hong Kong drinking culture has been influenced a lot from Taiwan from a long time ago.They are all perfect match for street food and also for Hong Kong food. You may also notice that Hongkongers like to drink cold drinks most of the time because summers are long and the humidity is high, so a glass of cold drink can smooth you from the heat

Drinks you need to know:

No. 1 HK Style Lemon Tea

This is Hong Kong most representative drinks, the ingredients are simple: black tea, lemon slices, sugar and ice cubes. But it required skills also, as the tea can become bitter easily if you cannot handle it well. 3 slices of lemon are our ritual.

As people in HK enjoy the drink so much, so they are also available in bottle, can and box.

No. 2 HK style milk tea

The milk tea in Hong Kong taste pretty different with the British one, we use serval black tea and also evaporated milk, and milk tea is an important part of our tea culture. This required higher skills to make it smooth with a nice aroma, and the mixture of tea is always the secrete of the shops. We also have "silk stocking milk tea" which means extremely smooth tea, it actually uses sackcloth bag to filter and tea leaves and makes it smooth.

No. 3  Red Bean Icy

This drink is children's all time favourite! It is made of cooked red bean, evaporated milk or coconut milk and ice, sometimes serve with vanilla ice cream on the top. It is a nice drink served with deep fried food in tea time, such as deep dried chicken wings. Children enjoy it most as parents in HK will not give milk tea or lemon tea to childen, since its not good for their health. So they will either get a glass of water or a glass of red bean icy!

Food Paradise - Street Food

Hong Kong is a famous place for food and shopping paradise, as there are lots of cuisines you can choose from.

For the following 5 blogs, I will share about different types of food and recommend restaurants for you to visit!

Let's started with the local food, street food:

No. 1 Curry Fish ball & Siu Mai  $8-20/10 pieces

Both are very traditional snacks for Hongkongers and they are made of fish and flour. Both are springy in texture and serve on a bamboo stick. They usually serve with curry sauce or soy sauce with chili sauce, the chili sauce is a must if you are a spicy lover!
Beware that the sauce will split on your clothes!

UK: Oaka
Address: 32 Mong Kok Road, Mong Kok



No2. Egg Waffles $12-50

Also known as bubble wrap in the UK, it is actually made of egg and flour, people enjoy its texture that's crispy outside and soft inside. HK people believe that grilling with the charcoal fired stone oven is the best choice, but only a few shops are doing that now, as it required more space and relatively dangerous, so its made with electronic pan for most of the time. The traditional flavor is just egg, but some shops also offer chocolate, cheese, matcha and taro taste! There are more variations now, including adding ice cream or various of toppings, becoming the bubble wrap.


No.3 Rice Noodle Roll - Cheung fan $7

Rice noodles roll is made of steamed sheets of rice noodles, then roll it, and cut into pieces. It will serve with soy sauce, and you can choose whether to add the peanut butter, sweet sauce and sesame oil, sesame seed, etc. It is chewy, cheap and keeps you warm and full!