Dog Food - musings on beef

We always wonder why we get to eat tiny tidbits of beef and only after torturous demand of doing all these "Hand! Down! Rollover! etc etc". And our daily meal is the from the same bag of processed lamb and rice. It's strange, because beef is mum and dad's favorite and they go through all the trouble to order every thing beefy under the sun, Black Angus, Wagyu from Japan and Australia, grain fed, blah blah blah.

We wouldn't mind a bowl of Gyudon 牛丼 for breakfast once in a while. This beef on rice in a bowl, popularized by Yoshinoya as a fast food all over the world, had its roots as dog's supper. The legend has it that during the Meiji era when Japanese was first introduced to red meat (note during Edo era, eating red meat was banned in Japan), a Japanese man saw a Western woman fed her dogs with leftover beef stew over rice. The Japanese man followed the recipe and started selling the dish. For the full Japanese article on this topic, please refer to http://www.joqr.co.jp/meister/kunimaru/051003.html. In fact Gyudon is aka Kame Chabu, ie dog's dinner, where Kame was from "Come!Come!". Spare a thought for us next time you go to Yoshinoya.

Back to why we don't get beef for our regular meals. Apparently we get sick from allergies from eating beef protein. For similar reasons, chicken is not a good diet for us either. That's why lamb and rice is often recommended to reduce itchy skin.

Pork is no good for us for a different set of reasons. They are difficult to digest and have more chance of harbouring parasites.

But still hope we get a bite next time when they grill the wagyu beef.

Tim Ho Wan 添好運

It has been a while since the last entry we did on our friend Cameron due to a lack of inspirations. The weather certainly doesn't help. Every time we take a walk we end up coming back drenched like a chicken to the slaughter (落湯雞 is a Chinese colloquial saying for drenched or soaked through, which literally means chicken fallen into hot soup. It has its roots in the Ming dynasty, 1368-1644. The closest English idiom is perhaps drowned rat.) After starting out as the driest May for the last 40 years when you could feel the autumn breeze walking at night, it has all gone horribly wrong for us.

Back to the topic of our entry, this is a restaurant that mum read about in the online version of Time Out magazine a few weeks ago. So a rainy Sunday morning sounded like the perfect time to go and try the place out. It turned out the rain helped in the queuing time.

Traffic was light. The journey from Hong Kong island to Wylie Road turning into Waterloo Road was exactly as directed by Google map but then it went all horribly wrong, "No Right Turn" into Dundas Street. Aiyah!! For a free service, it's not bad. Mum and dad finally found the right route in by asking around and parked into a multi-storey carpark in Dundas Street (update - Hang Lung carpark HK$7 per 15mins, not too bad space-wise; there was a Ferrari parked there. It turned out that there's another multi-storey carpark right opposite the restaurant in Paradise Square 百利達廣場.) It was a short walk to the restaurant in Kwong Wa Street and people were already queuing up despite the rain. Mum and dad got ticket number 24 when number 2 was just being seated. There were 20 tables. You can imagine the rest. But the rain seemed to have cut the queue by more than half and they were seated in about 20 minutes. 17 to 22 all went "MIA".

The claim to fame of Tim Ho Wan is it's opened by the former dim sum chef of the only Michelin 3 star restaurant in Hong Kong, Lun King Heen in the Four Seasons Hotel. Whether Lun King Heen is worth all its stars is another issue. But it was definitely worth the wait in the rain. Go there before the quality goes downhill as in the case of most small restaurants in Hong Kong after they opened.

Must try :-
Chicken glutinous rice wrapped in lotus leaf 古法糯米雞 HK$18- the rice is soft and the ingredients are juicy with the faint fragrance of lotus leaf.
Char Siu in crispy bun 脆皮叉燒包 HK$12 - very tasty and crispy top.
Chinese Sponge Cake 馬拉糕 HK$10 - delicious and don't worry about the side effects of eating them.
Fried Turnip Cake 臘味蘿蔔糕 HK$10 - can taste the shredded radish and it was well fried with a crispy skin. A lot of places you get more dough than shredded radish.

