I had a good problem, on Belcher's Street in Kennedy Town. There were too many good restaurants. I started taking notes, of places I wanted to try out, and the notes were like this
The top section is bakeries. I actually crossed of Aroma and Maxim's because they're just chains; iBakery is a chain, as well, but it has a social mission that interested but I still didn't wind up going to it, in favor of the many smaller freestanding bakeries and tea restaurants around.
Second section is the restaurants; back to them in a minute.
3rd section is coffee shops. I thought--not crazily--that if I got tired / sad in my little studio, especially at night when I did feel a need not to be cooped up, I could go work in a coffee shop. I did that once in the Pacific Coffee, on a previous trip. But on this trip the scheduling didn't work out, and also the one time that I was maybe going to I checked out the prices at Waffling Beans and literally a single drink was the same price as the excellent meal I'd just had, and I was like "f that s."
Back to the second section: restaurants. There were quite a few! And, also, I didn't have that many spare meals: breakfast wasn't a thing at most of these places, I was on campus for lunch, and I knew that--while I liked the idea of "dinner"--most nights I'd be on campus late with food available, so the idea of my getting back to k-town (a) hungry and (b) not exhausted weren't great.
So I wanted to figure out a way to maximize my restaurant experiencation.
I sent an email to W, J, and B -- three colleagues of mine at Chicago Booth who are party of the permanent staff there, who are either native Hong Kongers or at least speak Cantonese (J moved from elsewhere). The email was a little longer than this, but here's the essential part:
iBakery, aroma, maxim's st. lolan
bird place on block, other bird place
dim sum on block Cheing Heung Yeun + others
You don't have to catch them all :)
Sun Hing
Smithfield (shuts at 8) Kam Fung Cafe 41 Spring Gdn Lane
Waffling Beans (noon - 10pm), (1130 Fri) North St
Butcher & Baker (11pm) Cadogan
Pacific Coffee (10pm) Davis
bird place on block, other bird place
dim sum on block Cheing Heung Yeun + others
You don't have to catch them all :)
Sun Hing
Smithfield (shuts at 8) Kam Fung Cafe 41 Spring Gdn Lane
Waffling Beans (noon - 10pm), (1130 Fri) North St
Butcher & Baker (11pm) Cadogan
Pacific Coffee (10pm) Davis
The top section is bakeries. I actually crossed of Aroma and Maxim's because they're just chains; iBakery is a chain, as well, but it has a social mission that interested but I still didn't wind up going to it, in favor of the many smaller freestanding bakeries and tea restaurants around.
Second section is the restaurants; back to them in a minute.
3rd section is coffee shops. I thought--not crazily--that if I got tired / sad in my little studio, especially at night when I did feel a need not to be cooped up, I could go work in a coffee shop. I did that once in the Pacific Coffee, on a previous trip. But on this trip the scheduling didn't work out, and also the one time that I was maybe going to I checked out the prices at Waffling Beans and literally a single drink was the same price as the excellent meal I'd just had, and I was like "f that s."
Back to the second section: restaurants. There were quite a few! And, also, I didn't have that many spare meals: breakfast wasn't a thing at most of these places, I was on campus for lunch, and I knew that--while I liked the idea of "dinner"--most nights I'd be on campus late with food available, so the idea of my getting back to k-town (a) hungry and (b) not exhausted weren't great.
So I wanted to figure out a way to maximize my restaurant experiencation.
I sent an email to W, J, and B -- three colleagues of mine at Chicago Booth who are party of the permanent staff there, who are either native Hong Kongers or at least speak Cantonese (J moved from elsewhere). The email was a little longer than this, but here's the essential part:
a little card that says, in Cantonese, something like this. This is NOT exactly what it should say, but these are the ideas:
Hello! I'd like to order just one dish: your house specialty, your very best dish. A small dish is fine! No beef or pork, please, but beyond that I'll eat anything--please don't serve me anything touristy, the more surprising the better. Thank you very much!
The idea is that I can then take this card and go into each of these many restaurants, and maybe try 2 or even 3 a night (depending on how big this "best dish" is).
I'd spoken to all 3 of these colleague-friends about my restaurant explorations, and they all thought it was some mix of funny/strange/interesting, so I felt okay asking them to create this "little card" for me.
And they delivered! I got back a note, apparently a collaborative effort between the three of them. Here it is:
Now hahaha yeah yeah I have no idea what this says, but I totally trusted (still trust) W, B, and J's intentions and abilities. interesting note: J told me, later, that they'd added a specific request for no organ meats. I found this a little revealing re: the perception of standard preferences of white people in dining, given that I'd tried to say in my original note "give me the weird stuff." BUT it's possible that I'm applying my experience at restaurants (waiters, over and over, checking that I in fact want the thing I just knowingly ordered) to W, B, and J inaccurately, and that they were in fact just out ahead of me -- because, as J pointed out (when I said that I love organ meats), almost all organ meats would be from cattle or pigs, and so it might be a good idea to point out that I meant the organs as well as the meat-meat (she didn't say that last part; I'm extrapolating it as a possible explanation for why/how they were ahead of me).
So they made me this awesome note that said...the stuff, hopefully. And I printed out two copies, and carried them with me, psyched to put them to use.
To...be...continued......
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