Celebratory Feast

Bamboo clams stir-fried with peppers and black bean sauce

A few of us celebrated a colleague's birthday earlier this week by going to a restaurant of her choice in North Point. It's called Tung Po and is actually a dai pai dong on the second floor of the food market. The place is very popular so it's best if large groups book in advance which is what we did.

Deep-fried golden prawns with their shells on

We were seated in a corner area and the decor is pretty much bare bones with white tiled walls with some movie posters and a simple large round table with a lazy Susan on it. Wait staff are casually dressed and some wear rubber boots as the floors aren't the cleanest.

You are given a large kettle of tea, not only for drinking but to clean your utensils as well.

But you're not here for cleanliness -- you're here for the good food.

After a few rounds of Asahi beer poured into cold bowls, we started eating. First came the deep-fried pork knuckle that were more about cartilage and bone than anything else which makes it very similar to chicken feet. Those who enjoyed gnawing bones had fun pigging out as it were.

Clay pot rice with Chinese sausages and diced pork

Next came deep-fried "golden sand" prawns, which were unfortunately cooked with the shell on so it required some deft de-shelling or just eating the whole thing in tact. The prawns while meaty were slightly on the salty side.

We also had excellent soya chicken, meaty, juicy and had a crisp dark skin. I was pretty much addicted to the chicken and every time it swung near me on the lazy Susan I had to get another piece.

For the vegetarians at the table we had braised tofu with vegetables, and a claypot of vermicelli and Nappa cabbage.

Another winner was the bamboo clams -- they were laid out nicely on top of the rectangular-shaped shells, stir-fried with black bean sauce. They were cooked perfectly, the stringy clams very fresh.

We also ordered two clay pot rice dishes where the rice and ingredients are cooked right in the clay pot. It takes a while for these to cook so we drank more beer and watched the table next to us, mostly a group of young men in suits trying to get each other drunk, shouting and swearing at each other and playing drinking games. We wondered if they were a bunch of repressed accountants trying to relieve some stress.

Clay pot rice with minced pork and salted egg yolk

Finally the clay pot rice came -- one with steamed minced pork and salted egg that was excellent, as well as another with Chinese sausages and diced pork. Everyone took a turn to eat the rice, trying to scrape off the sides where there were crunchy bits of rice. Some were burnt to the bottom but we pretty much finished both.

Then we paid the bill -- not even HK$200 a head -- and were on our way out when the waiter brought out dessert -- herb grass jelly with ginger in it. My colleague remarked the last time she ate this dessert it was so spicy from the ginger but this time admitted it was tolerable and finished the whole bowl.

Thanks to birthday girl YTSL for these pictures. Her blog is here. Hope we have another cheap and cheerful feast again soon.

Tung Po

2/F, Java Road Municipal Services Building

99 Java Road

North Point
2880 9399

"Peace" Prize Interrupted

This year the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to three women -- Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian Leymah Gbowee and Tawakul Karman of Yemen.

The trio were chosen for their "non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work."

Around this time a year ago, China was outraged that dissident writer Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize, who was stuck in jail unable to receive his award. His wife Liu Xia has been under virtual house arrest too, her internet and phone lines cut off, only able to receive close family for the past year.

It was recently revealed Liu was allowed to go home to Dalian last month -- for 30 minutes -- to observe the formal mourning period for his father who passed away. His three brothers were also able to visit him in jail and reported Liu was in good spirits. There is hope his wife will be able to see him later this month.

After Liu was awarded the prestigious prize, China sought to downplay the the historic event by revealing the Confucius Peace Prize.

The "cultural protection department" started the prize and awarded the inaugural one to Taiwanese vice-president Lien Chan though he was completely unaware of it and didn't come to claim it or the 100,000 RMB ($15,684) cash reward. So to save face, the organizers handed the award to a little girl who they refused to identify.

Perhaps the silly behaviour of this department prompted its parent organization, the Ministry of Culture to suddenly cancel the second Confucius Peace Prize which should have been awarded around now.

Three weeks ago the organizers had announced a short list that included Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the 21-year-old Panchen Lama picked by Beijing, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Yuan Longping, the agricultural scientist known as "the father of hybrid rice".