Dog Roll and South Stream Seafood

So what's this dog got to do with dog roll and seafood? He is Cameron, the house dog for South Stream Seafood and apparently he is trading toys with dog roll. Seafood and dog roll don't sound like they come together. But in the case of South Stream, they do. In fact, when the delivery man comes to the door, often he has more meat than seafood, because the whole family are carnivores. Yummy!! We don't get dog roll all the time, sometimes we get beef rib bones on, which are good for our teeth. If we are good, we get these perhaps once in a month or two. Meanwhile, this weekend, mum and dad had all their meat and fish for both lunch and dinner from South Stream. When they went to this magnificent house in Barker Rd for a house-warming bbq, the owners got all the meat and fish there. Mum and dad like recommending go places to their friends. Remember to get us some dog roll this coming weekend!!
http://www.south-stream-seafoods.com/store/index.html

Garden Produce

Last night mum and dad got all excited during dinner. You would have thought they just made something special like Kobe Wagyu. It was just a few stalks of beans fried in butter with a bunch of other veg. We have seen those every time we had our exploratory trip around the garden. Just a few sickly looking plant trailing up the trellis and not enough even for us to snack on!! Apparently, they tasted better but we had no way to tell as we were not invited to the tasting. Guess it's all in their minds, seeing the beans from seeds to plant.

If you like organic garden produce, ie not something from huge scale intensive farming that you get in supermarkets, planting your own is not really a solution even if you have some space. Your best bet is to go to the Organic Farmers' Market in Star Ferry on Sunday. Apparently they have one on Wednesday as well, but mum and dad have never been. More on this in a later entry.

Epsom Salt 瀉鹽

First and foremost, Epsom salt is not your everyday seasoning like rock salt, sea salt, table salt, which are all variants of the same thing sodium chloride NaCl. It is the common name of magnesium sulfate. And you won't want to add it to your food like any seasoning, because as the Chinese name suggests, it's a laxative and often use in conjunction with lemon juice as a folk remedy for colonic cleansing. It's also a component of bath salt among some of its other uses.

Magnesium is essential to the formation of the green stuff, chlorophyll, in plants. The photo shows the difference Epsom salt made to our chilli pepper. We use 1tsp of Epsom Salt for 1 to 2 litres of water.

You probably won't find Epsom salt in your average garden centre. Go to your local pharmacy for these. Of course you need the Chinese name, otherwise most local wouldn't have a clue.

Black Kite (麻鷹)

Whenever Hong Kong gets a clear sky, we see many of these flying machines circle over our heads and we never really know what they are called. They are Black Kite, the most common raptor found in Hong Kong and they have adapted well to our city life and thrive by picking up rubbish and dead animals around us. We caught sight of one sunbathing on top of the scaffolding the other morning. Wish we can fly like them, but at least we don't need to pick on rubbish to feed ourselves.

We see birds flying around all the time, but it's not easy to get a clear view of them. And when we do see them, we are too busy chasing after them to take a photo. Like the ones who took our peaches before, they are red-whiskered bulbul(紅耳鵯). It will probably be awhile before we get a photo of those rascals. But you will be the first to know when we do.

Random Walk up Mount Butler

You must be familiar with the government TV advert about how you should be prepared before trekking around country parks in Hong Kong, like tell your friends, bring plenty of water, bring a phone, etc etc. (You know the one where the kid fell down in the middle of some godforsaken place!!) We always thought mum and dad are sensible people and would do the intelligent thing. But how about bringing us for a walk without any of the following: phone, wallet, money, water. Believe it or not, all they had was a lighter, a cigar and newspaper for our poop. But what started out as our usual half hour there-and-back walk turned into 2 and a half hour marathon up and down hill. We started out 4:45pm on Labour day and didn't get home till after 7:15pm. The true meaning of labour. Just as well they took a taxi home from Quarry Bay.......

Take a look at the map and imagine our crazy day. And bear in mind that some of the steps were even higher than our bodies. But it was fun walking up and maybe we can get some pictures taken next time when they are better prepared!


View Random Walk in a larger map

Doggy Desserts and Carob

Buddy had his birthday muffin made for him last year and then mum went to learn baking doggy biscuits in Three Dog Bakery. And then it all stopped. No more home baked stuff after Cadet went to heaven. Sob :(

Last week dad pulled out this book about baking for dogs called Doggy Desserts by Cheryl Gianfrancesco and started flipping through the pages. Next he saw 3 packs of Carob chips that mum got from her colleague from the US still in their original wrappings. Our luck changed.

