Best 5 Minutes Ever!

(View from Grandpa's office)

         Happy Winter Solstice from Hong Kong! Winter Solstice is a bigger deal than Chinese New Year here and to celebrate this holiday, I decided to post what I thought was the best meal I've had in Hong Kong yet up to date. All of which happened within a 5 minute duration.

    So yesterday we went to Fa Yuen Street, which is basically an extremely long "ladies market" as they call them in Hong Kong. Ladies markets are outdoor shops that sell lots of random crap-good crap though. From jewelry, to clothes, shoes, fake designers bags and watches, japanese weird inventions, it's definitely the place to go in Hong Kong where tourists can be ripped off by sneaky Hong Kongnese people.  Don't worry though... even if you get ripped off it still isn't a big deal considering you are still buying cheap things. Luckily for us, our ability to semi blend in as locals actually warrants us bargain discounts. But the best part of going to Fa Yuen Street is actually the loads of street food that surrounds the ladies market, which is where I found my most amazing meal yet!

    For approximately 30 cents U.S. you can have some heaven in a bag. It's $2.5 HK dollars for the most basic combination. The store is structured basically like an ice cream stand/conveyor belt. So first you choose what kind of noodles you want. Regular? This green kind? A fatter kind? Then you choose from the various meats you would like to add to your bag: chicken, beef, sausage, chicken gizzard, etc. Then the lady asks you whether you would like your noodles with garlic and how spicy. After your concoction has been made, you can then go to the counter and add additional sauces into your baggie of goodness and proceed to devour it with the 2 sticks you are given. This stand is pure genius. It's weird which catches attention, cheap, and most importantly-DELICIOUS! 

    I stood in place for about 1 1/2 minutes as I slurped up the entire bag. That's when I smelled a foul odor in the air that could only mean one thing-Stinky Tofu! I followed my nose and walked down maybe 2 food stands and stood in line for this bag of goodness. $6 HK per piece. For those unaccustomed to the smell of Stinky Tofu, it can induce a gag reflex due to its similarity in smell with rotting trash. 


    After haven eaten so much, I knew I needed to buy a drink to quench my thirst and to my delight there were 2 very busy boba shops right next to eat other. But which one to pick? It's actually very rare to be able to find boba in HK since it's not fashionable anymore. Us, silly Americans are still toting it around like Starbucks when it is so clearly not the IN thing to do anymore, which is why there are practically no more boba shops in Hong Kong. The craze has passed. Plus Hong Kongers don't know what "boba" is. They refer to it as Tapioca Pearls because "boba" is slang in Cantonese for big breasts. 

    After staring at both crowds in front of the two boba shops, my sister and I were still unsure which one to go with... so we decided to get both! Milk Tea with Boba from both! Shop A had really good milk tea but Shop B had the craziest boba ever! Taro, Strawberry, & Kumquat flavored boba balls exploded with flavor upon contact with your mouth. It was like a fruit roll up bomb went off in your mouth. They were in the shape of boba balls but had the weirdest (and most fascinating texture). Our verdict after trying both shops? That 1) we really needed to find a bathroom and 2) that they should combine both shops into one ultimate shop that had amazing Milk Tea and Boba! The bag of noodles, bag of stinky tofu, and both cups of milk tea boba were all consumed and bought in under 5 minutes. Time is money- and that is definitely maximum efficiency and deliciousness for less a Big Mac. 

    I leave you with this view of the food festival going on in Hong Kong right now. If you look closely I'm sure one of those skyscrapers in the background is the one Batman jumped off onto in Dark Knight. Happy Eatings!