OK. Let's discuss Honkers now that we're not intoxicated. But I reiterate - all you can drink! With delicious wine! Hurrah!
We flew in on Thursday as the sun was setting. I loved the clouds because for the first time in what felt like an eternity they didn't hold rain.
Ah, a scene from all you can drink session. This was after I dropped my champers glass. Classy. But that's what they get when they go offering such deals.
One of the things we were very excited about in Honkers is, yup you guessed it, the eats. A few months ago a dim sum restaurant here, Tim Ho Wan, became the world's cheapest Michelin starred restaurant. I studiously wrote the details down in the Lonely Planet and we decided to head there to check it out on our last full day in Hong Kong.
I'd read that you could expect a two hour wait. True story. We pushed through the crowds, got a number and did a bit of shopping to get our appetites up before we were due to eat. Order forms had to be filled out prior to going in (we didn't lack for time to make up our minds).
The restaurant was tiny and there was lots of pushing and shoving as people were very keen to be eating there.
I sure was.
The dim sum arrived - we ordered a bunch of things. Everyone who was in the restaurant smiled at each other as we ate, like we were all in on a (poorly kept) secret. It was great.
Mmm dumplings (annoyingly peanut filled dumplings so Tim got to eat them all).
A rare photo of an empty table.
We finished with a black truffle milk pudding. It was heaven.
And our meal cost us under 20 Aussie dollars. Heaven indeed.
We spent the afternoon wandering around, doing more shopping (and now we have to buy another case to fit everything in. And I thought we weren't particularly keen consumers. Ha!) and almost got ourselves nicely scammed.
We were accosted at the markets by an English guy who asked us to do a survey. I always love telling people my opinion, so after confirming we weren't being sold anything we gave it a go. As a thank you, the dude had some scratch and win cards and surprise surprise, we won. According to Mr Rip Off Merchant, only 6 people can win each month - we were uber lucky and our prize was either a laptop, $1000 US or something else made up. We were sceptical, and said we'd take our card and go to back to our hotel prior to claiming it. Mr ROM was having none of this - 'the office closes in 45 mins', 'I'll take you in a taxi, it'll be free', 'I have to come with you as I get a bonus for this'. Now, I was really not into this - it sounded super mega dodgy especially as Mr ROM wouldn't let us go ourselves. However, Tim Hotel was curious so in the taxi we got. I-di-ots. During the taxi ride I was thinking that under no circumstances would I be giving any personal information / taking any goods / etc. We got out of the taxi (in an area we knew) and basically took one look at the 'office' and realised what colossal dumb arse idiot jerks we were being, and decided to walk away. Mr ROM got really angry - he started yelling at us, saying we were 'f@cking idiots' for letting the opportunity pass and generally being really horrid which only served to confirm our opinion. We were convinced we'd just escaped from either a theft lair or credit card scam. On our return to the hotel we checked it out, and although it wasn't as dramatic as we thought, it is a known scam for getting tourists into a 'presentation' for a holiday / time share club. According to other tourists who went to it, you sit through several hours worth of pushy presentations to buy into 'Club Absolute', a holiday club. I still can't believe we got into a taxi with a shady English back packer telling us lies. Dumb arses.
As it turns out, though, the scam was kinda on them - we got a free taxi to just around the corner from Tim's tailor where we had to pick up his new clothing - so although we were idiots we ended up getting something out of it!
All this poor decision making and near escape from scamming worked up our appetites, and as it was our last night of holidays (except for the hideous overnight flight we'll be boarding this afternoon) we decided to double up on the Michelin action and eat at a double starred restaurant, conveniently located in our hotel. It is probably a good thing that the holiday is ending, as we are close to becoming Michelin men with all this eatin'.
We started the meal with drunken pigeon. I think I'll miss seeing the head of whatever it is I'm eating at every meal.
Happy last night!
Please note Tim's new tailor-made shirt, couriered by Club Absolute.
Do you notice that Tim is holding on to his wine far more firmly than he is holding on to me?
This was one of the signature dishes of the restaurant.
This was a weird and scary in-between dessert. Evil bunny marshmallows. They will haunt my dreams.
And this was the finale - 'shark fin extravaganza'. The dry ice was more impressive than the actual dessert, which was like an oddly textured jelly. With shark fin in it. And something on the bottom. But the dry ice made for a good show!
Although a bit of an odd day, we had a good old laugh at ourselves over another delicious meal (our last in a while, we are so dieting when we get home) which kinda has been the theme of the holiday.
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