All About Jay Tong

Collage of Food in Hong Kong

Since quite a few friends have asked me about what food I liked in Hong Kong, I'm putting this post together as an easy reference online.  I've just came back from a trip to Hong Kong last month (Dec '09) and I usually go there at least once a year.  I will come back and update this post every time I come back from a trip there.

The Yelp equivalent in HK: http://www.openrice.com/ (There's an iPhone app with location based features)

Chui Wah (HK style bistro)
http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/sr2.htm?shopid=3839
Must try there: Milk tea, 豬扒包, 奶醬豬仔包

Macau Restaurant (Macau Style Bistro)
http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/sr2.htm?shopid=11664
Must try there: 凍奶茶, 葡撻 (Macau style egg custard), 咖喱牛腩飯

Yee Shun Dairy Company (Milk desserts)
http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/sr2.htm?shopid=11167 
Must try there: 雙皮奶, others: 薑汁燉奶, 蓮子燉鮮奶

發記 Lucky Desserts (Chinese Desserts)
http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/sr2.htm?shopid=11521
Must try: If into Durian, try 榴槤飄香.  If hate Durian, try 楊枝金露, 粟子露加湯丸, 芒果班戟 (mango crepe), 芒果紫糯米

Suzuki Cafe (Tokyo Style Cafe Bistro)
Main website: http://www.suzukicafe.com/
Several locations in HK: 
http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/sr2.htm?shopid=12862
http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/sr2.htm?shopid=18370
http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/sr2.htm?shopid=21064
Must try: 軟殼蟹明太子意粉 (Soft Shell Crab with Crab roe Spaghetti), 鮮奶抹茶 Maccha (Green tea) Latte, 香芒軟殼蟹比薩 (Soft shell crab and mango pizza), most other things are good there too!

Thai Simple Kitchen 泰簡單 (Thai, rooftop restaurant)
http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/sr2.htm?shopid=10381
Must try: 飛天通菜, 炭燒豬頸肉, 串燒沙嗲雞肉, 菠蘿沙飯, 炒貴刁

Sakaegawa Japanese Restaurant (Gourmet Sashimi and Japanese)
http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/sr2.htm?shopid=25617

Fine Dining / Top tables in Hong Kong:
Sevva 
http://www.sevva.hk/
- Kick ass rooftop view of HK island and Kowloon, Jazz band on Friday, Sat nights, 3 different dining halls with different French interior design themes

Aqua Spirit (Bar)
http://www.aqua.com.hk/#/?eng&aqua&concept
3 consecutive floors - Japanese restaurant, Italian and Bar
- Top view of HK island from Tsim Tsai Tsui
- I recommend the bar, enjoy the view without breaking the bank 

Cafe Gray Deluxe 
http://www.upperhouse.com/#/en/Inside_And_Out/Inside/Cafe_Gray/
- Very trendy and hip hotel, awesome view of HK island 

Wasabisabi (Japanese Fine Dining)
http://www.aqua.com.hk/#/?eng&wasabisabi&concept
- Really hip place, creative Japanese dishes won't find elsewhere

SPOON by Alain Ducasse
http://hongkong-ic.dining.intercontinental.com/honic/spoon.html
- Kickass view of Victoria Harbor, best view I think
- Really huge portion of duck foie gras (Steamed)
- Roasted saddle of milk-fed lamb is really good

I posted this using the Square Space iPhone app!

A couple of decades ago (back in the days of CompuServ and AOL), one can only email people using the same email provider. About a decade ago, I could only send SMS (text messages) to people using the same cell phone carrier. Sounds familiar?  Now same story with IM and social networks all over again.

When will these two technologies be mature enough to open up like email and SMS?  What will it take?  Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Live took the first step in adding interoperability with each other. But what about Gtalk, ICQ, AIM, Jabber and facebook? It seems ridiculous to me that after almost 12+ years of having the IM technology around, the users are still segregated into silos.  With conversations like "Are you on AIM? or YM? Oh no, why don't you move to YM, everybody is using it!" I know there are clients (web/desktop based) that can login to all these networks together like Trillian and Adium. But why would it necessary?  Will I need a special cell phone so I can call my friends that are on Verizon, T-mobile and AT&T?  

Same goes for social networks - facebook, myspace, bebo... each network has its own set of "connections", "friends", "contacts", whatever. But none of them can talk to each other. Must of these sites are "members" of the OpenSocial effort, but what does it really mean?  I don't see the same openness like email and SMS on the horizon.  It's great to see that consumer demands it. Like the Palm Pre's feature to sync your contacts with different social networks, rumors that Apple might potentially do it.  But none of them is complete.  There's always some friends who are orphaned in some less popular networks, but they do have a purpose to be on those network. (e.g. YouTube, vimeo, Yelp, etc)

Hopefully this will all come together soon, otherwise it's really hard for the masses to adopt to these new technologies.  It's a cost to the society too.  What do you think?  Any ideas?  

Snake eyes (Cool character that I like from the movie)Finally I get to see the movie and here are my thoughts:

Liked:
Sienna Miller's (Ana's) sunglasses, the sound tracks, the love connection between Ana and Duke, the first 15 mins of the movie

Didn't like:

Korean guy pretending to be Japanese (Byung-hun Lee), mediocre technologies that the Joes had, clumsy "accelerator suits", the ending (not going to spoil it here)

Still like this 2x more than Transformers 2 though, at least the plot is reasonably engaging. But I have doubts about GI Joe 2.