December 23, 2005

Fish Porridge and Wanton Mee





These two shops in Hong Kong specialize in fish porridge though they also sell beef and pork porridges as well as ‘see yau lor mee’, ‘fun cheong’, ‘yau char kuai’ etc. They have porridge with fish mouth, fish bone, fish slices and other parts of the fish…. I prefer the yu larm chook. I like the thick chunks of fish that come with the porridge.

If you want plain porridge (but chook in cantonese), you must tell them not to add anything. Otherwise they will give you porridge with salt, monosodium glutamate and whatever spices they normally use.

The eateries are in the Jordan area; one is in Ning Po Street and one is in Woosung Street. There is another one in Woosung Street. All three are within one minute’s walk from each other.

I would say ‘wanton mee’ is the most common hawker food in Hong Kong. I read about one wanton mee shop in Leonard’s blog (http://leonardpng.blogspot.com) and decided to try it. It is in Hau Fook Street in Tsim Sha Tsui. The mee came with big shrimp-filled wantons. There were no char siew. I think they only have the soup version, not the dried version. The wantons were good but not outstanding. I also tried their octopus balls (mak yu yuen in Cantonese). I think they were better than the wantons.

I think we in Singapore have a wider variety of food. It is difficult to find char kuay teow, laksa, prawn mee, fish-head meehoon or mee rubus in Hong Kong. Our chicken rice tastes better too. I also prefer our wanton mee to Hong Kong’s.


December 18, 2005

Wun Fei Yin's 40 years in Cantonese Opera



When I was in Hong Kong, Wun Fei Yin was celebrating her 40 years in Cantonese opera with several nights of performances. I watched one of her shows on 3 December at the Hong Kong Cultural Center at Tsim Sha Tsui.

There were 5 excerpts; Fei Yin performed in 4 of them.

Yuen Siu Fai and Leong Hon Wai performed a comical excerpt. Yuen is a versatile actor; performing different roles equally well. In this excerpt he was a magistrate, a comic character. His facial expressions and gestures reminded me of Lau Hak Suen (An actor who always played the villain in old Cantonese movies.).

There was a mini exhibition at the HK Cultural Center in conjunction with Fei Yin’s performances. The exhibits included Fei Yin’s photos, magazines, opera costumes and other opera peripherals.