now experiencing the fragrant aroma of saigon
While most of the junk group had the regular post-cruise dinner at Rainbow Seafood Restaurant, a splinter group headed over to the Indian Recreation Club for the Chili Spank-off. The HKD 288 admission fee allowed for unlimited bowls of chili from dozens of competitors, as well as beer. I don’t know if the beer flow was unlimited since I had already had far too much beer by that point and could only handle iced tea with my chili.
The junk’s destination was Sham Wan (also known as Turtle Beach), on the isolated southern shore of Lamma. Sham Wan is known as a nesting spot for Green Sea Turtles, but in recent years, very few have been spotted.
Hoa invited me on a junk trip yesterday with twenty or so other people. I missed the last trip, being stuck in China at the time. Lots of fun, lots of beer. Unfortunately, the boat wasn’t a real sailing junk, of which there is only one left in Hong Kong for rent.
Nice to have a holiday this week. Roy, Jimmy, Ross and I headed up to the roof of the Discovery Bay ferry pier to check out the National Day fireworks on Monday night.
Trinh has been asking me for months to make bolognese sauce. One of my favorite deals in Hong Kong is the HKD 50 parma ham ends that occasionally appear for sale at Oliver’s Delicatessen – the impetus for the sauce. The ingredients are simple, but very time-consuming to make right. The first step is to make a soffritto of onions, garlic, carrots, and celery (everything diced as small as possible), sautéed in olive oil until the onions start to caramelize. Then add the diced prosciutto and minced beef. When the meat is brown, in goes about half a cup of milk. Once that’s reduced, add a cup of red wine, some chopped fresh tomatoes and some chicken stock. Simmer for at least three hours until it is good and thick and the meat and carrots are the only still-recognizable ingredients. Mmmm, that’s good! (As a side note, L’Accademia Italiana della Cucina says the sauce should properly be made with white wine, not red, and tomato paste rather than fresh tomatos.)
We had a very successful housewarming / Trinh’s going away / Elizabeth’s birthday party last night. An incredible amount of delicious food! So much that I was completely stuffed on barbecued ribs, vegetable kabobs, pasta salad, chả giò, càng cua bọc tôm, gỏi đu đủ, chè ba màu and birthday cake by halfway through and didn’t even try the bún chả that Lan made or the ginger mackerel that Trinh marinated and Jimmy barbecued. We got a chance to meet our new neighbors Diane (who teaches yoga), and Neil & Trang (a Scottish/German/Vietnamese couple). I only took a couple of pictures, but Elizabeth has got some good ones on her weblog.
Usana and Harry stayed overnight on Saturday. They both zoned out in front of computers all evening. The only way to communicate with each other was by instant messenger.
