Hong Kong musing

Hong Kong is known for its sea food. A vegetarian sure has a tough time out there.

You do get vegetarian food if you know where to search. But for a south Indian chap like me, it seems a bit incomplete. I once ordered Spicy mushroom and exotic vegetables in noodle soup. What I got was broth with noodles floating in it and a luxurious serving of steamed vegetables and sauteed mushrooms to go with it. I also got a rice bowl with this. Now I am used to drinking soup, munching veggies and having my rice with gravy. But I had never had all of these served together as a whole ever before! (It tasted good though mind you, I had my rice with lots of sauce).

The other time I ordered a veggie burger and was given a hamburger with lots of veggies stuffed between the buns. Then there was this occasion where I ordered a veggie pasta with fettuccine only to find it served with pork. Some of my friends couldn't quite comprehend what that piece of beef was doing messing around with their veggie sandwiches. Coming to the non vegetarian options, you get anything from squids to Ox's tongue to Shark's fin to other what nots!

Then there are the chopsticks - some people fail to understand that not all of us are experts at handling that simple-looking-yet-tough-to-handle tool. Plus the fact that almost no Chinese guy uses a fork while eating made it really tough for me, when I once had to draw a fork on paper to tell the waiter what I needed (I tried writing F-O-R-K first, but that was of no use at all). And there seems to be severe water shortage in the country, as I didn't find a single wash basin in all of the restaurants and canteens that I visited there, and very few water fountains in the eateries. Seems you have to strictly drink your soup while eating your food. No water allowed.

But one thing that struck me - a whole week spent there, yet I didn't see one fat Chinese guy! And all those I met (I met a lot of them folks in their homeland) looked much younger than they actually are! Turns out that most of their food is either boiled or steamed, and with very little to no saturated fats - as healthy as it can get! I respect their food now, although I was never quite able to come to terms with actually eating it - squids, ox tongue, Shark's fin for God's sake!

Hong Kong is known for its sea food. On most occasions though, I had to be content with a see food diet.