This entry will change over the next few days as I get the time to update it. I did a poor job of keeping track of the various foods and meals we had in Japan, Hong Kong and China, so I'm going to have to do my best job of remembering everything now.
Tokyo
Day 1 (Monday) Dinner first night at a Chinese place in Roppongi Hills shopping mall. Have no idea what it was called, but had a fantastic Szechuan style tofu dish – came out bubbling hot in a clay dish.
Spent day 2 (Tuesday) wandering around the Imperial Gardens (east side) and then took a walk over to Ginza, stopping at the currency museum in the financial district. Stopped in at some type of German beer house in Ginza and wandered around the amazing food floor in one of the larger department stores in the Ginza district. Not a lot of street food in Tokyo, and had to work hard to resist the urge to chow down on the food in the department store. It was like a combination between Eatzi's and a farmers market.
Day 2 Dinner second night at a restaurant near the Tokyo Hard Rock cafe, again, don't know the name but it was a cool place, kind of like a hibachi restaurant combined with that BBQ place I went to in KC with Lennox where the staff yells everything you order.
Hong Kong
Day 3 (Wednesday) Bren and I had a 'Teriyaki McBurger' at the Tokyo airport. Quite yummy. The value meals in Japan come with green tea or iced coffee – I got the latter.
Dinner first night was on the plane. Had a bit of Hoegaarden in the hotel bar with Dave and Aileen once we arrived at the Marco Polo.
Day 4 (Thursday) lunch at a huge floating restaurant called the 'JUMBO', had ridiculous amounts of Dim Sum, took photos on the fake throne in the restaurant.
Dinner at a great restaurant recommended to David Gerla (Hotel made reservation for us under the name 'Mr. Gerald' – a good story that needs telling here). The name of the place was 'Spring Deer', and it was our first Peking Duck of the trip. Dave, Aileen, Jaime and I did a mini pub crawl back to the hotel, starting at a bar called 'Boozeroo' where they were showing Jackass the movie on a big screen (actually, everyone joined us at this stop). We hit two other places, one a karaoke establishment (we didn't join in because all the songs were in Chinese) where I discovered the secret of getting a nice head on import Guinness – and the second place with wierd drinks – one called a 'Sexy Motherfucker' that was ordered only to get our waitress to pronounce the name ('ahhh, yejh, seecksiemothehfuckuh'). Additionally, Dave ordered a drink on a dare called 'White Snow', but ordered it as 'Yellow Snow' (heh), and Aileen and I dared each other (and of course followed through) on ordering a terrible drink called a 'Scotch Mint' that was made of Scotch, Kahlua and fresh mint. It was as bad as it sounded.
Day 5 (Friday) went to Lan Tau island, home of Hong Kong airport and the 'big buddha'. While waiting for our bus chilled out at a little dockside English style pub called 'China Bear' which had all kinds of alcoholic smoothies as well as some Filipino beers.
Day 6 (Saturday) First dinner at Evergreen – welcome banquet. Peking duck, big gate crab, AWESOME sea bass, BBQ buns (a chinese food I didn't know existed but am in love with) as well as other Dim Sum.
Day 7 (Sunday) Breakfast at Evergreen included all kinds of familiars – bacon (which was super tasty), cereal and yogurt. We ended up getting this delivered to the villa each morning rather then walking down to the restaurant.
Lunch included our first taste of pickled chicken feet ('chicken claw') which was, well, strange, as well as this super great fried shrimp dish – shrimp heads and tails deep fried and spiced. Dinner was at 'Splendid China' amusement park, and highlight was the sea bass wrapped in banana leaf.
Day 8 (Monday) – Chillout day and shopping – dinner at restaurant, cooking demo
Day 9 (Tuesday) – Guangzhou and circus
Day 4 (Wednesday) – Macau and hotpot at a restaurant called (according to the English on the staff nametags) 'Little Sheep Chaffy Dish'. Chinglan said that the name of the place was actually 'Little Sheep', and that it was a chain with a location in Los Angeles. This is where I ate the citrus/novocaine balls with my beef.
Day 5 (Thursday) – travel
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