the vegan side of hong kong

i was really happy to see my friend R again, and even got to stay at her flat in the city. that last time i saw her was almost precisely a year ago, only in london. i hope we meet up again next october! since my friend is mostly-vegetarian-sometimes-pescatarian, i was curious to see how she was faring in the land of chicken stock and pork filling. i was surprised to find that she was doing pretty well!


harvester is a vegetarian buffet joint close to R's flat. it just looks like a regular cafe with no eye-catching decor, aside from the smattering of health foods for sale that are sparsely displayed on some shelves. but the buffet is amazing! it is a little on the pricey side when compared to the local fare, but i think the extra money is worth it. you pay for the buffet by weight and then you can take as much soup or congee as you'd like. the offerings for that day were: fake pork in tofu, fake fishcake, fried asparagus, broccoli with fake chicken, and a stir-fry with fake squid. the consistency of the chicken and squid were almost too convincing, the chicken even had 'skin' and 'goosebumps.' well, i guess they would be chickenbumps.

harvester
shop a-b, yardley commercial building
3 connaught road west (sheung wan)
hong kong
tlf. 2542-4788


we had another epic lunch at life cafe, a hip vegetarian cafe that serves alcohol and filling meals along with coffee and cakes. english seemed to be the language of choice here, with all the expats that were milling about. R ordered the quesadilla in the lovely pink tortilla. i had the tempe burger, which was absolutely perfect! the tempe was cooked just enough so that i couldn't taste the fermented mushiness and the red onion relish gave a nice tang. the only thing i would have added was a bit more ketchup, but hey, i'm american. i needs my ketchups. and the service was so good already that i didn't want to bother them more. guess i've been living in copenhagen too long. (;

life cafe
10 shelley street (Soho)
hong kong
tlf. 2810 9777

sadly, that was about all the vegetarian food we ate in the two weeks i spent there, aside from the 3 times we cooked at her flat. kitchens are usually not so big in those hong kong high-rises, so people tend to eat out more. kind of nice, but also kind of sad. i really missed cooking while i was there!

hong kong

first of all, let me warn my vegan and vegetarian readers that this is not a veg-friendly post; that's coming later! the purpose of my trip was to visit with friends and also to attend a friend's wedding dinner in china. funny that the three of us met in the first module of our danish language course! i was in hong kong for about 2 weeks and it was pretty much nonstop eating and shopping with a tiny bit of sightseeing thrown in for good measure. let's just get the dim sum out of the way first. P:


i've eaten a lot of dim sum in my lifetime; both in california and denmark and also once in singapore airport. now that i finally had the chance to try it in hong kong and china, i can say that the places i've been to in orange county are more authentic than the two decent dim sum places in copenhagen. but there were a few differences that stood out. in hong kong, the dumpling wrappers were rolled very thin and the radish cakes had big chunks of radish and shrimp (instead of a consistent texture). also, it seemed generally less oily than copenhagen and more than california. i had the honor of watching a woman in a noodle shop rolling her own dumpling wrappers and eventually wrapping some. i saw it with my own eyes and still don't get it. the fluffy buns were slightly sweeter than i'm used to, with the lightest feel! i need to learn how to make char siu bao like that! o_o


pickles to start
i would dare to say that one of the best meals i had there was at a private kitchen. i love the idea and wish i could do something like that in denmark... but there's that whole problem with me having only a work visa for echocardiography and my lack of enthusiasm for becoming a permanent resident... anyway, sìchuān cuisine da píng huō served us 12 courses of plate after plate of amazing food. not pictured are 2 bowls of palate-cleansing soup that the low light was not kind to. corkage is very reasonable so we brought a bottle of white and later ordered another one from the menu. i wish i could remember the names, as they went surprisingly well with such strong food.


glass noodles with peanuts and chilies


chicken with peanuts


braised beef cheeks(?)
in the background of this photo you can see some vegetarian dishes that they made especially for my friend. how thoughtful! (:


pork sticky rice with sweet potatoes


pork(?) dumplings


mabo tofu
okay, now i really like spice but this dish was just insane. from the very first bite, the schezuan peppercorns did their job numbing my mouth... and then the chilies kicked in. we all ate a little bowlful but i stubbornly took a second helping. hey, it tasted good! this dish haunted several of us for a long time... i didn't feel completely right until after we got back from china a few days later; my stomach was really complaining! this was probably one of the spiciest dishes i've ever eaten. ><
to finish, we had a not-too-sweet tofu pudding. it helped take a bit of the edge off of the mabo tofu and was a nice close to the seemingly never-ending meal. then the wife and husband team who own the restaurant came out to thank us for coming and she sang opera! i was blown away.

