Lizard Soup

One of my favorite areas in Hong Kong is the herbal medicine shop streets around Sheung Wan. For reasons I won't get into here, these shops carry an amazing variety of real deal Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), that you almost cannot find in mainland China anymore. In Shanghai pharmacies, for example, they look at you like you're nuts if you ask for herbals instead of pills. They think they're being "modern", we guess. In Hong Kong they still have the good stuff, or as the proverbial tourist might say, the weird stuff. Dried sea creatures, mystery animal parts, deer antlers, tiger penis, wine with whole king cobras, and stacks and heaps of herbs and twigs and tree bark. This is where I always stock up on Kam Wo Cha, the boxed herbal tea -- the best cold cure I've ever found.



It's not just the large selection that makes this TCM shopping district special -- it's the quality, the sights, the scent, the classic atmosphere, and the openly friendly service.

We'll have to devote several upcoming posts to Traditional Chinese Medicine weirdness, but we decided to start with these cute Ta!wan tree lizards we found...



The lady at the TCM shop explained that the lizards are best in a soup, and set out collecting all the bits and pieces to make the soup with. The soup ingredients (herbs) are yam, chinese dates, ginseng, medlar, and something called tragacanth. About 10 grams of each. I'm American, so I don't know what grams are. You cook these herbs with some pork bones and the lizards. The TCM shopkeeper told me I could eat the lizards (snap off the head and limbs and toss them out) and that the tails are the best, as in beneficial, parts to eat. They're reported to be good for asthma, colds, lungs and heart.



The lizards at the market were dried and tied to wooden sticks, two a piece. One is a male, the other female. The pharmacist told us they were all lizard couples, and that we're supposed to consume both genders together in the soup. We felt better knowing these married lizards perished together -- is this practised anywhere else, with other animals-for-consumption?

Anyway, the lizards sort of dissolved into the soup -- maybe we cooked it too long? -- but we did get a few little bites of bona fide lizard meat, and they were kinda tartly fishy tasting, and very bony.



Yes, that's a lizard coming out of my mouth.

Beef Tongue

I love Hong Kong. It's a foodie paradise. Everything is good. While you might not find the absolute best of any particular dish, you know you're not going to get anything bad. They don't have time for that here.

They also have the best waiters here. They don't bother you when you want to be left alone, and they know what you want before you order. Some of the older guys intimidate me -- they don't even need to write down an order of 20 some-odd dishes -- they just have impressive memories.

My favorite part is the seemingly wacky combinations that always work. Won-ton soup, bitter melon, chicken curry, crab in milk, tea mixed with coffee, and for dessert? This place does cheesecake. At a Chinese restaurant? Of course! Look around, everyone's got cheesecake. Go with the tao.

Hong Kongers are the crazy about food. More than any other people or place I've experienced. Restaurants are open at 4am everywhere, and they're packed. It's common to have two dinners in one night, then hit up a dessert cafe or soup joint after a night out.

But one mystery that still haunts me -- why the hell do Hong Kong restaurants blast the air conditioner, even in the middle of winter? We were freezing at almost every restaurant we went to. Is it so people can show off their winter collections? Oh, great, I can wear my Prada jacket in here! Not cold enough outside.

One night a friend took me to a Hong Kong institution called Tai Ping Koon. When I took a look at the menu, I was worried -- It's one of those historical places that packs in the sucker tourists. They've got a story about the restaurant on the front of the menu, and there's a list of dishes that are "favorites." Usually a bad sign. But not here, this place is good.

The waiters are elderly men with pep and energy, no-nonsense, but total class. You know you're in good hands. Things run smooth. We ordered the favorites. Or rather the waiter suggested this and we agreed. They know, we know, all's good. Go with the tao.

The most famous of these "favorites" are the "Swiss sauce chicken wings" -- the story is, about a hundred years ago, a waitress at the original location misunderstood "sweet sauce" for "Swiss sauce" and the misunderstanding was a legend born. They're yummy. Tender juicy chicken wings marinated in a thick, slightly sweet soy sauce.



(sorry, it's a cell phone pic)

I was surprised, considering this was a tourist spot, that our waiter suggested the beef tongue. Most tourists I know would flinch at a large, unadulterated cow tongue on a plate.

I'd had beef tongue only once before... but I don't remember if I actually ate it. I have a vague memory of my mother bringing home a beef tongue from the grocery butcher in Kansas City (we spent a few years living in Missouri). I remember her having fun freaking out my Dad and us kids, when she told us to open the fridge and look at the cow tongue, like a dare. We didn't believe her, but then there it was, sitting on a plate, all large and gooey looking. We picked it up and played with it, and I chased my sisters around the dining room, delighting in grossing them out. That's all I remember, I don't recall eating the thing.

So now, years later in Hong Kong, I finally had a chance to carve into some beef tongue. The texture was pretty close to what I expected, but the taste was much better than what I imagined. Thick and juicy and fulfilling, and only very slightly rubbery. It was a good match for a Guinness, which I would never choose to drink in Hong Kong's warm climate, but then with the air conditioner on full blast, it made sense.

Address:
Tai Ping Koon, 40, Granville Road, Tsimshatsui, Kowloon.

Snake Soup

The recent earthquake in Taiwan has made the internet slow and logging into blogger difficult from Asia, so we apologize for the delay in updates...



I was in Hong Kong recently, to visit my friend PaPeRo. PaPeRo is a robot made by NEC. I was asked to perform (as a DJ) at NEC's booth at the ITU, a massive technology expo. My little friend PaPeRo does cool stuff like talk in 7 languages, dance, use GPS to track down where my friends and fans are, does internet searches for me, and if you tickle him a bit too much, he farts (although he's polite and calls it "break wind"). He's also kind of a flirt, we found him chatting up all the models at the expo, getting phone numbers and posing for pics with the cute ones.

One day, PaPeRo scored a dinner date with a girl who suggested they go for snake soup. One of PaPeRo's features is that he can detect human emotion. He could tell I was a bit jealous. After teasing me a bit, he invited me to tag along, so I could check out the snake soup for WeirdMeat. Another of Papero's features is that he can taste food for you, so he's a perfect companion for weird meat explorations.



We went to a little cafe in Causeway Bay, you know the typical Hong Kong ones with white tile floors, steamy windows, and elderly waiters that have more wit and energy than I could ever dream of. In the window at this place, there are several large glass jars with snakes in them, including one fearsome looking king cobra.

We ordered a bowl of the house standard snake soup. Everyone was having this. According to the waiter there are 5 different snakes in it -- I mean, 5 kinds of snake. Including the king cobra. The soup was yummy, with a comforting, mildly savory broth, and plenty of snake meat. Snake meat is similar to eel, but more delicate and white like fish. It's supposed to be good for you, especially in winter, and like everything in Chinese medicine, an aphrodisiac.

PaPeRo just giggles when I ask him how the rest of the night went.



We didn't make it to Kowloon's Snake Street this time, but there's a good article about that here. We'll have to do pics there next time.

BTW, is my PaPeRo robot friend a communist?