A Perfect Combination: Chocolate Julep Pie

Chocolate is popular in desserts everywhere, and I have always been particularly fond of chocolate based pies. The Elsen sisters have several types of chocolate pies in The Four and Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book. One that caught my attention was The "Chocolate Julep Pie". I appreciate the combination of chocolate and peppermint, so I wanted to give this recipe a try.

This recipe calls for bittersweet chocolate, eggs, milk, and cream for the custard-like filling. In addition, bourbon, peppermint extract, and bitters are the flavors that make this pie unique. The filling is poured into a regular partially pre-baked butter crust, and baked for 35 minutes. The result was a pie with a rich, dark chocolate flavor and a smooth as silk texture. The bourbon and peppermint were the right balance so that the peppermint did not overpower the chocolate, as I have noticed in other mint/chocolate combinations. The final touch was a dollop of fresh whipped cream.

The "Chocolate Julep Pie" will definitely be made again, as I was surprised pleasantly by the flavor mix. Another plus to this pie is that it is an easy one compared to other pies in the book. Considering that I still have 28 more pies to make from this pie book before I complete my goal to make all of them, that is a good thing!

The Food Scene in Hong Kong

Being a traveler in Hong Kong means having unforgettable experiences on a daily basis. And if one is a "foodie", then this city is certainly a bucket list destination. We ate all kinds of dishes, including dim sum, Nepalese, Thai, French, Brazilian, Italian, Korean, Vietnamese, and probably others I cannot remember. And we were lucky enough to be staying near the heart of the Central district, which is known for its restaurants and bars. There were so many options, in fact, that it is difficult to decide my favorites. But I will make an attempt to describe restaurants and food that I will remember fondly.

I have already posted about Mott 32, a great restaurant with a luxurious setting and creative food. Several others stand out, including two Italian restaurants. Pici is an Italian restaurant with an extremely lively atmosphere. This place had a wait both times that we ate there, and it was filled with locals and tourists. Some of our favorite dishes included mussels with pasta and the best lasagna that either of us had ever eaten. In addition to the great food, Pici had taped music which was generally a mix of British and American 70's and 80's music. The music was "comfort music" to me. Another Italian eatery that stood out was called Linguini. This place had a  pleasant outside setting and great cocktails. The pasta dishes were tasty - Rich particularly enjoyed his sausage and orecchiette pasta, and the food was reasonably priced.

Although Italian food in Hong Kong ranked high on our list, we also experienced great meals in  Asian restaurants. Thai food is popular in Hong Kong, and we really liked several places. One was an inexpensive but reliable place simply called "Thai Food". I especially liked the beef curry there. The other Thai place was named Chachawan. This was a Northern Thai place near us that had very different food than we have previously eaten in Thai restaurants. Rich had a delicious baked chicken dish. My favorite there was actually a dessert that was recommended by the guy sitting at the table next to us. It was a dessert with small custard filled doughy buns with a cinnamon/coconut  sauce - very yummy! This place was a very popular spot with locals and tourists.

Another spot that we enjoyed on both this visit and our previous visit is a place interestingly named Ho Lee Fook. This is a fusion Cantonese/Chinese restaurant that was the "in" restaurant 4 years ago and remains so now. It is never quick to get a seat in this place, and they do not allow reservations for two people. So, you go and put your name on the list, grab a drink at a nearby bar, and wait for a text for when your seat is available. Fortunately, Ho Lee Fook has consistently great food and and is a top people watching spot, so it is worth the hassle. We had several delicious dishes, including garlic Asian noodles and goose, the specialty of the house.

We also ate at an amazing variety of less expensive places, as well as enjoying good seafood and desserts. Since there were so many, I have listed some other favorite eating establishments in Hong Kong under different categories:

Best seafood: Grouper for lunch at a place on Lamma Island - This was a delicious surprise for both of us - beautifully prepared in Asian style spices.

For Rich: Mackerel in Kowloon - Rich had a very good piece of mackerel on a trip to the Temple Street Night Market in Kowloon. It was cooked perfectly and very fresh. Unfortunately, I did not get a meal that night except for a little cabbage, beer, and a piece of coconut cake at Starbucks. But I am glad that Rich had a great meal. Next time, I will order the mackerel!

Best breakfast: for me: Oolaa - I loved this place; Rich liked it but was not quite as enthusiastic. This place was very busy, and had a great selection of typical western breakfast egg dishes and pastries. I love the scrambled eggs with asparagus, cheese, and mushrooms, cooked to perfection. And, of course, Earl Grey tea!

Best takeout food:  La Rotisserie - A French takeout food establishment and reasonably priced. We had food here twice, once being for lunch on my birthday - my request. The roasted chicken was to die for, and the potato salad and roasted potatoes are as good as any I have had!

