Eating from stall to stall

Street food has always been a part of Hong Kong's food culture. Just check out HK Magazine's A-Z list of HK's iconic street food and you can see the variety that exists. Individually, each is just a quick snack to eat while you're on the go. But together, they can make a delicious lunch of dinner. These snacks are sold across the city at various places, with minor differences in taste/size depending on a particular stall/cart/shop. Here are my top 5 favourite street foods.

#5 Peanut mochi

These nutty, chewy snacks are especially yummy. They are freshly rolled and  made to order, so they are nice and warm when you eat them!

#4 Pork and green onion pancake (燒餅王)

These meaty buns are juicy and filling. They are pretty much a combination of the Taiwanese pepper pork buns (胡椒餅) and a Dalang biscuit (武大郎燒餅)

#3 Deep fried ice cream

Cheung Chau's deep fried ice cream is fantastic on a hot summer's day. It's actually a very quick snack to make--a premade mochi ice cream is lightly battered and then deep fried.

#2 Wok roasted chestnuts

You can smell these sweet smoky chestnuts from down the street. They are roasted in a giant wok with sugar and has a unique taste that can't be replicated by a normal oven.

#1 Lee Keung Kee North Point Egg Waffle (北角雞蛋仔)

Egg Waffles can be found everywhere from supermarkets to MTR stations. But no other shop can replicate the same crunchy shell and fluffy centre of LKK's egg waffles.

So that's my 5 favourite street foods in HK. You're probably thinking that I've left out two iconic HK street foods--stinky tofu and curry fish balls. These are definitely popular snacks among both locals and tourists. But I think because they are sold at so many places that they often taste a bit mediocre. Regardless, I love wandering around the city trying new snacks. HK has everything from savoury to sweet snacks that there's something delicious to eat on every block.

HK's famous fireboat

I never really thought how ship fires were put out until today's tour of the Alexander Grantham in Quarry Bay. This fireboat was commissioned back in 1953 and was the primary responder to sea accidents in Victoria Harbour until it was decommissioned in 2002.  Today a number of different fireboats are operated by Hong Kong's Fire Services Department to respond to fires accidents in Hong Kong's water and shorelines.

My first time on board a fireboat--The Alexander Grantham (Photo: CathC)

I had fun wandering around the ship seeing what it was like to work and live on board. The crew slept in the lower deck on bunk beds while the upper deck contained the mess, office, galley, and an room for casualities. It is impressive to see the water canons up close. Looking at the gallery images, they seem to be able to spray water at distance that's least twice the length of the ship! There were about 8 canons on the deck and another one at top.

Water canons for fire fighting (Photo: CathC)

Check out how steep the staircase is to go down to the crew's cabin (Photo: CathC)

A view of the water canon from the upper deck (Photo: CathC)

Even thought today was a bit humid it was still a breezy sunny day to be outside. Not surprisingly we saw a bunch of sail boats and cruise boats were out in the waters. I think I've found a new favourite spot to relax on the weekends. It's a quite surrounding and it's a lot closer to to head to Tamar Park out in Central. The only thing missing is a nice cafe by the waterfront here!

A view of the old Kei Tak Airport (Photo: CathC)

It's time for mooncakes

Now that I'm in HK, mooncakes are a treat that I look forward to during the year. I`m continuously impressed by the variety and new flavors that companies come up with each year. Aside from the traditional egg yolk and lotus paste mooncakes, there are a ton of different versions. Last year I've tried a few different kinds, like custard and pomello snowy mooncakes. This year, I've been able add Godiva's chocolate mooncake, Hagaan Dazs' chocolate ice cream mooncake, and Arome's fuji apple snowy mooncake to that list.

Traditionally mooncakes are meant to be shared between family members as they celebrate the mid-Autumn festival together. Everyone would get a tiny slice of the filling egg yolk and lotus pste mooncake. But now even though families still get together to celebrate the festival, smaller individual-sized mooncakes have become popular to please the more "health conscious" or "variety-seeking" crowds.

I feel pretty spoiled to have received the Hagaan Dazs mooncakes from my cousin. She knows I have a pretty big sweet tooth and loves ice cream. The rich ice cream and chocolate shell really makes them an extra special treat. The packaging is pretty fancy too. Just look at how pretty this box is!

This box of mooncakes is so big that it barely fits into our freezer (Photo: CathC)

The strawberry ice cream mooncakes was a yummy after dinner treat (Photo: CharK)

But at the same time, the simple snowy mooncakes have their own appeal. More like mochis, these make a great afternoon snack for  hanging out at home on a weekend.

I like that Arome's snowmoon cakes are less powdery than other ones (Photo: CathC)

Be sure to look up at the night sky--the moon should be at its roundest tonight. Happy mid-Autumn festival!