Haunted house

After living in HK for more than 2 yrs, I am doing everything that I normally wouldn't do in the status..yet totally American. That's including a can of diet coke everyday, drinks over french fries preferably potato wedge, ordering fish and chips at hotel cafe, mix fruit juice with sherbet every now and then, eating chips at office, smearing butter on bread, addicting to US tv series, etc..

Neither do I believe myself would visit a haunted house during Halloween season, why would one pay to get haunted. I received free tickets to Ocean Park Halloween Bash for the pre-opening night. Because it was a weekday night we didn't have enough time to visit all houses, we just managed to visit 4. We ended up having a great time there, that's the place where we can let our guards down and scream as much as we want.

A pumpkin decoration on the side of the trail.

Entrance to one haunted house.

A chinese style haunted house, one of the scariest.

The exit door with thousands of disgusting ghosts' heads.

Smelly guy update

You might have thought I was a bit too agitated with this smelly guy previously. Everything has not been finalized yet and they were just in talks, why did I make a big fuss about it.

But you know what, in a corporate world filled with wolves and tigers, if you don't observe and be mindful of the peripheral dialogue, things can be quite out of control.

I said I wasn't going to blog about this person again because I don't want him be part of my life.. Just for the sake of friends who do read my blog religiously and curious of how that story evolves, here is a brief update:

So everything is confirmed now and he is officially joining the team in next 2 weeks. I probably shouldn't know too much..so happen I found out the package he is receiving..which is outrageously unreasonable, my heart got crushed, once again.

Although this is the worst case scenario I expected to see, i can do nothing about it except warning the people who are going to work closely with him in the future.

Black forest wonder

My latest creation of black forest chocolate cake. I am extremely happy with this attempt. The chocolate sponge cake was baked perfectly. The sweet aroma of chocolate truffle between layers was sensational. Not too ordinary whipped cream with a hint of vanilla taste. One disappointment is that I couldn't find brandy cherry in HK, I tried to compensate by drowning the cherries with kirsh, but still not enough to enhance the flavor. Nonetheless, I'm v. glad that my guests all liked it very much and praised my effort in serving a cake which would have cost >300HKD at cova.

Hairy crabs

Whenever you feel summer starts giving ways to a fall season and weather turning cooler with morning breeze, you know here comes the season for hairy crab again. Last night, I had my first hairy crab feast this year. I love hairy crab the most out of all kinds of crabs because it releases a distinct aroma and has hella lots of FAT!

The Yang Chen Lake crab is the most esteemed of all, its name is engraved on the crab's shell with a gold plastic ring around its claw.

We always eat the female first during the early season, and then the male approaching the end of the season. I personally prefer the male ones because the transparent fat is simply unresistable.

According to tradition, we eat hairy crab along with siu hing wine and a vinegar with brown sugar and minced garlic as dipping sauce.



Look at these fat! Gorgeous!





Another fish dish in addition to crab. In Chinese called "Ma You".



After the dinner, the aftertaste of crab was still all over me, I quickly grabbed a bottle of sparkling grape juice which has been sitting in my fridge for days. It was made with chardonnay grapes in the sonoma valley, extremely tasty w/out any artificial sugary flavor. This is what we call to enjoy every fine things in life. My sister shipped this to me from California because I couldn't find it elsewhere.

Sovereign Asian Art Auction

It was a fund raising event sponsored by LV last night. More than 30 pieces of modern art paintings were up for auction at Four Seasons' grand ballroom. It was one of the high society event where ladies dressed in their grand and trendy outfits and stylishly posed in front of the tatler's cameras.

Champagne was served as soon as we arrived, we met up with a couple of other familiar faces and closely admired the art pieces which were displayed in the lobby before going on auction. I wasn't there to take one of these home, I was there for the food.

The ballroom was nicely decorated by LV with its signature logo artifacts dangling from the ceiling, dinner was also served with LV branded china - very chic!

Starting with a king prawn salad which was nicely dressed with citrus vinegar, tomato and chive. I chose mock fish rather than lamb shank for the choice of entree. Dessert was a warm chocolate cake with vanilla ice-cream, berry tea jelly and fresh fig.









