Hong Kong - Sogo

Sogo - visited August 28, 2017

Sogo was about a block from our hotel. I’m not quite sure what to call it since it was like a department store in that it had various departments where you could buy a wide variety of things like cosmetics, probably clothes and other things. But it also had a “food hall” on the lower floor, not quite as grandiose as the one at Harrods but did Harrods one better by combining both food stalls/kiosks with a grocery store. So it was like Harrods food hall met Whole Foods met Nordstrom and decided to hang out in the same building.

The reason I can’t tell you what non-food items Sogo sells is because I was only interested in the food hall. I only noticed the cosmetics department because it was on the ground floor, by the door and on my way to the escalator to go down to the food hall. Otherwise, every time I went to Sogo, I beelined down the escalator to my favorite floor and wandered around, taking pictures and living through my visual and olfactory senses as I wandered around.

There were a variety of food stalls, from gelato and high end chocolates to custard tarts, popcorn, meat pies and patisseries. During my time in Hong Kong, I availed myself of the meat pie for 38 HKD or about $5 USD. It didn’t have much filling but it was flaky, almost like a Beef Wellington, and quite tasty. I still fondly remember the meat pies I had in Australia and New Zealand but this had the French influence of much more flaky pastry. I like both versions because, to this carnivore, it was mostly meat and didn’t clutter up the pie with chopped veggies.

There was also a bread shop in the Sogo food hall. If you’re ever in Asia or an Asian bakery, always go for the bread. It’s the best. Perhaps rivaled only by the French but bread from Asian bakeries are my favorite. Not too crusty, slightly sweet, nicely soft and chewy. I like bread more than rice so trust me, they make good bread.

Overall, Sogo was a fun place to explore. It was nearly always crowded whenever I went there and it’s an ideal place to grab a quick snack. The heat and humidity outside was still doing a nice job suppressing my appetite so the individual-size meat pie was perfect as a snack or meal during the few times we weren’t going out to eat.

The Kobe Meat Pie

Hong Kong - Passion by Gerard Dubois

Passion by Gerard Dubois - visited August 28, 2017

If you’ve read the last few posts and noticed the dates, you’re probably thinking “wow, she covered a lot of ground and did nothing but eat that first full day in Hong Kong.” You’d be sort of right. I had a list of bakeries I had looked into before even landing in Asia and had really only hit 1 (Jenny Bakery). The ongoing downpour prevented me from being as mobile as I would like not to mention Sandra and I kept getting lost.

Case in point, after we left Din Tai Fung, I had mapped the closest bakery which was Passion by Gerard Dubois, which, as you can guess from the name, was a French patisserie. It was really close to Din Tai Fung, according to google maps. We kept walking around, circling and circling, to where we thought it would be, based on the directions but it kept eluding us. We stumbled upon Lee Garden One and Two and I snapped a couple of amusing pictures of the wall art. 

Wall art at the basement level at Lee Garden

We finally had to break down and ask someone (fortunately, Sandra speaks Cantonese so she did the asking and interpreting) only to discover we really were just right there but missed a turn here and there. Still, we finally made it. I’m not sure what I expected but Passion is akin to the high end bakeries back home like Alexander’s Patisserie, JeanPhilippe or La Panotiq. Lots of beautifully presented desserts that honestly look too good to eat. Having gone to culinary school for Baking & Pastry Arts and affirming I don’t have that artistic soul that comes out in plating beautiful desserts, nevertheless, I’ve learned to have an appreciation not only for the precision work required to plate edible gorgeousness but the artistic vision to create “the look” in the first place.

At that point, I was full of dim sum and still had the egg white coconut tart from Hei Lee Bakery awaiting me so I only went with one dessert; that was the salted caramel mille-feuille or as it’s more commonly known if you don’t want to sound snobby, a Napoleon. Layers of flaky pastry sandwiching vanilla and salted caramel pastry cream. I’ve made mille-feuilles once, also back in culinary school, when I had access to lots of butter and a sheeter. They’re much easier to buy than bake and the results are probably better since French pastries are not my strength. Not to mention, I enjoy eating them more when I don’t have to think about how much butter went into producing such flaky layers.