Biggest surprise: Seoul Bros - Korean- This was a great discovery, very close to us. Quick service fast food. We had chicken and fries, as well as chicken wings and a corn dish. The fries were the best I had in Hong Kong. Cheap and good!

To Elaine, Fred, Brenda, Gloria, and any other Chapel Hill grad that was there in the early 70's - this place was as fast as the Carolina Grill!

Best dessert: This is an important category for me, since I make a lot of them. Rich really enjoyed the excellent black forest cake that we got from a bakery on Des Voeux St. I do not remember the name, unfortunately. (This was on my birthday, and since I turned 67, I don't remember much). As for me, I loved the lemon tart from a bakery called Levain, in the PMQ (Police married quarters), not far from our apartment. The lemon tart was simply delicious! This place was the best bakery overall that we experienced, and also had delicious bread. I made numerous trips there just to get bread (yeah, right!)

Honorable mentions: Chocolate lava cake special from Starbucks on Christmas, and the Haagen-Dazs matcha ice cream (stronger flavor than in the USA).

Best Bar: There were certainly many great bars in Hong Kong, particularly in the Central district. But hands down, our favorite place was Globe. I had written about this place on our last visit to Hong Kong. It is an English pub, with what Rich says is the biggest selection of beers that he has ever seen. Although the beers were not necessarily the quality of our Asheville beers, they were still good, and this place is comfortable, friendly, and always crowded with Chinese and English locals as well as tourists. Globe was very close to our place, which also made it very convenient. It was like our little touch of "Cheers"!

Best Cheap Restaurant: There are so many good, reasonably priced places to eat in Hong Kong, that these are just a couple to consider. Rich really enjoyed a place called Bep, a little Vietnamese place, as well as a place called Pho Woo. Pho Woo had plenty of noodle dishes, which Rich lives for, and good Vietnamese fare as well. We came here twice, including our last night in Hong Kong for a quick, great comfort food meal.

My personal favorite was a place where we ate our very first meal in Hong Kong, called Souper Authenic. This place is known for its creative, cheap soups, but there were plenty of other foods to choose from as well. This is a no frills place with quick service and satisfying food. After  25+ hours of traveling and settling in, I wanted something filling and quick. We were actually looking for another place, but happened upon Souper Authenic, which was a 5 minute walk from our house. I ordered the beef noodles, Hong Kong style. They were fresh and delicious, and exactly fit the bill for what I was craving. We went back a second time and talked with the owner about how much we enjoyed the place. He then proceeded to bring us various samples from the menu for us to try. We couldn't believe his kindness, and later realized that this kindness is what we would routinely experience from the people of Hong Kong. But that is a story for another day!

Walnut Pie and Key Lime Pie

It has been a while since I have posted about pies. Part of the reason is that I have been traveling and not making as many pies. Secondly, I started repeating pies from the Four and Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book by the Elsen sisters. Instead of trying a new pie, I couldn't resist making the pies that I had enjoyed the most. But I am now on a mission to make the pies from the Elsens' book that I have not yet tried. This week, I made a walnut pie that is actually the "Black Walnut Pie" from the book. I was unable to acquire black walnuts, so just used regular walnuts with the rest of the recipe ingredients.

The crust of this pie is made in a springform pan, making it more of a tart than a regular pie. The crust is a cornmeal crust that is partially pre-baked. The filling consists of the walnuts, butter, sugar, cinnamon, ground ginger, salt, cornmeal and eggs. This is combined with an apple cider caramel sauce that is prepared first, and then cooled. The pie was delicious, with the apple cider being a good match for the walnuts. The cornmeal crust made the perfect tart. This pie disappeared very fast, so I think I will be making it again!

As it turns out, I needed to take a dessert several days later to a social event. I wanted to make a pie that most people would enjoy, but that would be fairly easy to make. Key lime pies have always been popular in Florida, so I decided to make one similar to a recipe that I had used previously.  This recipe had egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk, cream, lime zest, and, of course, key lime juice. 

I try to use juice from fresh key limes when they are available, but this time I used a store bought key lime juice. The filling was poured into a graham cracker crust, which I bought prepared to save time.

After baking, I topped with homemade whipped cream (heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla whipped together). This key lime pie had a light, fluffy consistency, and a not too tart key lime flavor. The reviews of the pie were positive, so I will make this one again as well, as it was tasty but not time consuming.

Hopefully, this is the start of another year of pie making and blogging about new pies. Can't wait to try the next one, but will certainly have to keep up with my exercising!

