Press Room

Restaurant: Press Room
Type: Western, with seafood and cheese focus
Location: 108 Hollywood Road Hong Kong, 2525-3454
Ambiance: 4/5
Food: 4/5
Service: 3.75/5
Expected damage: HKD 300 pp, with no drinks
Our Menu:
Soup: Blue crab bisque - a healthy serving, with a dollop of creme fraiche (I think). A tad bit on the salty side
Main: Fish & Chips - 4 Monkfish strips, with seasoned batter and thin-cut french fries. The batter was pretty good, not too thick, but it had a problem sticking to the fish. The total portion filled about 55% of my stomach.
Comments:

• The interior of the restaurant feels like a Wall Street kind of feel, but not as exclusive as some places. It's a single large hall with dark wood flooring and walls.
• They have a small area where they shuck oysters and prepare the other cold seafood, such as crabs. I noticed that their dungeoness crabs were taken out of vacuum-packed plastic wrapping. Not sure if that is good or bad, but it wasn't from a tank.
• The cheese plates looked good, with four pretty good servings of cheese. They also have a huge blackboard listing the wines and cheeses of the day/week.
• Service was fine for us, but looked like they had some issues to work out with other tables. For instance, they brought a cheese plate to a table sans crackers.

HK Fish and Geckos

There are two places in Hong Kong that fish hobbyists congregate.

• Kowloon side: Mongkok's Goldfish Street (金魚街)
  There are a few blocks worth of fish stores (saltwater and freshwater), where you'll find fish cheaper than you ever imagined (vs. US). The stores are usually packed with hobbyists.
• Hong Kong side: Tai Koo place's Hong Kong Aquarium Plaza
  This is an enclosed building, where you can shop in a quieter and cleaner environment than Mongkok. The prices are pretty much the same, perhaps a tad higher for equipment. The pictures you see below are from this plaza, not Mongkok.

So how cheap is cheap? Just look at the floating styrofoam price of HK$ 15 (US$ 1.92) for the Pearlscale or Auriga Butterfly. You'd pay about 25-35 in a fish store (online it's cheaper by a bit). You see full grown dog-face puffer fish for ~$3-4. As you can also see, they pack the fish in tight, and allow you to catch your fish yourself (so you can choose the one you want). Unfortunately equipment is oftentimes more than the US, for the same brands. However, if you feel like gambling, you can go with the China products.

Here you see how they see those sad Goldfish. Just like clothing on a rack, but they're fish in bags. They also sell 'em this way outdoors in Mongkok. On the bottom right you see the cheap freshwater guppies.

Because the fish are so cheap, I rushed my tank setup which probably resulted in several premature deaths. This is a Heniochus butterfly fish which was doing well in my tank for 2 weeks but then caught ick (I guess it was in its body, since there were no fish in the tank before) and died a nasty death. White dots lead to not eating for 2 days, and then he lost balance and died. His body at the TOD was splotched with red marks, which I'm not sure what disease that is.

I came back to my apt at 2AM one evening and went into the bathroom. I was startled by the sight of a swiftly moving gecko (or whatever it is) on my shower wall. It's apparently normal for this to happen in HK. Anyways, I caught it in a box and kept it overnight. I planned to release it into the park, but due to time constraints I ended up "releasing" him into the elevator. I know it sounds cruel, but I didn't spot a cadaver later that day, so he should be fine.

You won't find Texas Hold 'em in Macau

Location: Macau, China

Date: New Year's Eve

Tourist Rating: 2.5/5

Gambling Rating: 3/5

Would I go again: Maybe

Summary: I spent New Year's Eve in Macau, with the goal of passing the new year while feeding my gambling urges since I've been away from Vegas' proximity for so long now. The new Vegas of Asia didn't really live up to all the hype it's been getting. If you like second-hand smoke, go to Macau. I think I lost a year of my life there.

Tourism: I was only there for one night, so my main goal was to "tour" the casinos and get some authentic Portuguese (Macau's an ex-colony) food. I was able to do the former, but the latter proved very difficult since I found out the hard way that the cab drivers don't like taking tourists - especially if you No Speaky Chinesey (Cantonese only). I had made reservations at Littoral, a well-known but not overpriced Portuguese place ahead of time. However, since it took us over 30 minutes of waiting for a cab (and walking), during which we were passed up about 3 times due to language issues, we gave up and had something along the way (which wasn't half bad - below is Duck & sausage in portuguese baked rice).

We did see the New Year's Eve fireworks, which were quite nice over the water by Taipa Bridge. Got some decent pictures with my Samsung D908 phone. That said, they were pretty average (lasted about 10 minutes) compared to what we're used to seeing in the States. Countdown caught me off guard since it's been years since I've actually counted down outloud - pretty interesting to hear it in several different dialects simultaneously.

Gambling: I checked out the Wynn, Sands, Hotel Lisboa, and Rio.

Sands: Filled with mainlanders (Macau is in general) smoking Double Happiness (Quadruple Cancer) cigarettes. But they do have a non-smoking gambling area, which is a welcome rarity there. Most of what you find here and elsewhere in Macau is Baccarat, Sikbo (Big/Small), Blackjack, Roulette. The minimums aren't as low as you'd expect in China. Maybe it was due to NYE, but they were usually about US$ 13-26.

Rio: Casino is pretty new, but strangely almost completely empty. The upside was less smoke~ We only played slots there, which were like 2 generations behind what's in the US. Some machines were still dealing in coins, versus the e-ticket type. No Price is Right or Monopoly machines.