One thing I had discovered by that point: Hong Kong doesn’t do Diet Coke or, as it’s more commonly known in Asia and Europe: Coke Light. Earlier that day, we had searched various 7-11s and mini-marts only to find they had either fully leaded Coke or Coke Zero. I don’t do regular Coke and I only drink Coke Zero as a last resort. So I was pleased to hear the person in front of me order a Coke Light and I added a couple of cans to my mille-feuille order as well. One to consume now to stave off a caffeine withdrawal headache and one for later since I don’t know when I would find Coke Light again.

The rest of the day didn’t go quite as planned. I had thought to withstand the ongoing rain again, go explore some more and meet up with a couple of other coworkers for dinner. Instead, I ended up with a headache of near-migraine proportions (jet lag?), canceled on the dinner and slept the rest of the afternoon and evening, waking up at 11 pm, well past the dinner hour.

So my mille-feuille became a midnight snack. It was pretty tasty and the layers were perfectly flaky (butter!). The vanilla pastry cream was good but I thought the salted caramel was a bit bitter, more like dulce de leche than sweet caramel with a salty bite. For the record, salted caramel or plain caramel is not the same as dulce de leche. The mille-feuille was still pretty though and made for a tasty, if unorthodox, first “dinner” in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong - Din Tai Fung (dim sum)

Din Tai Fung - lunch on August 28, 2017

Din Tai Fung is a famous dim sum place that has locations worldwide. Much as I like dim sum, I have to admit I’d never heard of it until they opened a location near me. There was so much hype before, during and after the opening that I never went to that location. I heard tales of 90-minute+ wait times and “it’s not as good as the one in Southern California”, two things that don’t make intuitive sense to me unless people who were willing to wait that long for dim sum had never tried the So Cal location or didn’t care. 

While I like dim sum as much as the next person, I could not see myself waiting that long for a table, no matter how good the dim sum is reputed to be. I told myself I would wait until it had been open longer and the hype had died down but that was well over a year ago and I was still hearing about long wait times so I never made it over there. So I took advantage of being in Hong Kong and having a Din Tai Fung within walking distance of our hotel to go try it.

After Sandra and I did our bakery trek, we both needed to change into dry clothes back at the hotel (seriously, Mother Nature’s shower did us in) but at least we were comfortable again on our way to lunch. We got there around 1 pm and I was pleased to see there were no lines and no waiting. The hostess seated us right away, taking us past the glass-enclosed cubby where their workers were expertly making dim sum. I wanted to gawk but by then I was actually hungry.

I was used to thinking of dim sum being served in carts being pushed around the restaurant and you flag the server who might have the dishes you want. Uh, no, not at Din Tai Fung. It was a notch above the dim sum cart scene in that you had a picture menu at the table that showed their offerings and you checked off the items you wanted on a separate, disposable, printed menu.

Steamed Pork Bun

My plain eating ways led me to the typical dim sum fare: siu mai (steamed pork dumplings), har gow (steamed shrimp dumplings) and a steamed pork bun Sandra and I split. Sandra was a more experienced dim sum and Din Tai Fung eater so she knew to look for the dishes that were available in Hong Kong but might not be the same at other Din Tai Fung locations. I had nothing to compare the Hong Kong location with so I was happy to go along. We also ordered pork fried rice (such an innocuous name for seriously good pork) and a gyoza-like dim sum that was, as she put in, “in a different form factor”.

Har Gow

I’ll say here and now that everything was pretty good. They served the dim sum one dish at a time so that you could eat it at its peak warmth and freshness. The dumpling wraps were not too thick but thin, the filling inside of each was ridiculously juicy and tasty and that was an amazing steamed pork bun. Normally I prefer baked pork buns as I like the bread baked more than steamed but since the steamed bun wasn’t too thick (and hence not too filling), it was delicious and hit just the right note. Plus the filling was perfect.

Siu Mai

My favorites were the shrimp dumplings. Not only were they cute and aesthetically pleasing with the “loot bag” look (I don’t know how else to describe it) and the whole shrimp on top, but the dumpling wrap and pork-and-shrimp filling were so good. 

Pork Fried Rice

Probably the only one I was less enthused about was the gyoza-like dumplings in their different form factor. I liked the form factor and the crispness of the wrapper but the filling had too much chive flavor for my taste. It wasn’t bad but as I was getting full, I’d rather expend the remaining room in my waistband for the other dishes.

I have no idea how the Hong Kong Din Tai Fung stacks up against its sister locations but from my one experience, it gets multiple thumbs up from me. I still don’t think I’d wait 90 minutes or more for it if I had to but it’s seriously good dim sum nonetheless.