ASIANish

Over the weekend, El and I went shopping at the Festival Walk mall in a neighboring city, Kowloon Tong (九龍塘). Festival Walk is one of the few places in Hong Kong where you can go ice skating. It was a short hop from Tsim Sha Tsui, so it only cost $3 HKD ($0.38 USD) on the MTR to get there.

The mall was packed with people, but where in Hong Kong is it not packed? I've been looking for a suit for the past couple of days and haven't had much luck. All the local brands are a really tight fit, and every time I ask for the largest size (jacket 42), it never seems to fit. I know I'm a big guy for an asian, but seriously. Not only was the largest size a 42 slim, they only had it in that size for the most plain style suit you can find. All the other styles had a max size of 40 or some -ish.

We ended up heading over to Mark & Spencer which is a British brand. The store was reminiscent of a very nice Mervyns or Kohl's; very different from the Banana Republic / Gap feel of the local Hong Kong stores like G2000. Needless to say, I found a suit that was comfortable and fit perfectly (I am a size 42 afterall!).

Afterwards, we were feeling a little famished. So we headed over to King's Palace Congee & Noodle bar for some High Tea. Although it's a small place, it had a wide selection of dishes aside from the congee, aka rice porridge, and noodle dishes that the shops name suggests. King's Palace also has rice dishes as well as some small side dishes that you'd normally find only at Dim Sum. In addition, they have some high end ingredients. If you're feeling like abalone, lobster, or other seafood, they've got it all.

Being boring old me, I ordered the "pay-dah-n s-ow yoo-uk joo-ohk", rice porridge with thousand year old egg + lean pork; and El ordered the "ch-ah see-yu fah-n", BBQ pork on rice. Both dishes came out great! For $98 HKD ($12.50 USD) it was a good meal. Granted if you got the same stuff from one of the smaller street shops it would be closer to $8 USD ... I guess you pay a premium for the service, cleanliness, and atmosphere.