The Souped-Up Gentrification of Tseung Kwan O

The glamerous foyer of the Crowne Plaza

On Friday I checked out a new hotel in Tseung Kwan O.

It's out in Kowloon East and thanks to the MTR it has become quite convenient to get there both from Kowloon and the New Territories and Hong Kong Island from North Point.

The fascinating thing about TKO -- which some people call it now -- is that the place covers four different MTR stations -- Tseung Kwan O, Po Lam, Hang Hau, Tiu King Leng. Even Central can't boast that.

Apparently some 400,000 people live in this area which is reclaimed land.

The first time I visited this area was over 15 years ago and I remember it as only being accessible by bus and it was hilly, and the only buildings were warehouses and housing estates. Now the place is completely gentrified with tall blocks of apartments crowded next to each other.

And now it has a spanking new Crowne Plaza Hong Kong Kowloon East, which claims to be a five-star hotel right next to the MTR station.

But in TKO?

The hotel itself is nice enough, with lots of marble (apparently a signature of Sun Hung Kai buildings) in the foyer and elevator areas. There's a fine-dining Italian restaurant on the 47th floor that overlooks the neighbourhood, while a Chinese restaurant and buffet occupy the lower floors. Was particularly impressed with the Chinese restaurant with modern decor featuring goldfish and mountains using simple lines and different textures on the walls.

Next door is the Holiday Inn Express that's set to open in the middle of this month. The bottom half will be for hotel rooms, including restaurants that are contracted out, while the top floors will be Vega Suites offering serviced apartments.

How much are these flats?

For just under 400 square feet, it's a jaw-dropping HK$16,000 ($2,064) a month.

This is not a hip area like Central or Mid-Levels. This is Tseung Kwan O. Even a serviced apartment in Sai Ying Pun in Western is HK$14,000 for about the same size.

And you don't get much for HK$16,000 -- the kitchenette only has a hotplate and a small fridge.

Will there really be people willing to pay that much?

Apparently management things so. With so many people living in the neighbourhood, surely there will be overseas relatives who will need a place to stay, or visiting executives whose offices are in Kowloon Bay or Kwun Tong, which are only a few stops away by MTR.

There will also be MICE facilities so there will be definitely enough room for large groups to stay.

While it's intriguing to see branded hotels going further out into the boonies, can they really justifying charging that much?

We shall see as customers vote with their wallets...

Thinner Wallets

Retailers are bummed this year as mainlanders coming to Hong Kong for the National Day holiday aren't shopping up a storm like they used to.

Things were already looking bad in August, according to figures from the Census and Statistics Department.

Sales in August only rose 4.5 percent in value year-on-year to HK$35.8 billion, while the sales volume increased 3.2 percent.

The value of retail sales just went up 3.9 percent in July and 4.5 percent in August, while the number of tourists from China surged 28 percent year-on-year from the two months.

"I think the figures are shocking," said Hong Kong Retail Management Association chairwoman Caroline Mak Siu-king.

Sales of jewellery, watches, clocks and valuable gifts -- popular items mainlanders usually buy here -- dropped 3.4 percent in value in August.

Mak said name brand clothing and watches had seen an even larger plunge in sales, probably due to the slowdown in the Chinese economy, resulting in visitors spending less.

And with this year's eight-day national day holiday coming to a close, mainlanders were spending less in Hong Kong, partly because of the economy, but also because of tensions with locals.

Stanley Lam Tung-hing, general manager of four Oriental Watch outlets, reported sales dropped 10 percent compared to last year. And purchases over HK$300,000 fell at least 30 percent.

"We're seeing a 12 to 13 percent drop in customers too and I think this is due to the economic slowdown in the mainland," he said.

Now customers came into the shop and had a budget of about HK$50,000 compared with HK$60,000 last year.

With the slowdown in China directly affecting Hong Kong, perhaps the silver lining will be the eventually drop in the property market, particularly retail rents which have gone through the roof.

Do we really need more watch and jewellery stores when the main customers aren't the ones living in Hong Kong?

Culinary Finesse

Stone fruit panzanella was a good start to the meal

One of Vancouver's top restaurants is Hawksworth in the Hotel Georgia complex downtown.

The Parma hame came with burrata cheese and tomatoes

Previously in the kitchen at West in South Granville, David Hawksworth has refined his cooking style and blossomed with the opening of his own restaurant over a year ago.

And then he met Hong Kong socialite and restaurateur Bonnie Gokson, who brought him to Hong Kong to show off his culinary chops at SEVVA this past spring.

He impressed many diners there including myself with his playful combination of flavours artfully decorated on the plate.

Yellowfin tuna ceviche was a delightful appetizer

Most memorable was the vivid green pea risotto and truffle, and the roasted sablefish with dungeness crab and pea tendrils.

So when I was back in Vancouver I had to try his dishes in his own place.

The restaurant is very sophisticated, but not snobbish, lots of smartly-dressed waiters walking briskly through the dining areas. We liked the chandelier in the middle of the room we were in, and impressed by the large walk-in cellar filled with the brim with bottles.

Before our meal began we were not given a bread basket, but an amuse bouche of heirloom tomatoes, burrata cheese, parma ham and cubes of crispy polenta. It was a pretty hearty portion and could have been an appetiser in itself.

The Yarrow Meadows duck breast accompanied with figs

Then came our starters, the stone fruit panzanella ($14) was a beautiful mix of greens in a light vinaigrette. The dish had a kick thanks to the thin slices of jalapeno mixed with the greens, minted pea, charred fennel and piave.