Hotel Lisboa: Very local. I think they only have Baccarat and Sikbo. If you want a prostitute, go to Lisboa.

Wynn: Had an upgraded Bellagioesque water show out front which was....something to see.

Gambling space there was limited compared to Sands, but I think I detected a bit of an upgrade in clientele there. They also had some VIP-type club on the first floor, which seemed Vegas-ish. They also had floor managers which were visibly imported from the US (they were caucasian). Here is an excerpt from a conversation I had with one of them:

Me: "So, do you have Texas Hold 'em?"

Flr mgr: "No."

Me: "I've been to 4 casinos already and none have it. Does any place in Macau have it?"

Flr mgr: "No, but you're the 4th person who's asked me"

Me: "Tonight?"

Flr mgr: "This year! Once more people start asking, then we'll set it up"

Me: "Your mutha was hoo ah"

(the above was true except the last line)

Because there was no Texas Hold'em, I had to get my fix via Carribean Stud Poker. My first time playing, and last. I paid a steep tuition to learn this game. It's completely luck, and has all these little rules that benefit the house. I'm not going to go into details because it just hurts me to relive it.

Check out the spelling on this MitsubiChi I saw parked:

Merry XMAS, Happy Holidays, and Sushi Hiro

It's been a long time... Merry Christmas to everyone (Happy Hannukah, Kwanzah...) and a Happy upcoming New Year~.

I happily ate at Sushi Hiro, a restaurant in Causeway bay, this evening with an old friend - Justin. Ended up costing about USD 90, but it was pretty tasty, and I tried some new types of fish. Since there is a severe lack of HK restaurant online reviews, I thought I'd do some of my own.

Restaurant: Sushi Hiro
Type: Sushi-focused
Location: 10/F., Henry House, 42 Yun Ping Road, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. Phone:, 2882-8752
Chef's Ethnicity: Japanese. The master chef was also Japanese.
Ambiance: 4/5
Food: 4.5/5
Service: 4.75/5
Expected damage: HKD 700 pp, with light drinks

Our Menu:

1. Yellowtail (2x)
2. Shimaaji (another type of Yellowtail, a bit sweeter)
3. Aji (horse mackerel)
4. Uni (de Hokkaido)
5. Ikura (almost too mild)
6. Chutorro (the best fish of the night. We saw the Otorro, and it looked like fish bacon)
7. Engawa (a chewy fish which the chef recommended, and Justin had had before) \
8. Kinki (a fish, medium chewiness, but only half as much as the Engawa)
9. Mirugai (not bad, though I'm not a regular shellfish eater)
10. Abalone (as it looks, tasty, good texture)
11. Oyster-Miso soup, with tofu, veggies, etc.

Sa-bi-su:

1. Peach liqueur with soda water
2. Turnip with miscellaneous mushrooms, okra, and other small-sized ingredients in a small bowl
3. A meatball, reminiscent of Porter Square's Cafe Mami's Tokyo Hamburg Steak, with tasty sauce
4. Ice cream or fruit. We both had green tea ice cream.

Drinks:

1. 3 draft Asahis total

Spottings

Saw Kenyon Martin's brother, Robert Martin, who is an And1 team member, on the Peak in Hong Kong. He was walking across the area with all the buses, under the Galleria. I was unable to get a good photo of him. I knew I'd seen him before but I couldn't place the face, and mistook him at first for Kenyon.

David Wu - if you haven't heard of him, forget about it. He was on my flight from Shanghai to HK, but celebs (he's more of an ex-celeb) are a dime a dozen out here.

HK is Smokin'

If you like to smoke, or smoke itself, come to Hong Kong. You still have until 2007 to smoke freely almost anywhere. It looks like a good third of all males here smoke cigarettes regularly. However, the way in which cigarettes are smoked here seems different from other places. It is a sad, desperate type of inhalation, in which they know each puff could be their last, but keep smoking because they almost want it to end. That does sound quite morbid, but that's the feeling I get. It's the type of smoking that is coupled by the squinting of the eyes as the smoke is drawn in, that tasty, necessary addiction being satisfied. Add in some local curse words about having lost the latest bet on the horse race and you pretty much have the complete picture. Alright, that might be a niche segment... but not as niche as you might think.

There is so much smoke that sometimes you can't simply hold your breath or walk around the mini-cloud. You are just...in it.

Japan is bad too, and lots more women smoke there vs HK, but the way in which smoking is carried out does not seem as desperate. It just seems more habitual, and not necessarily every cigarette is smoked to the butt.

Hong Kong, Shanghai

Recently I got to Hong Kong's immigration and I experienced another 30+ minute wait. But this time, it was for other reasons. To me, it was obvious why the immigration officials were taking so long. Most of the people in line before me were from the Philippines, probably off of the same flight. The officials kept questioning them about how long they were staying, how many times they'd been to HK, etc. They've never asked me that. Anyways, it's just my opinion that this was something fishy, and perhaps indicative of the culture here.

The pollution reports you've seen on TV about HK are true - in some parts of the city. All I can say is that when I was in Wanchai the other day waiting for someone, I couldn't stand on the street for 3 minutes before feeling so disgusted, sick of the dirty air from the traffic, that I had to seek refuge at an HSBC bank.

That said, Shanghai's pollution the other day was thick haze all day, through at least 12:00AM midnight. I kept asking the cab drivers what that was, and they all said, "Fog". Yeah... Fog doesn't have a scent. It smelled like burning leaves, which I have smelled, but it was the type that I envision SouthEast Asia's burning deforestation smells like. Every breath you take stains your lung just a little more black.