TIFFIN IN HONG KONG

On Tregunter Path, you might think yourself very far from elsewhere.
The highrises are less visible, if at all, and the trees and undergrowth are mighty impressive by comparison with all the loci where they are not, further down. Well, except for such places as the Aigburth, which one imagines may have a decent view of the Ladies Recreation Club. Where, in addition to tennis courts, a library, full bar, and noodles for your female snacking pleasure, there are two swimming pools.

One of them is indoors.

The other not.

An outdoor pool!

For the recreating ladies!

Located at 10 Old Peak Road.


A far better view of recreating ladies, if that truly is your thing, is further north, just before May Road pulls a complete loop and joins Old Peak Road. The Clovelly Court apartments.
It casts a shadow over the tennis courts in late afternoon.
Consider the excellent vantage.

[地利根德里 Tregunther Path ('dei lei gan tak lei': "local advantage foundation lane". 譽皇居 Aigburth ('jue wong geui': "reputation imperial domicile"). 女子俱樂部 Ladies' Recreation Club ('neui ji geui lok pou'). 梅道 May Road ('mui dou': "plum road"). 舊山頂道 Old Peak Road ('gau saan deng dou'). 嘉富麗苑 Clovelly Court '('gaa fu lai yuen': "excellent fortune beauty garden".]


太平山頂 VICTORIA PEAK

It's a little peculiar that the British named absolutely everything after their monarch during the nineteenth century. The real name of the place is taai ping saan deng (great level mountain top), and the name 'Mount Austin', after John Gardiner Austin, Colonial Secretary from 1868 to 1879, makes nearly as much sense. At least there's a local connection.
Queen Victoria, as far as is known, never visited.
I may be wrong, as I wasn't there at the time.
Short round white women were a rarity.
It would have excited comment.
In that place, then.

[柯士甸山 Mount Austin ('o si din saan': "axe-handle official outskirts mountain"). 維多利亞女皇 Queen Victoria ('wai do lei aa neui wong': "preserve more profit Asia woman imperial"). 短短圓圓哋嘅白女人 Short round white women ('duen duen yuen yuen dei-ge paak neui yan'). 肥嘟嘟 fay toot-toot: plump and pudgy.]

The best time to visit Victoria Peak on Hong Kong Island is early in the morning, before the sun has risen and the day warmed up. And, by equal logic, to ambulatorily descend rather than ascend. The Peak Tram operates from seven in the morning till midnight, however, so during much of the year you will get there when it's already light, unless you take a taxi.

[山頂纜車 Peak Tram ('saan deng laam che': "mountain peak rope-cart/cable-car"). 的士 Taxi ('dek si').]

The view from the Peak is spectacular, as dawn hits the harbour, and Kowloon across the water.

Wandering down via Old Peak Road will take you past some very nice scenery. You can probably understand why hiking up might be a sweaty and unpleasant business, especially given the Chinese tendency to liken overly aromatic Caucasians to rather pungent fruits or animalistic things.
And note that many East-Asians, though more perspirationally talented than white folks, have fewer apocrine sweat glands.

Which means "whitey pong a bit, lah".

[Relevant quote from a Wikipedia article: "The lack of ABCC11 function results in a decrease of the odorant compounds 3M2H, HMHA, and 3M3SH via a strongly reduced secretion of the precursor amino-acid conjugates 3M2H–Gln, HMHA–Gln, and Cys–Gly–(S) 3M3SH.[4] It also results in a decrease of odoriferous steroids androstenone and androstenol, which may be via the reduced secretion of DHEAS and DHEA (also decreased; possibly bacterial substrates for odoriferous steroids)."]

So stink!
Wah.


Old Peak Road eventually splits into Albany Road, crosses Robinson, and continues past the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens.

[舊山頂道 Old Peak Road ('gau saan-deng dou'). 雅賓利道 Albany Road ('aa ban lei dou': "elegant visitor profits road"). 羅便臣道 Robinson Road ('lo pin san dou': "gauzy convenience statesman road"). 香港動植物公園 Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens ('heung-gong dung-jik-mat gung-yuen': "fragrant harbour animal and vegetable substances public park") .]

If you cross via the underpass at Upper Albert Road, Albany turns into Glenealy. Down Glenealy there's an intersection of five streets, which brings you to D'Aguilar Street and shortly onto Lan Kwai Fong. You don't want to be here. Too many drunken Brits and Aussies. Keep walking. Cross at Wellington Street, head to Queens Road. You are now in the heart of Central. This may very well be the busiest place on the planet.

[上亞厘畢道 Upper Albert Road ('seung aa lei bat dou': "upper Asia permille finish road"). 己連拿利 Glenealy ('gei lin naa lei': "oneself linked grasp profit"). 德忌笠街 D'Aguilar Street ('tak gei lap kai': "virtue envies a rainhat road"). 蘭桂坊 Lan Kwai Fong ("orchid laurel lane"). 威靈頓街 Wellington Street ('wai leng duen kai': "powerfully spiritual arranged street"). 皇后大道 Queen's Road ('wong-hau daai-dou': "imperial consort great road"). 中環 Central District ('jung waan': "middle ring").]


And by now it's either time for a late breakfast, or an early lunch. Instead of the predictable visit to a tea house or a cha chan-teng, why don't you have a spot of curry?

