Hong Kong - Food and Shopping » Goldilocks Lifestyle Travel

Some cities you will visit more than once in your lifetime because every time you go, the cities change and they reinvent themselves into something different. Just like Hong Kong, where I have visited a few times. But this time, I went to Hong Kong with my girlfriends, it was sort of a getaway trip for us who have became mothers and wanted to experience to be single ladies again. We chose Hong Kong because this is a place that is easy for us to travel from different locations, it is relatively safe and it is a haven for shopping and food.

When we arrived in Hong Kong, we took a cab from the airport to Wan Chai (in Hong Kong Island) where we stayed. The hotel is Cue Hotel. This hotel is relatively unknown, so when we told the taxi driver of our hotel, he needed to check with his friends where was the hotel location.

Traveling was smooth from airport to city, it took about 25 minutes and cost about HK$300.

Check in was a breeze at Cue Hotel. We were given a room on the 18th floor which could accommodate up to 4 adults. The room has a king size bed and a sofa bed that comes with a pull out bed. The room is huge as compared to other Hong Kong hotel rooms. Just paying HK$1100 (US$140) per night stay, this hotel is considered a steal.

First stop is to get a local SIM card so we can communicate with each other and used the 4G mobile data to look for location of restaurants or shopping malls. We got ourselves the Hong Kong tourist SIM card which is sold at 7 eleven store. There are 2 options, either pay for HK$88 or HK$118 for 5 days usage (4G mobile data of 1.5GB) or 8 days usage (4G mobile data of 5GB).

Next was to get an Octopus card, which store money electronically for the use in transports, convenience stores, fast food eateries, retail shops and more. An adult card costs HK$150 (a HK$50 deposit and HK$100 store value) and any unused balance can be refunded.

So, let the eating and shopping begins. We wanted to try something that we have not tried before. One of the top list to try is roast goose. We had been to Hong Kong a few times but we had never tried this dish before. So we decided to go Yung Kee Restaurant for the famous roast goose. Typically you will see long queue forms outside an eatery if it is good. But we didn’t see any at this restaurant so we thought that we could get a table once we were inside. Big mistake. The ground floor was full of people. So we were ushered to the 2nd floor. It was also packed with lots of people waiting for their queue number. Once we got the queue number, we waited at the seating area near the counter. After 20 minutes wait, we finally got a table on the 3rd floor.

We ordered a half roast goose and dim sum like fried carrot cake and Siew Mai. The roast goose was very delicious. The goose meat texture was harder than duck, but nevertheless it was still very tasty. Other dim sum were also very tasty. We had spent about HK$450 for the food here.

If you are interested to try roast goose, you can go to Yung Kee, following are the details :-

Yung Kee Building, 32-40Wellington Street, Central Hong Kong

Open daily 11am-11.30pm

We wanted to try a local flavour dim sum eatery that the locals enjoy. So a friend recommended this place called Lin Heung Tea House on Wellington Street too.

This tea house has a local feel, the decor is more towards the 80’s set up of a dim sum place, with bird cages filled with fake birds and posters of Chinese calligraphy. It was noisy, with people chatting and clattering of plates and cups.

No queue number for this tea house but you have to find your own seats or table. More often than not, you will have to share table with strangers.

The waiter will set the table for you and take orders for drinks. Then, you can wait for the push carts ladies to get to your table. But the norm there is to get your own dim sum from the push carts ladies. Don’t forget to bring along the dim sum card to record the quantity or type of dim sum you take from the push carts.

Dim sum was average but cheap. Our total bill was about HK$280.

When you eat in Hong Kong, do not miss the Hong Kong Cha Chan Teng for their morning breakfast or tea break. We had tried a few. The usual menu is toast, toast with fillings like luncheon meat, macaroni soup with ham, instant noodles, Po Lo Bao (pineapple bun) and Ying Yong (coffee with tea). These no frills cafe, you have to be quick to order and quick to eat so that the next guests can have their seats. And you will most probably sharing table with strangers.

Another new place we accidentally discovered while we wondering near our hotel was Lee Tung Avenue. Apparently this street was used to be known as Wedding Card Street by the locals. However, it has since been developed into luxury shopping and housing development.

The pedestrian friendly street was lined with trees, retail shops, fashion outlets, gourmet restaurants, cafes, statues and sculptures. The shop buildings were in pastel colours and gave out a sense of European feel because of the buildings with balconies. When walking on the walkway, you would feel you have transformed into another place without leaving Hong Kong. I love it there.

This street is perfect for photo taking.

While shopping in Causeway Bay, I came across this shop called Fat Boy Outlet. It was a shop that sells phone, tablets and computers accessories. It offered HK$100 (US$13) for 2 tablet covers or HK$100 for 3 phone covers, which I think it’s a bargain. So I decided to buy the iPad covers for iPad Air 1 and iPad Mini to replace my currently worn out covers. It was a value for money buy.