However the award was apparently scrapped for "violating relevant regulations" and that the department was not authorized to stage such an event and had "severely breached regulations on social organizations".

One wonders what these regulations were but more importantly why was this department allowed to give this award away in the first place?

Perhaps last year was a desperate face-saving measure that resulted in more jeers than healing political wounds, though Norway is still paying financially for the loss of orders for Norwegian salmon in the mainland.

Wonder what that young girl did with all that money? Buy a flashy car or several designer handbags?

Steve Jobs' Legacy

This morning Asia woke up to the news that Steve Jobs had died.

At this point I will hazard a guess there were some tributes left at the Apple store in IFC mall here in Hong Kong which opened a few weeks ago.

As I passed by the store on the way to work I could see customers already in there looking at gadgets.

There's no disputing Jobs' legacy as a visionary who came up with amazing products and services, going well beyond anyone's expectations but his own.

But there's also his 2005 commencement address to the graduates at Stanford University.



He talks about looking back and connecting the dots. He had decided he would drop out of college and instead of focusing on academics he took courses he found interesting -- like calligraphy for example.

And because of it he gained an appreciate for different type faces and the spacing between them so that when he made the Macintosh computer, it was the first to have a selection of typography.

He also told the graduating class to believe in themselves:

You have to trust in yourself Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life. And the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking -- and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And just like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking, don't settle.

The third thing he talks about is death -- that we will all die. He said he wakes up everyday and says to himself that if today is his last day on earth, would he like doing what he has to do that day? If he found himself saying no too many times then things would have to change. He said the thought of death quickly pares our thoughts, wants and needs down to the most basic:

Your time is limited so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the opinions of other people drown out your inner voice. And most important have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Some find their path early, others late. But it's also the journey along the way that makes life what it is.

Trying to Mend his Ways

Henry Tang Ying-yen, tipped to be Hong Kong's next chief executive, admitted publicly yesterday that he cheated on his wife.

At first he described the allegations as "very entertaining" but then a few days later said he had "strayed".

In a Chinese-language statement issued jointly with his wife Kwok Yu-chin, Tang, 59, admitted having been unfaithful. Part of it reads, "I have strayed in my love life and I feel deeply remorseful and guilty."

He said his wife had forgiven him and for that he was "very thankful".

The statement ends weeks of rumours that he had an affair with Shirley Yuen, his former administrative assistant and now CEO of the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce. She strongly denied being involved and was angry for being linked with Tang's love life.

Another woman who worked as Tang's personal assistant also denied having an affair with him. "I and the other assistants had heard nothing about him having any extramarital affairs back then," said Elizabeth Chan, who now works in the PR industry.

Tang was forced to make the statement after his wife of 27 years responded to the gossip in an article published by Oriental Daily's Eastweek magazine in which she said there had been "difficult times" which were now over.

Less than two hours after Tang's statement was released, an impromptu news conference in front of his home on The Peak. The couple came out hand in hand, but said they had nothing further to add.

What is the point of that? Either say something or don't bother making an appearance.

Analysts felt that while his admission of guilt would not affect his chances of becoming Chief Executive, the lack of transparency could dog him during his campaigning.

"Whenever Tang shows up at any event, reporters will keep on asking [about his love life]," said Chinese University political scientist Ivan Choy Chi-keung.

However some felt the confession had to come sooner rather than later in order to appease Beijing's concerns over the morality of Hong Kong's next leader.

Tang's written statement is unclear whether he only had one affair or more than one and the public relations company that issued the announcement refused to clarify, only stating that he "strayed".

Regardless, the whole event confirms men in positions of power have the urge to cheat. An article in Time magazine says there are many reasons ranging from lack of self-esteem (Bill Clinton) to narcissism (John Edwards), or those from privileged families who are indulged and show little self restraint which Tang perhaps fits in this category.

So now we have a front running chief executive candidate who comes from a wealthy family, hasn't really had to work for his money, encourages young people to aspire to be Li Ka-shing and now reveals he's cheated on his wife.

How does this bode well for Hong Kong's future?