A day later, they bought some organic wholemeal flour from "Great". Soon after dad messing around with the spatula in the kitchen putting all the below ingredients together, the muffin mix was ready. 25 minutes in the oven and this Banana Carob Chip Muffins came out as if by magic. Mum and dad had a taste of it. Yummy!!

1.75 cups wholemeal flour
0.25 cup honey
0.50 cup carob chips
1.00 egg
0.25 cup veggie oil
0.25 cup milk
1.00 mashed up banana (pick a ripe one)
1.00 tsp baking powder
1.00 tsp baking soda

Our only comment is the muffin taste more like human food than dog food. All good for us. Check out the book for more exciting experiments and lets hope we get more from the home bakery.



NB - Carob is an excellent source of pectin which makes it a good colon cleanser. More on carob in wikipedia.
Also if any of you know where one can buy carob chips in Hong Kong, please let us know.
We will talk about another good colon cleanser, epsom salt in another article.

Bad birdies

Of course this is a different type of birdies that everyone is trying to get in golf. These are the birdies which pecked away our beloved peaches from the 2 small peach trees in our balcony. Mum and dad got them after they saw a similar tree in the flower show last month. And then 2 weeks ago when we went up to the balcony, we smelt the smell of ripen peaches. Surprise, surprise, those fruits are not for us. All we can do was looking up and hoping that we will get given one!!

The birdies which visited the balcony don't need permission, they just flew down and took liberty in feasting themselves to the peaches still hanging on the trees. Mum and dad noticed that one were eaten when they went up last night and now there are 3 more destroyed goods. The birdies did one good thing for us though, they forced an early harvest of all the ripen fruit. We will get to share the spoil.

Mind you if mum and dad are not careful, we might get bad birdies visiting during the day and scary fruit bats swooping in at night. Check out Mount Butler Drive after 9pm, you will find quite a few fruit bats flying around there!!

A great way to bond

Whenever we walk past pet shops and see other mutts being groomed by the pet-shop groomers, we always thought these mutts do not know what they are missing. We just had one of our regular grooming sessions and we are looking smart again. Mum and dad will always take an extra good look at us whenever we get our coat groom, just a great way to bond. You should ask your parents to groom you as well. After all, when you see some of the gremlins which come out from the pet shop after being groomed by "professional", you have only got yourself to blame if you don't ask.

Finally, it's Buddy's turn!!

Another visitor

We are always delighted to see butterflies and we even tried to chase after them. You don't need us to tell you what happen afterward....... There seems to be more butterflies in the garden nowadays and yu won't be surprise when you see this picture. Again, not mum's cup of tea and they destroy her precious plants. The caterpillars always get taken outside to the public park when they are found.

Resident Spider

There are plenty of creepy crawlies living in our area and some decide to settle down in our garden without so much of an invitation. This spider for instance have been sewn its web on our largest tree for the last 2-3 weeks.

Mum is always worry that one day it will crawl out of its web and jump on her while she's on the couch watching TV. Just like all the horror movies she watched!!

NB Water is spray on hoping to get the documentary-like effect, but probably need a longer lens to capture the effect properly.

Animal Interruptions

In Hong Kong, most places have the no dogs allowed sign posted everywhere. So unlike our cousins in say Paris who can go into a department store or a street-side cafe without fear, we can't go anywhere openly. Some other dogs travel around hiding in carrier bags, but we are not a big fan of those bags.

The picture above is from the Reuters news site with the caption below:
http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/rpSlideshows?articleId=USRTXE880#a=10

An umpire orders a dog that disrupted play off the pitch in the opening game of the 2009 Indian Premier League (IPL) Twenty20 cricket tournament between the Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings in Cape Town, South Africa, April 18, 2009.

REUTERS/Mike Hutchings

Whose dog was it? How can it get on the pitch to start with? He doesn't look like a mascot. Perhaps dogs are allowed to watch cricket in South Africa.

Just an aside, IPL is the richest cricket tournament in the world and it's being held in South Africa instead of India because of security reasons.