The table next to us was the HO family table. Pansy Ho was one of the most active bidders that evening and won two paintings, one being the highest bids of all for USD47K. One couple at my table was interested in one of the pieces but claimed to be not preparing to bid. When the wife raised her hand during the auction, the husband kept shaking his head with an embarrassing look on his face seems to be saying he had nothing to do with this. But when his wife was signing off the auction agreement, I almost felt that he was actually very proud of her action and proclaiming that see, I have lots of $$ for my wife to splurge.

My souvenir from the event - a travel log designed by LV and a hardcover brochure of the paintings being auctioned tonight. Interestingly every person at the table got different versions of travel log with the theme of different cities around the world. I am happy with my London book, the one that I like the most is the NYC one with black and silver cover and cyber-y sketches within pages.

Grand Hyatt lunchbox

CLSA conference this week, my colleagues and I are running back and forth from CK to Grand Hyatt 3 times a day and our office has never been this quiet and peaceful before.

The conference this year has been a lot more humble than the previous yrs. We don't have Al Gore or Alan Greenspan or Bill Clinton as guest speakers, the focus this yr is mainly on green energy and world peace, we got representatives from S. Africa or professor at Yale giving us lectures that the world will sooner or later die if we don't change our inconsiderate behavior.

Probably because they save a lot of money on speakers, their service is superb and offer a lot more hospitality than ever. Breakfast, late breakfast, lunch, tea time snacks, early light dinner all provided and served by the hotel, basically we don't have much spending this week except cab fare.

I shamelessly took a lunchbox back to the office on Monday and enjoyed my four course meal in front of bloomberg tv. Prepared by hotel chef including a green papaya salad with shrimp and scallop, a cream mushroom tart, turkey and zucchini sandwich and a chocolate cake with blueberry jam, comes with a pack of saltine and a piece of brie.

Sushi ya

Considering my strong desire to adhere this blog to food centric and my social life has been greatly deprived by work, I need to venture out for external resources.

I found this funny video on youtube that teach you how to eat at sushi bar. I often think that eating at a sushi bar in japan can be very tricky. I don't know all the sashimi names that make me difficult to place order from chef, at the same time I am afraid that if I order a kaiseki menu, they would trick me into paying an extremely expensive bill by serving me the rare species.

To me, this looks more like a satire video than a cultural promotion. I know sushiya is the most traditional japanese restaurant but this formality and rigidness can be very annoying. Everything seems to be part of an act, why do I need to pretend and follow so many rules while my main objective is to enjoy the food?

Impromptu dinner

L finally won his victory over Devil and got what he wanted - Dignity. I am very happy for him that he is finally coming out of the shadow and venturing into his next career. So last week, he generously treated me a dinner at the #1 French restaurant in HK, Joel Robuchon, for celebration. A very impromptu dinner that was requested at the last minute, so I didn't bring a proper camera to take pictures. I probably would need to get a cell phone with better camera just in case of any spontaneous needs.

Here is the rundown of the menu, a total of 8 courses per person..

L'Amuse - Bouche
Fresh crab meat with tomato jelly and avocado
Asparagus, parmasan cheese shavings and mushrooms
Seared scallops in butter sauce and truffles
Lobster with citrus polenta
Pan-fried foie gras with caramelized chickpeas and fresh mint oil
ME: Quail stuffed with foie gras with mustard mashed potato
L: Thick-sliced wagyu steak with iceberg lettuce
Pineapple with chantilly and coconut cream
Orange blossom flavored with champagne ice-cream

We enjoyed every bite of the dinner. The ambience echoes the one in France, the contrast of red and black resembles the bold and creative approach of the dishes, something that you cannot find elsewhere in HK. Nonetheless, I still believe the Paris shop is better than HK (of course, b/c J.R. stations in Paris), and L thinks the Tokyo shop wins with fresher ingredients.

When I first came back to HK, I asked around for recommendations for french/italian cuisine, and all I got were the old-fashioned Sabatini, Amigo, Petrus, Nicholini.. I am glad to see a handful of new and modern fine dining places opened in recent years b/c of the flourishing economy. Although they charge ridiculously prices, the new places simply put the old school restaurants to shame. Those are the places which charge market price yet haven't changed their menus for 30yrs, and you can never find younger generation people because we have fresher taste buds and demand for innovative adventure in flavors. I haven't been able to experienced all recommendations I received early on...but I don't think they deserve the fame.

Amber again

I am reporting on MO Landmark's Amber again, this time with pictures.