it's quite intimate since the room is only suitable for about 40 diners and only 2 seatings. and you can really tell that they pay attention to every detail of the food... and the price? well, a bit expensive more expensive than traditional chinese restaurants in the area but absolutely worth it. there are a handful of other private kitchen in hong kong. i can definitely recommend the experience!

sìchuān cuisine da píng huō
49 hollywood road (central)
hong kong
entrance on graham street!

hunan eggplant

every time my friends and i go to our favourite local chinese restaurant, magasasa, one of us almost always orders the pork and aubergine plate. the texture is incredibly velvety from the veg and there's a nice chew from the pork belly. sweet, salty, spicy. i know it's not good for me but i love to soak up all the chili oil that the aubergine is swimming in with white rice. at home i eat brown rice so i can allow myself to indulge once in a while! today is a very rainy day and i've got a sore throat and runny nose, so i wanted something really spicy to clear it all up. i tried my hand at making the beloved dish but with a vegan twist.

hunan eggplant with quorn
adapted from this recipe at appetite for china

2 dried wood ear mushrooms (if in small pieces, a handful)
2 medium sized eggplants
70mL vegetable oil
85g quorn
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 small red chilies, minced (optional)
1 tbsp chili bean sauce
2 tbsp palm sugar, chopped in small pieces
60mL vegetable stock
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
1/2 tsp sesame oil
salt to taste
3 scallion stalks, thinly sliced

pour boiling water over the wood ear mushrooms and let them soak for about 10 minutes. if not already in small pieces, cut up in strips.

cut the eggplant into quarters along the length and slice them a little over 1 cm thick. heat the oil in a wok over high heat until just beginning to smoke. add the eggplants and stir-fry for 4-5 minutes, stirring often, until the outsides turn golden brown. remove the eggplant with a slotted spoon and set aside to drain on paper towels.

turn the heat down to medium and add the quorn, garlic, chilies and mushrooms and stir-fry for a minute. add the chili bean sauce and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. add palm sugar and return the eggplant to the wok. pour in the vegetable stock, soy sauce and sesame oil. simmer for a few minutes while the flavors penetrate the eggplants. don't be afraid to be generous with the salt because there is no bacon in this dish. serve hot over rice.

the verdict? hmmm, not exactly like what we order from magasasa. way less oil and even tastes healthier. of course quorn and wood ear mushrooms can't take the place of the wonder that is pork belly, but the bite of the mushrooms was very satisfying and of course i love the texture of eggplant. the spiciness cleared up my nose almost immediately! to veganize this dish, you can replace quorn with textured soy protein that's been soaked in vegetable stock. next time i will maybe add a few generous glugs of chili oil.

a sanctuary

i've never been to china, so i can't talk about authenticity. but i've been to many a chinese restaurant recommended by chinese acquaintances in california and this is up to that standard. it is where i have had many a delicious family-style dinner with friends and soon-to-be friends. i've given and received many hugs inside and in front of this restaurant and we continue to arrange meet ups here (sometimes twice a week!). nothing on the menu has let me down, honestly. so imagine my surprise when i realized that i have never written about magasasa before!



if any danes stumble upon this bog, they will probably be thinking, "chinese food? not too crazy about it. it's so oily and everything is fried." well, maybe at the chinese restaurants YOU go to. in general, the tolerance to spice and, er, exotic textures is pretty low in this country. i admit that there is a certain grease factor to most of the dishes we order here, but i never get an MSG headache or feel sick after eating at magasasa (as i have experienced at another chinese place... but that's a story for another post).



melt-in-your-mouth aubergine and pork belly. one of my favourite parts of a meal is eating the rice that has soaked up all the sauces and flavours; and this was certainly no exception! the shrimp was spicy and the grilled peppers were great as usual. as soon as the rice pot on our table is empty, it is wordlessly snatched up and replaced with a steamy batch. service isn't all smiles and small talk, but it is very efficient. i accept this in asian restaurants, it happens everywhere.



there is a bit of a routine when we converge on this restaurant. someone always orders the grilled peppers. there is always a bag of asian groceries sitting under the table that someone has bought on the way. someone is asking what is not spicy. we all rant about being a stranger in a strange land... and of course we talk about other things too, right? when i am eating here with my friends, i feel like i am somewhere else; a sort of place between places. not china, not america, and certainly not denmark.

magasasa
istedgade 4
1650 københavn v