Super-cheap Sunday breakfast

Early on a Sunday morning there isn’t much available. Even Sha Tin boasts the 2nd largest mall in Hong Kong, most of the shops and dinig are closed. We stumbled into a modern diner chain called Fairwood featuring a strange breakfast fusion of food combos like macaroni noodles with grilled got dogs or vermicelli with fried eggs and toast.


I went with what turned out to be essentially steak and eggs. Black Pepper beef, 2 fried eggs and a thick piece of toast. The beef was tender and the black pepper sauce had the perfect level of spice. The eggs were simple but perfect temperature. Also came with coffee which had milk and cocoa added already. Delicious!


Pearl desperately wanted congee, the rice porridge she is so fond of complete with her favorite 1000 year egg and minced pork. It was part of a meal as well, with fried daikon cakes and coffee as well.

  1. Both meals were pretty good, and the pest part? The entire meal was 52.5 Hong Kong dollars – that’s only US $6.75 total!!

Comfort Food

A dreary, chilly November morning in Hong Kong. After a 16 hour flight and only 45 minutes of nap on a hotel bed, what I really need is comfort food. Just as I’m about to jump in the shower, my mother in law enters the room with several steaming bowls of congee.

Congee with Beef Meatballs
Congee with Beef Meatballs

Congee is the ultimate in comfort cuisine. A simple rice porridge, it takes on the flavors of whatever is added. It’s a truly heartwarming dish that sticks to your bones. In this case, it had beef meatballs along with the traditional scallions and white pepper. But what truly set it apart from anything I’ve had in the states was the ginger slivers. This added a wonderful flavor to the dish that helped me wake up feeling refreshed. Needless to say, I gobbled it all down.