Dancing Til you Drop in Hong Kong

When my husband and I travel, we always find a dance club.  Dancing is one of our favorite activities, and we have found that dancing, particularly Latin dancing, is universal. On our last visit to  Hong Kong 4 years ago, we danced at a nice salsa club that is no longer there. This trip we danced at 3 different Latin clubs, 2 swing dancing venues, and one late night club. The popularity of dancing in Hong Kong now is phenomenal!

The Latin clubs where we enjoyed dancing were Picada, Rula Bula, and Mazu. These were located near our neighborhood in the Central district of Hong Kong Island. We walked to all of these. The most crowded of the three was Mazu, which was literally packed with people. This fact made it sometimes challenging to dance, but it was fun to be a part of the energy of this place. Picada was definitely calmer, with a nice dance floor, but got started a tad later. Rula Bula was, in my opinion, a nice balance between the other two, with plenty of good dancers but not overly crowded. I would recommend all three of these spots for anyone who loves Latin dancing.

Lan Kwai Fong Street, better known as the “LKF”, is definitely “party central” in Hong Kong. Filled with bars, night clubs, and late night restaurants, this is also a good area to find a late night dance spot. We went to a place there, appropriately called Insomnia, twice during our stay, including a visit on Christmas night. Rich and I enjoyed dancing to pop hits played by the talented house band. I loved dancing the cha cha to MJ’s “Billie Jean”. But perhaps my favorite memory will be dancing with a local Chinese woman while we both sang to Katy Perry’s “Roar”

I must say that the biggest surprise regarding dancing in Hong Kong was the swing dancing scene. Rich found 2 places to do swing dancing: Steam and Grappa’s. These places were a longer walk from our place, or a short taxi ride. Grappa’s was a busy club with enthusiastic dancers who took lessons before the main dancing started. We enjoyed the swing music played, and danced to a lot of jitterbugs. At one point, we all switched partners and danced with different partners, which was fun. Steam was also a great place for swing dancing, and we did quite a few lindy hops. This was also a particularly friendly place. Most of the dancers at this club were young, and they were surprisingly friendly to us older folks. So friendly, in fact, that one young local woman ran toward Rich as we were leaving the club, saying “I wanted to dance with you”! Oh, well - I’ll always have Hanoi.

What To Bring to Hong Kong

Packing for an overseas trip is always a daunting task, but is especially tricky when you are spending an entire month or more away from home. Although I had been to Hong Kong several times, this is the longest time I have spent, and I realized when packing to come here that I needed to make some tough decisions about what to bring. Now that I will be leaving here for home in a few days, I thought I could share information about what I am very glad I brought, what I wish I hadn’t brought, and what I wish I had brought more of.  This information may be geared more to women, but I will share a few ideas from my husband as well.

1. Bring a lot of underwear and socks. No one wants to be doing laundry constantly, so have enough for 2 weeks. Undergarments and socks do not take up that much suitcase room, so this is easy. I did well on this, but Rich wished he had brought more socks.

2. Bring comfortable walking pants, like hiking pants. I brought 2 pairs but should have brought a third. I felt that I would need dressier items, particularly at night. Actually, Hong Kong residents are mostly very casual, and comfort seems to be a priority, So pack the clothes that make for easy walking up and down the many Hong Kong hills and steps.

3.Bring your most comfortable pair of walking shoes; you will be wearing these for most of your stay. Women and men here wear their sneakers almost everywhere, Again, with the numerous steps and hills here, it makes sense. Women wear sneakers even with their nice dresses. I wish I had left 2 pairs of my boots at home, particularly the ones with 2 inch heels. Bring sneakers and one nice pair of shoes for nighttime when you are taking a taxi to the restaurant.

4. Bring one pair of  jeans, one skirt, and one nice dress. And bring your fave tops to wear with these at night. If you need an extra pair of jeans when here, you can buy at Zara Dept. store here at a reasonable price.

5. Bring one scarf. Additional scarves can be bought here for 6-10 American dollars.

6. Bring a large purse for daytime and a small purse for evening. Trust me when I say that Hong Kong is very safe, and you don’t need to worry constantly about pickpockets or purse snatchers.

7. Bring at least one wash cloth from home. I remembered from my last Asian trip that these are not always provided, even at hotels. Rich had forgotten this, and we did end up buying a few extras.

8. Ladies, bring a flat iron, or hairdryer, or whatever is your favortite hair tool. Make sure your tool converts to 250 watts,

9. Bring one fave jacket, but buy one in Hong Kong as well. Some of my best jackets and coats have come from here. Clothing prices in Hong Kong are generally reasonable.  But you will probably need to go up a size - clothing tends to run small here.

10. My clothing items I could not have done without: hoodie, my red light rain jacket, scarf, hiking pants, sneakers.

Hope these help you in packing for your trip to Hong Kong. Hope I have enough room in my suitcase for my purchases here! (Another thing to consider).