LET'S DO LUNCH, SORT OF

Shaved, Showered. Shampooed. Applied skin lotion where it's a good idea to do so (chin and cheeks, because that area tends to dry out because of the shaving), feet and toes (itchy calves, itchy calves!), and hands. Then sat around all clean and fresh being lazy. Didn't bother going across the hill to Chinatown today because I didn't need to buy anything. Prepared lunch at home. Sausage, root vegetables, and fresh green chili peppers.
Added hot sauce because cooking chilies softens their heat. I need heat.

The proper lunch place has caffeinated beverages that hit the spot, and preferably real crockery and cutlery. Two of my semi-regular places don't, but their food is quite good.

Next week I'll probably have claypot rice (煲仔飯 pou chai faan') with eel (黃鱔 'wong sin) or frog (田雞 'tin kai') at one place, and steamed pork patty with salt fish (鹹魚蒸肉餅 'haam yü jing yiuk beng'), rice, and some mustard greens at another. Neither place does Hong Kong Milk Tea, but both have chilipaste type hotsauce ("sambal", 參巴醬, 辣椒醬 'laat jiu jeung').
It's a question of priorities, you see.

Food the doctor might not recommend, plus milk tea, crockery-cutlery, chilipaste.
If they've got three out of four that's actually pretty darn good.
The first and the last are essential.

Sadly, there is no place where one could get Wu Huai cuisine (滬淮美食 'wu waai mei sik') in Chinatown, the last place where that was available closed down a quite while back, so Red Stewed Pork Noodle Soup (紅燒豬肉麵湯 'hung siu chyü yiuk min tong') and Nanjing Style Beef Vermicelli Soup (牛腩麵 'ngaau naam min') are entirely out of the question.

Even if that was available, Shanghainese people aren't particularly into the hot condiment phenomenon, and milk tea is probably entirely beyond them. I do not know how they get jazzed up at the beginning of the day, although I imagine they do.

It might be some kind of warmish soy milk (豆漿 'dau jeung'), so no caffeine at all.
Almost unimginable, and definitely not my cup of tea.
Maybe it takes all kinds?



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