Xiao Long Bao: Ang Siomai na May Sabaw!

Symphony of Lights

When Driver booked the gang and their respective families for a trip to Hong Kong and Macau, she has set her mind on three things:  have Senyorito Lakwatsero and Tiyo Theo experience Halloween at Disneyland, try the theme park’s newest ride, the Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars, and have a bite of authentic Xiao Long Bao! 

Uhm, sweetie, that's not the menu.

The gang took the 7:20 am Air Asia flight from Clark to HK.  Since there really wasn’t much place to eat at DMIA and airplane food was really not that appetizing, breakfast had to wait. After the two-hour flight and queuing at immigration, it was already around 1030 in the morning when we were able to get out of the airport.  Add to it another hour and a half to reach our apartment (travel time + traffic + waiting time to get in the apartment and get settled in). In short, breakfast = lunch. It was a good thing that the apartment we rented was near all sorts of restaurants. Here’s the catch, we were in a country known for its cuisine, but guess where we had our first meal?  KFC!

Yey, egg tart!

But, the meals at KFC HK are different from those served in the Philippines. For one, there is no plain rice.  They do have rice but it is topped with either chicken ala king sauce or mushroom gravy.  They don’t have fries.  Instead, they serve criss cut fries.  To the kids dismay, they don’t have spaghetti.  Chicken, for which KFC is known, is just the same except for the additional Flava Roast – not sure if it’s really roasted though.  It is like the spicy Chooks to Go!  On a positive note, we love their fixins.  Instead of brownies, they serve egg tarts which are really creamy.  Yum! Yum!  Another interesting thing that caught our attention was the use of plastic gloves.  While we Filipinos use our bare hands (after washing of course), in HK they put on plastic gloves.  Honestly, it is easier to eat finger foods with bare hands provided that one’s hand is thoroughly washed first.  Other than KFC, the other quick and familiar fixes we had were Burger King and McDonalds.   

Of course, we did not live on American fast food. We stayed in Yau Ma Tei so choices for authentic Chinese dishes were endless.  The Yau Ma Tei MTR station is a step away from the lobby of our apartment building.  Right beside the lobby is a bakeshop that sells all these yummy pastries, with egg tarts as their specialty. Walk a little more and you’ll see an HK-style carinderia.  And because of the language barrier, it was indeed a “turu-turo” experience for us.  Actually, most of the time, we had to eat “turu-turo”, meaning, wherever we had to eat, we had to point at our orders!  It was a feast for the eyes just watching people line up in these small eateries where noodles, soup and other Chinese dishes are served.  At night, we usually buy chicken feet, braised pork, dimsum, five spice pork, etc.  from the eateries around our apartment.  Another good thing about staying in an apartment instead of a hotel, we get to cook our meals when we had time.  Our grocery of choice was Wellcome since we just had to cross the street.  Because of this set-up, we were even able to cook pork sinigang and lemon butter prawns for our last day lunch.  Yaya, Driver and capitalista par excellence, El Capitan Tagie did the marketing at Wan Chai.

The mouse we are not afraid of - Mickey!

Our second day was spent at the happiest place on earth (so they say) – Disneyland!  But if you are going to Disneyland, make sure you have enough budget for food.  One rice meal w/o drinks will cost you about HKD70 0r Php350-Php420 depending on the exchange rate (don’t keep on converting, or else you won’t be able to buy anything).  For lunch, each of us had a large bowl of rice topping meal like Three Treasure (Chicken, Sausage and Egg served with steamed bokchoy), Roasted Chicken Leg (quarter size), Roasted Duck Leg, Braised Pork and a large bowl of noodles.  Don’t worry though, because the servings were huge. That was why although going around Disneyland and taking the rides were really tiring, we only got hungry past dinner time.   By the way, the theme park area may change (Tomorrowland, Fantasyland) and so as the names of the restaurants, but they still serve the same menu.

Para sa malaking gutom!

Disneyland would really bring back the child in you, there are quick bites or quick snacks everywhere.  Popcorn can be smelled in the air.  There were ice cream varieties that (we think) are exclusive to Disneyland.  But there was something that caught our attention.  In food carts that sell your typical theme park snacks, there was a turkey leg on stick!  Well, that’s something you don’t get to see everyday! 

Surprise in a little package

We got home at around 1100 pm.  Some may consider this late. But in HK, the night is still young.  Unknown to Senyorito Lakwatsero, Yaya and Driver set out to find the famed Xiao Long Bao which they found aplenty in Temple Street (again, just a few blocks from our apartment).  Xiao Long Bao or small basket dumplings or soup dumplings may look like your regular dimsum but it holds a surprise inside.  When you bite into it, there’s soup inside it. How do they do that?  The soup stock is molded into gelatine cubes before they are encased in the flour dough.  When it gets steamed, it turns into soup.  So for the unsuspecting and unfamiliar, you might just find yourself wet with dumpling soup!  Yaya and Driver were not able to catch the name of the store but according to some research, the best place to have Xioa Long Bao in Temple Street, Yau Ma Tei is at Fu Kee Delicious Food ( no matter how SPG it sounds, we're not kidding with the name).  

Jack Skellington - the Halloween Parade frontliner

Get ready for a ride of a lifetime

So in one day, Driver was able to accomplish her mission – take the kids to Disneyland for Halloween, ride the Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars and find Xiao Long Bao, ang siomai na may sabaw!

Senyorito Lakwatsero now. See him at the same spot two years ago

Our Macau food adventure is next!