Hong Kong Eats: Dim Sum Bar Review and Pictures

I'm baaaack with lots of food pictures and foodie recommendations. I'm breaking up my posts so I won't spam you with pictures and texts; each Hong Kong Eats post will be a review on a particular place I've been to. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I have had writing them (and eating all the food).

My first encounter with dim sum in HK happened at Dim Sum Bar. I went to the one located at Gateway Arcade of Harbour City, which is near the Tsim Sha Tsui MTR station. Technically, my uncle drove me there and Lester and I had a nice "family reunion" lunch with his family. If you want to get there, you'll have to enter from the outside, so it can get a tad confusing if you're not familiar with the place.

No. 1 on my list (and collage) to try is the Char Siew Bao 叉烧包 (BBQ pork-filled bun). They do it with a modern twist like Tim Ho Wan; instead of having the bun skin all soft, white and tasteless, this bun is crispy on the outside and a little sweet. I really love how the crispy texture of the outside complements the BBQ pork filling, which is salty and flavourful. Can't ever get sick of this dish!

Picture no. 2 shows (clockwise, from bottom left): Siew Mai 烧卖 (dumpling with shrimp), next up is is the dish I can't remember the name of but has fried skin and some meat inside, Feng Zhao 鳯爪 (chicken feet), Beef balls (not sure of chinese name), and Har Gao 虾饺. The Siew Mai was nothing to shout about; there was a shrimp in it and it was garnished with a wolfberry but that was about it. The fried skin dish was not bad, as were the beef balls, but they weren't particular memorable either. I didn't eat the Feng Zhao because I'm not a big fan of chicken feet, and the Har Gao was pretty good.

The dish in picture no. 3 is Beef Cheung Fun 牛肉腸粉 (steamed rice noodle rolls with beef). It's different from the Chee Cheung Fun that we usually get in Singapore that has shrimps in it. It was an interesting dish, but I think the taste of chives turned me off a little. We also had Lo Mai Gai 糯米鸡 (rice wrapped with lotus leaf with chicken meat) - not pictured here - which was quite nice.

As a whole, the dim sum here isn't too bad, and there's a good variety. The prices were slightly higher than Tim Ho Wan (in HK, that is) but I can't give you the exact prices because my uncle treated us to the meal so I don't know the breakdown. I would go back again to try the other unconventional dim sum dishes like the abalone tart, taro bun, almond bun etc. that Dim Sum Bar has to offer, and the ambience is pretty swanky too, so that's a plus. To "sum" up my experience: Dim Sum Bar offers traditional dim sum with a modern twist!


Let's Break It Down

Food: 3.5/5
Pricing: 3/5
Service: 4.5
Ambience: 4/5
Location: 3/5

Roaming the streets of Hong Kong

I have been such a lazy lump since I came to HK that it's a miracle this post is right here, staring you in the face... But it is! Finally caught a break between eating, shopping and school to edit photos and write this out. I'm currently on a month-long summer school programme at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). It's located in the New Territories and the school itself is in some small backwater area with rocky geography and bendy curves that make riding the internal shuttle bus feel like a rollercoaster experience. The campus is beautifully decked with lush greenery and some water features. It feels like something out of a Chinese painting at times.

We fondly dubbed this the infinity pond, the cousin of MBS' infinity pool. It's a beautiful small pond that's on the way out towards the bus stop. A very scenic and touristy spot for photos - I'm planning on taking some there for a shoot soon.

Essence Trend Edition: Hugs & Kisses

Ready for the newest essence trend edition? Well you better be, because it's all about summer lovin' with hugs and kisses from essence this summer. Here's a short post to share the press release for the Hugs & Kisses trend edition!


July/August 2013 Trend Edition – Hugs & Kisses

The latest Trend Edition for essence cosmetics is in stores now! Fall in love this summer with essence’s Hugs & Kisses, a trend edition that pairs this season’s trendy colours with the magical feeling of falling in love!

In this Trend Edition, essence brings you a lovely mix of fun and bright colours to the deep, intense colours of love. Get a flirty, summer look with Hugs & Kisses eye shadow palette, multicolour blush and glitter eyeliner. Get soft and smooth puckers with the moisturizing lip scrub. Top them with the lip tint to give your lips that lasting hint of colour. Mix up your summer look with the nail twins base and top coats in various colours. Lastly, spritz on some hugs and kisses eau de toilette and you’re all ready for summer lovin’!

HK Updates + My Week on Instagram: 24 June - 7 July 2013

Hi guys! It's been AGES since I last updated as I'm in HK now for a school-based summer programme from 29 June - 7 August (which is coincidentally my birthday!). To be honest I've been quite lazy since coming here. The food's good and I love just hanging out with my friends, so there's not much motivation to plop myself in front of the computer to blog. Coupled with the fact that I'm out most of the day either eating, shopping or in classes, you can probably understand why I just feel like sleeping early at night.

I haven't been updating this space with My Week on Instagram and LOI posts for the past two weeks, but I'm getting back in the groove now. This will be a post on the past two weeks on Instagram and I'll do up an special HK edition of LOI for next Monday. You can also look forward to some travel posts with pictures and all (taken with my SO's awesome DSLR!) and more reviews of stuff. I've had review pictures in my computer for ages and ages so I'd better get down to churning out 'em reviews soon.


25 June 2013

This tree in my neighbourhood was destroyed by the heavy storms and hail that hit the Western part of Singapore. If you hadn't heard already, it hailed 2 weeks ago. That's very surprising because of one thing: Singapore just doesn't get hail. The hail was probably due to the crazy hazy conditions we were experiencing just a couple of weeks ago. Some people theorised that the hail was due to Indonesia's cloud seeding efforts, as the clouds could have be blown over to Singapore. I think that's not very possible as it's too far away for the hail to be carried to Singapore. My theory is that the increase in airborne particles (due to the haze) caused more moisture to coalesce around these particles, but they were pushed upwards due to a lack of clouds (because of the thunderstorms previously) and were cooled until they became hail. Seems to be confirmed by this source.

Crafting with Canon Creative Park

Welcome back to the last post in my series of Crafting with my Canon PIXMA printer! The other two posts can be found here and here.

Today I have 3 crafts to show you, all made using templates on the Canon Creative Park website. I love the variety of paper crafts available there, and the instructions are really clear too. You just have to make sure you're using the right paper (I used Canon MP-101 Matte Photo Paper) and with a scissors, penknife and glue in hand, you're good to go!

I chose to make this wood grain perpetual calendar because I love how classic and timeless it looks. It wasn't tough to make, but you need to be very precise when cutting the lines - I used a penknife!