Dreaming about $$$ - Part2

Little do I know the relevance of this photo in relation to the title and it can be turned into reality. The photo above was from the same series as a blog entry from 2 years ago. "Hedge Hogging" is all about hedge funds, from a unique perspective of a veteran market practitioner in starting a hedge fund. Insights into how hedge funds make money and why some eventually failed. This is a great book to read again given that hedge funds have turned from studs to duds in the 2 years since the photo was taken. Of course, Scottie is still dreaming about money and all the treats in the world that money can buy!!!



More importantly, auntie has been nagging us to put all our favorite books in the blog and have them linked to Amazon. If you find these books interesting, click on the links and eventually buy the book. You can help us realise our dreams of eternal supply of delicious tidbits. Of course, we will do our level best to get mum and dad to put more of these reviews on our blog and keep improving them after they are published. Happy reading and keep dreaming.

16,444,444 Youtube hits and counting

Every morning, our radio get switched on and we get to listen to all sorts of mumbo jumbo blasting through the airwaves by Commercial Radio 2 (CR2). On a Clear Day (在晴朗的一天出發) is our favorite, not that we have any choice in the matter.

This morning we heard this name, Susan Boyle, repeated many times. Once you see the youtube clip below, you will know why. Lets enjoy the music and be absolutely stunned like everybody else the world over.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

What is also interesting is the link below:

http://news.google.com.hk/news/story?q=susan+boyle&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ncl=dfvddUE-MFIZ4rM&hl=en&ei=bvPnSYXvPIaMkAWBseCVBw&sa=X&oi=news_result&ct=more-results&resnum=1

This shows you the surge of worldwide interest in the subject in the last few days, noting that the episode of "Britain got Talent 2009" was broadcast on 11 April 2009.

Move over "Trouble", Obama "Bo" taking over

The most famous dog in the world - this title belongs to "Trouble" who inherited US$12,000,000 after her owner, Leona Helmsley died last year. She's been involved in court battle and death threats since. Poor girl!!

But now, if you take "Trou" out of "Trouble", you get "Bo". The new title owner of the world's most famous dog, the First Dog and yes Obama family dog. As widely reported, he is a Portugese Water dog.

This breed is apparently good for allergic persons as the coat sheds little to no hair and is virtually hypo-allergenic.

Just when you thought 12m is a big number, Bo being the First Dog will have an impact on Obama's decisions on the economy, probably not to the same extent as Nancy Reagan and her astrologer, but just the TARP program alone is worth US$700,000,000,000.

Perhaps Bo will get death threats if the government can't get the economy going again. But meanwhile, lets wish her a peaceful life in the White House.

More Orchids

Another batch of blooms. These orchids are different.

For my fans

You probably wondering why there are no recent photo updates from us. All you see are dad's photos of one thing or another except us. Of course, we have our own way to remind them who are the precious ones. So I, Scottie, decided to go and pee in mum and dad's bathroom, while mum fell asleep and dad was on the computer!!...... So now they know.

And you get a photo of me. But Buddy is too busy watching his goldfish, so no photo for him, only what he's looking at.

Creepy Crawlies and Slimy Creatures

The warmer season is coming back to us again. At night we can see little shadows dotted around the street we walk. Sometimes they are just wilted leaves but often they will jump when we decide to pounce on them. They are the local colonies of frogs which make a huge symphony of noise late into midnight. It's not the famous "ribbit" (US frog's sound) or "croak" (UK frog's sound) but more like "kwaak kwaak" (German frog's sound). Chasing these slimy creatures is our favourite pastimes, probably not mum and dad's cup of tea though. They crawl up on walls, jump around the backyard and last night even jumped into the house!! They come in different colours and sizes. But then we can't tell and don't care what species they are.

Of course, there are plenty others that get mum excited. Some even we can't see properly and especially the beautiful colours.

A few more from the Flower Show 2009

Just got hold of some more photos taken during the Flower Show. One on the right - one of the many bonsais on display during show. On the left are the mascots of the event. When mum and dad went there on the final day, the mascots have already wilted and the weather was overcast. So they had to settle with the pictures taken using auntie's mobile phone. But the quality was surprisingly good!