I’ll skip the family-only dinner that we had after the wedding. It was fantastic, and very luxurious as it was in a private dining room at the Hong Kong Jockey Club. Unfortunately, I was operating on around 50 hours without sleep at that point, and so wasn’t lucid enough to remember to shoot food pictures. All I got was a picture of something that appears to be either ginger creme brulee, or a personal seafood casserole.
Skip to the next day, after I had a chance to sleep.
After having some pastries for breakfast (more on those later) we took the arial tramway up to the giant Buddha statue, a huge hilltop bronze statue that is even more imposing than the Statue of Liberty. It is associated with the Buddhist monastery next door, which my wife’s uncle (and our gracious host) was apparently the architect for. The monastery has a vegan cafeteria, which we delved into for a fantastic late-morning snack.
Tofu dish 1, a sampling of 3 desert preparations… sorry for the picture quality. All three items are tofu, prepared to a consistency of a thick jello. The dark grey one (my preference) was sesame flavored. The white and orange layered one in the front is mango, and the other one was pineapple I believe.
Tofu dish 2 was incredible. The fermentation process for producing tofu causes a skin to form on the surface, much like cooking milk to a near-boil. This skin is perfectly edible, and is skimmed off for dishes needing tofu with much denser qualities. The result has a texture very similar to cooked chicken thighs: moist and slightly chewy. In this particular dish, the tofu skin was stir-fried with a real sweet-and-sour sauce (not that crap you get at American-Chinese takeout). It was absolutely delicious!
Tofu dish 3 is probably my all-time favorite tofu dish. It’s a very soft and slightly sweet tofu prepared to the consistency of a light custard. It is served cool, with a simple syrup infused with ginger poured over. Delicious, and a great refreshment on a hot day!