The lunch prefix menu costs ~HKD400, with a choice of appetizer and entree, a dessert buffet and unlimited wine/juice/soft drinks. You can also choose to drink unlimited champagne, but that would cost $200 more. We decided to go for the regular menu as we don't want the champagne to spoil our appetite.

We had a very nice bread basket to start with, and croutons with sour cream dippings. Amazingly when I asked for balsamic vinegar, they gave me the aged thick kind which sweetness dominated sourness.

Each of us ordered different appetizer and entree so that we can have a taste of everything. I had veal and tomato consumme with lobster for appetizer, and sea bass with spinach and parmasan froth.

Entree was fine, the dessert was applaudable. They gave you everything you could imagine, including ny cheese cake, financier, chocolate cream brulee, different flavors of mandeline, black forest cake, raspberry mousse, opera, pear mousse cake, chocolate fondue with fresh fruits, apple tart, hot chocolate with different kinds of chocolate made to order, chocolate mousse cake, so many can't name all..

Overall the savory dishes were not as good as the business lunch I had earlier...probably because of the budget issue they couldn't use all high end ingredients. Still, service was excellent, food was fine, dessert was perfect, and they kept us drinking and refilling our sparkling wine, what else do you expect out of them..I am more than satisfied.

Pissed

I hate office politics, and I hate people who likes to manipulate office politics.

The story was started when I was still in SF. There's one guy who me and my team all hate, trying to get himself out of the back office, and applied for a position in my marketing team. We called him "the smelly" - because he smells, is the king of trash talking, pretends to be smart but actually super dumb, has a sneaky look and always makes pathetic comments. We unanimously rejected him.

Still within the same office, I moved on to do different things. For some reasons, he made friends with the head of research, gone through different doors, and finally landed himself in the tech research team, as the "right hand" of the head of research. At the same time, I have a friend working as an assistant to the research team, basically executing trades and compiling data for the analysts. My friend now needed to work alongside Smelly after he joined the team. My friend was very upset because Smelly stole a lot of works from him but kept messing things up. He witnessed how Smelly brown-nosed the head of research, licking ass all the way, and blamed on other people when he has done sth wrong. He was ANGRY and INFURIATED. He felt disappointed and eventually left the company.

As the "right hand" of the head of research, he calls himself research project manager. If you live in the world of finance, you probably would NOT be familiar with the term. Plain simple, you are either an analyst or not an analyst. The whole office doesn't know what exactly that he does, but he is able to travel everywhere with the head of research. I saw him in Frankfurt last year at my dept's conference. I asked him what was he doing there, he explained because his boss came, he tagged along.

Because of his boss, he got into the "global graduate program". Basically my company invented this program to recruit/train the brightest kids and nurture them to become an investment professional. Mind you all that he is a dumb kid, it get on my nerves that others actually think he is smart.

The trainees would work at different offices around the world for two years. Smelly was on his second year, and he picked HK as the last stop.

The second I knew Smelly was coming to HK, I quickly emailed my source asking WHY WHY WHY??!!! I am not kiding, I got a response saying "Yea.. we are pretty glad that we can finally get rid of him for a period of time.." I asked the key person to place him on a different team because I did't want to work with him nor train him of what I do. I just want to minimize our interaction with him as much as possible. This sound silly..but if you know me, I rarely hate people at work, this one by far exceed my limit.

This apparently came out to be a mistake. Instantly he made friends with HR and PMs, he also expressed his interest in staying in HK. He is going back to SF next week, and I found out this Friday that he was trying to get himself a job at the regional investment team!

I was infuriated and my head was bubbling. I was upset because people actually enjoys working with him because of his smooth-talking and incompetence for doing anything. Can't people understand why he wants to work in HK? He is nobody in the states and he doesn't want to be the DOG forever..he doesn't have a real job or a real title back home..he was trying to get himself out of the trap!

I was told that I have the responsibilities to tell people how I feel and what I know about him. I am still debating..I am not the gossipy type of person and I don't want to influence others with my biased judgment. Especially if he has the support of his boss and HR, my little comments wouldn't make a difference in reaching the final decision. I just want to hope that the deal doesn't work out and his boss wants him to stay as his DOG forever..

If he is able to break through the doors with his special relationship, this is not the culture I like at this office and I would be extremely disappointed with my team. I would consider leaving, seriously.