Hong Kong: March 2019
Morning breakfast with Petula at Open Kitchen at IFC, before she had to run to the airport. Clearly all of my Hong Kong friends are a bunch of jet-setters if we have to settle for (tasty) pastries at the mall instead of a proper Chinese (or English) breakfast because it's so early, nothing else is open!
Formula E Grand Prix filled the afternoon. Qualifying, super pole, the Jaguar I-PACE race, and of course, the race itself. Missing the scream of turbocharged internal combustion engines, instead the air is filled by the whine of straight-cut gears, screech of tires, and crashing bodywork. Add in a wet track from intermittent rain and it was a recipe for a lot of yellow and red flagged laps, as several cars ended up disabled and craned off the course.
A much more intense focus on energy management and fan-voted energy boosts ("fan boost," naturally) further made this a different experience than Formula 1 and their gas-powered brethren. Not to mention, even with the newer, larger 56kWh batteries, the races are also much shorter than traditional Formula 1, at 45 minutes plus one lap. Definitely an experience, even if it is a somewhat different one!
Great job by DS Techcheetah's Jean-Eric Vergne (#25) pulling out the win, with Nissan's Oliver Rowland (#22) not far behind!
The rest of day's fooding included plenty of crap at the race, a plain if pretty decent rib tips burger at The Butcher's Truck, and some superb bamboo noodles at Kwan Kee Bamboo Noodle. It was well worth the haul out to Cheung Sha Wan for the noodles, pork knuckle, and won tons- nom nom nom! I could have skipped whatever seasoning they put on the noodles themselves, will have to keep that in mind for next time.
Almost-final bits of fooding were at Kai Kai Dessert, where the steamed egg and rock sugar was delightfully simple, and turnover is quick. Was able to resist Australia Dairy Company and Hot Star, but finally wrapped things up with some bak kut teh at Toast Box, because why not have second dinner after dessert? Sure, it could have been better, but it was literally feet from the MTR station entrance-- hard to resist temptation combined with location!