For crap's sakes, man, it's Hong Kong! There's Chinese food all over the place! Do something different!

There are roughly sixty thousand Indians and Pakistanis in this city.

Not all of them live in Chungking Mansions.

Some are right here.


There are, in fact, a number of excellent Indian Restaurants in Central, as well as further on towards Admiralty

[重慶大廈 Chungking Mansions ('chung hing daai haa': "weighty celebration big edifice"; a large building named after the metropole located on the 渝江 yue river in Szechuan). 尖沙嘴 Tsim Sha Tsui ("sharp sands nozzle"), the area of Kowloon where that named building is located. 彌敦道 Nathan Road ('nei duen dou': "extensive sincere road"; a street in Kowloon). 中區 Central District ('jung keui'). 金鐘 Admiralty ('kam jung': "golden bell", so-nicknamed after a famous bell that was there during early British times).]

Most Indian restaurants worldwide serve a very similar range of dishes.
No doubt you are familiar with them.

[General terminology: 印度 'Yan do': "print span"; India, Indian. 咖哩, 咖喱 Gaa lei: curry. 印度芝士 'yan do chi si': paneer. 串燒 'gwaan siu': skewer-roasted. 饢坑, 烤爐 'nang haang', 'haau lou': tandoor. 饢 'nang': a kind of flat bread; to eat greedily (extended or derived meaning). ]


印度菜 YAN-DO CHOI

Here's a list, more or less in the order you would find it on a menu.

Nibbles and sides:
薄脆 Papadum.
胡椒薄脆 Cracked pepper papad.
咖喱角 Samosa.
雜菜咖哩角 Mixed vegetable samosa.
炸芝士條 Fried paneer kofta.
燒焗芝士 Tandoori paneer tikka.
綠色薄荷醬 Mint chutney.
羅望子醬 Tamarind chutney.
青瓜乳酪 Cucumber raita.

Breads:
烤餅, 饢 Naan.
果仁烤餅 Kabuli naan.
洋蔥烤餅 Onion kulcha.
芝士烤餅 Paneer kulcha, Cheese kulcha.
連薄餅, 煎餅 Paratha.
薯餅 Alu paratha.

Rice:
黃飯 Plain pillao.
雞肉炒飯 Murgh biriani.

The Oven:
串燒拼盤 Assorted tandoori platter.
串燒雞塊 Tandoori chicken chunks.
串燒羊塊 Tandoori lamb chunks.
串燒大蝦 Tandoori king prawn.

Chicken:
無骨燒雞 Boneless tandoori chicken nibblets.
烤雞咖哩 Chicken tikka masala.
椰汁腰果雞肉咖哩 Coconut cashew chicken curry.
牛油雞 (茄醬牛油雞) Murgh makhni.
青咖哩雞 Chicken quorma.

Lamb (goat):
鑊仔羊肉 Balti lamb.
椰汁羊肉咖哩 Coconut lamb curry.
波菜燴羊肉 Lamb saag.
燴羊肉 Braised lamb.
青豆炒羊肉,青豆炒免治羊肉 Keema matar.
瑪沙拉羊肉 Masala gosht (rich curry lamb).

Seafood:
咖哩魚 Fish curry.
瑪沙拉大蝦 Prawn masala.
辣椒炒肉蟹 Chili crab.

Vegetable Specialties:
咖喱薯仔大豆 Alu channa.
燴免治茄子 Baingan bharta.
滑汁芝士球 Malai kofta.
菠菜芝士咖哩 Saag paneer.

Sweetie:
煉奶浸芝士球 Rasmalai.

Drinks:
芒果乳酪 Mango lassi.
印度奶茶 Masala chai.


[No, I shan't give 'translations' of the Chinese characters for Indian menu items listed above. As you may have already noticed, many terms unknown to the Chinese world often simply get transliterated ad hoc, sometimes yielding monumental surreality. I took a look at them and decided Gear Dog, no.
Some of it, however, does have relevance to the subject of food.
薄脆 'pok cheui': thin crispy. 胡椒 'wu chiu': pepper. 芝士 'chi si': cheese; literally "sesame scholar" or "miracle-fungus intellectualist", an idiom standardly used in HK Cantonese to transcribe fermented bovine lactic gland exudates. 薄荷 'bok ho': "barren lotus", the common term for peppermint. 羅望 'lo mong': "gauzy expectations"; name of the tamarind tree. 波菜 'po choi': "ripplish vegetable", meaning spinach. 等等 'dang dang': etcetera, and so forth and so on.]


Personally, I don't mind Desi Khana to start the day, but unfortunately most Indian restaurants do not open till noon time. The normal stomach doesn't wake up until then, so it does actually work out. Probably less so for the Australians and Englishmen, who are hungover from their long night of embarrassing behaviour in Lan Kwai Fong, but as they have a hard time with food anyhow, the Indian Restaurants are a slice of home.
And better than what's available in London or Sydney.

There are a few places over in Kowloon that cook Indian-flavour chow mein (saag paneer noodles, murgh makhni noodles, lamb tikka and chilies over noodles), as well as one or two eateries that claim to be Kashmiri or Nepali, though their menus will be substantially the same as the local curry house in Whitehead, Tilbury, or Maidenform.

If tiffin costs around seventy-five dollars ("wah, so expensive!"), just remember, that's only ten bucks U.S.


Bhojana da ananda mano.



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