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Getting My Bearings, Hong Kong, China, tasted on December 2, 2005 — Taking almost three weeks to tour around Asia and expand my culinary palate (not to mention my worldview) seemed like a precious opportunity and I didn't want to waste a single minute. And as often happens when you're nervous, you've gotta shake the nervous energy out of your system so that you can focus and do your best. And in this case my best was supposed to be experiencing as much authentic food in Asia as possible. Frankly, my first several hours in Hong Kong were not my best. By no means do I feel I really did some valuable surveying. I'd call my first several hours more of a random survey. That said, maybe you can learn from my mistakes and random successes.

I was planning several stops through multiple countries in Asia. In the past I've been guilty of overplanning (choosing every single meal months in advance) as well as following the wrong recommendations (often from mainstream media or non-quality focused food directories). I guess I'm a slow learner. But I was determined on my first day to do two things in Hong Kong - experience some serendipity enjoying the street food in the area, and using Peyman's Law: choose places to eat based on the length of the line out the door; the longer the line, the better the food. These seemed like good themes until my dinner (for which I did have a reservation).

It turns out that a) when you're in a city without a bunch of street food, b) you don't speak the language, c) you're not really sure what to order at restaurants serving the local food, you've essentially increased the level of difficulty of eating something good. First up I went into a cafe cause I was starving for some breakfast. I checked out the menu and only saw western-ish fare. I figured, maybe a ham breakfast sandwich in Hong Kong might be new and interesting. I also ordered a chocolate milk. Not super exciting, but I ordered just a little so that I would have room to sample things as I walked the city. My ham sandwich showed up and it reminded me of all the finger sandwiches I'd eaten in Japan - no crusts. I guess it was good, but interesting? Not really. The chocolate milk was interesting, but not particularly enjoyable. Basically they took hot chocolate and poured it over ice. Weird.

I did salvage breakfast by walking by a tray of baked goods and pastries outside Restaurant Du Lac Bleu. I can't resist a pastry filled with sausage, and I immediately learned that Hong Kong was excited about these little bundles of deliciousness as bakeries across Japan. This one was up to snuff - buttery, soft, and smooth bread surrounding essentially a mini-hot dog. Yummy.

I saw some interesting food markets as I wandered around. I'd have to say the most interesting thing I saw was the cage filled with live frogs. Mmmmm.... frog soup. I don't know why I assumed they were going to be made into soup. I've never had frog soup much less ever heard of its existence, but for some reason these looked like soup frogs to me.

I wasn't too proud of my breakfast efforts but I thought I had a good strategy for lunch. I wandered through a bunch of side streets in the Central district until I found a place serving lunch that had a line around the corner. Unfortunately I fumbled the ball on the one yard line. I really had no idea what to order. I could have done some research in advance and written down some common dishes I wanted to try. Instead I was reduced to spying the dishes of the diners around me and pointing to one of them to indicate what I wanted. Unfortunately they all appeared to be eating scrambled eggs with shrimp which can be a good dish, but not  necessarily super interesting. I kind of felt pressured as the language was a real barrier at this particular place and I was taking so long to order that I just pointed to the nearest pile of scrambled eggs so they could get my order going. Well, the dish was kind of greasy and not too flavorful, but at least this old guy across the path (the restaurant appeared to occupy two corners of an alleyway) would step out of the back of one of them roughly every 3.5 minutes to scream something at the people on my side. You'd think after the seventh time I would have steeled myself against it. Not so. Every time it made me jump in my seat. Chalk lunch up to opening jitters. I was determined to up my game for dinner and the rest of the trip.

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BTW... special thanks to our friends over at Accidental Hedonist for the nomination for the 2005 Food Blog Awards. We were nominated in the Best Food Blog - Restaurant Reviews category. We're in good company with four excellent blogs, but of course since this is a poll-based contest, we hope you vote for us. Please vote for us here. Thanks!