Another favourite was the yellowfin tuna ceviche ($17) that was very refreshing and came with avocado, crispy amaranth, pecans and cilantro. The chunks of tuna were smooth sleek pieces that practically melted in the mouth.

Finally the cioppino ($17) or fish stew was a hearty soup that included such ingredients as dungeness crab, Manila clams and crispy bread for texture.

As we waited for our mains we watched the atmosphere of the other tables around us. Some were vacated and then replaced by new diners, a table of women laughed gregariously enjoying their Friday evening.

A main course of slow cooked rack of pork

The mains were more culinary pieces of art. A new addition to the menu is the Yarrow Meadows duck breast ($38) with endives, figs and jus. The layer of fat between the skin and meat was practically negligible, very tender and juicy. However the accompanying celeriac duck confit press seemed out of place and too salty.

Meanwhile the slow cooked rack of pork ($34) was also delicious, accompanied by a bed of polenta, fennel sausage and charred apricots, a good complement to the meat.

Finally the grilled sturgeon ($32) was a lighter fare, hidden beneath wedges of summer squash, puffed saffron and mint.

Grilled sturgeon with summer squash, puffed saffron and mint

Practically sated already, we also decided to try the chocolate fondant ($10) for dessert that looked like a gourmet chocolate bar with a crumble base and a silky smooth intensely-flavoured chocolate mousse on top. It came with some light meringue chips, orange sorbet and hazelnuts.

Service for the most part was fantastic, our server not too far away from us at all times and as soon as any diner got up, the wait staff always assumed (correctly) he or she needed guidance to the washrooms. It's this anticipation and the knowledgeable staff that makes the entire dining experience so memorable and enjoyable.

Hawksworth is definitely doing some good things here and hopefully he'll be doing this for a long time yet.

Chocolate fondant with orange sorbet, meringue and hazelnuts

Hawksworth
801 West Georgia Street
Vancouver
(604) 673 7000
www.hawksworthrestaurant.com

The Ever-Changing Face of the City

Lunchtime on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery

It's interesting to track the development of a city and Vancouver is a great example.

Since Expo 86 it was grown significantly with the influx of Hong Kong immigrants worried about 1997 which led to the condominium building craze and increasing property prices.

However the city also had outstanding issues that were long neglected, in particular the Downtown East Side which was populated by mostly drug addicts, scaring businesses out of the area, resulting it being nicknamed the poorest postal code in Canada.

The problem spilled next door into Chinatown and many wondered if that would be the end of the once vibrant community too.

The Wing Sang Company building, first owned by Yip Sang

It was the efforts of many activists including then Mayor Larry Campbell who spearheaded Insite, the supervised safe injection site -- but not without controversy.

Many criticized the pilot project for using taxpayers' money to help drug addicts shoot up.

But as Campbell, who formerly worked for the RCMP and District Coroner's office explained many times through the media, these drug addicts have multiple diseases and they cannot shake off their addictions by going cold turkey.

So the best way to deal with the problem is to manage it -- and this is best done by giving them a safe place to inject with clean needles. Health workers stand by to assist in case the addicts suffer a drug overdose, but even better, perhaps they will ask for health advice. This is the kind of community outreach that was needed to make these drug addicts realize they are not alone.

Now things are cleaning up, and simultaneously gentrification started happening.

Chinatown was dying more than 10 years ago. It used to be the only place to buy Chinese groceries, but now many go to Richmond or Coquitlam for fresh produce reducing the need to drive downtown and pay for parking.

There were concerns the old buildings in Chinatown would be torn down, but again people came to the rescue.

Sears closing for Nordstrom's opening

Condo king marketer Dale Rennie bought the Yip Sang building and refurbished it. While the outer shell looks pretty much like the original, inside it's a modern space with offices inside.

People are allowed to take a look inside at the building that formerly housed the 23 children so it included a classroom as well as a shop downstairs. Today visitors can take a look inside by appointment only which is what I plan to do next time I'm back.

It's wonderful to see old spaces revitalized and new people occupying them for different use.

And the process is ongoing.

Back in the downtown core, the department store Sears, where Eaton's used to be, is closing down and making way for US retailer Nordstrom.

It was depressing to see the giant "closing down sale" sign out front and inviting shoppers to snap up fixtures too.

Waiting for our taco orders in front of the Tacofino truck

But Nordstrom will soon be breathing new life into the space.

Across the street was a line of food trucks, a phenomenon following the success of those in New York.

The ones in the Big Apple came about with chefs out of work and needing to make a living so they decided to sell food from these modified trucks.

Seeing how it worked well in New York, the City of Vancouver followed suit. There are young entrepreneurial chefs who want to test out their culinary ideas without having to pay rent and service staff, while established ones like Vikram Vij are expanding their repertoire with these cheap eats.

On the day I saw them, I tried out a Tuna Ta-Taco ($6.50) from the Tacofino truck.

It's very simple -- line up for the service staff to take your order and money. He in turn writes down your name and then calls you when your order is ready.

And then head a few metres over to the Vancouver Art Gallery, where you can sit on the steps on munch on some lunch.

The tuna Ta-Taco from Tacofina was delicious and good value

The tuna taco isn't in the typical Tex-Mex corn shell, but a soft thin pita bread-type wrap and it was filled with big chunks of lightly seared albacore tuna mixed with wasabi-ginger mayonnaise, mango salsa and topped with seaweed.

It was a bit hard to eat, but delicious.

And for that price and quality of food, it's miles better than the grub at fast food mall.

What a refreshing alternative -- but are we ever going to see food trucks like these in Hong Kong?