(Japanese New Year Festival Going on at Times Square)
Now that actual day of Chinese New Year is over, the remaining 2 weeks of New Year celebration is just an excuse for more food. There was a Japanese shogatsu (New Year) Festival going on! Yay more Japanese food for me! Before the 1870's, Japanese New Year was the same as Chinese/Vietnamese/Korean New Year, but after the Meiji Restoration Japan thought they were too cool to be like the rest of us so they changed their New Year to January 1st (I studied Japanese Religious History). I guess Hong Kong's Times Square wanted to include the Japanese New Year too even though their New Year technically passed already.
Here are people at the festival making sanbei cookies. They are basically freshly made cookie treats that have peanuts, almonds, and sweet stuff inside. Who cares what's inside? It's yummy good!
My Black Sesame Obanyaki in a to go bag for later along with a Green Milk Tea!
This is obanyaki aka Imagawayaki. It's history stems all the way from the Edo Period! I'm eating a piece of history! or just something yummy! It's a Japanese dessert made with batter in a special pan. In Hong Kong, you can get it in different flavors other than the typical custard. There's yam, black sesame, red bean with green tea, and custard. My favorite flavor is black sesame. If you are back in L.A., you can go to Little Tokyo in Downtown LA to get them. They only have custard with red bean flavor though. See my past blog here on them.
Since we were in Times Square, the mother & I wanted to stop for some good 'ol Singaporean comfort food. Remember Toast Box from my older post? Well we ordered everything we did last time but also tried a few more new items as well!
Left is a picture of Pandan Toast. It's basically delicious bread smothered in pandan jam with loads of butter! You clog an artery with each bite, but it's well worth it! The right is the eggs that come with any lunch combination you order. I liked how the yolk part was raw and the outside wasn't overdone, but I like to eat my eggs with ketchup and they didn't have any so I didn't really like it. I used Magi sauce & pepper like you are supposed to and I finished both eggs but it just doesn't compare to ketchup in my book. Eggs must be eaten with ketchup. It's just my thing.
If you check out my last post of Toast Box, then you will notice that I order a Iced Horlicks each time I come. It's basically Ovaltine on E (Ecstasy). Just to prove how much chocolate powder they put in this thing I took a picture of my cup after I finished the drink. You can make this at home easily! Just get some ice and throw half a cup of hot chocolate powder and like a tea spoon of water. You're basically drinking chocolate!
Fast forward from lunch to dinner, we tried to add a little Lunar New Year flair to our dinner.
This is turnip cake aka "lo bak go". You can find it at any dim sum place in a silver cart that an old lady pushes around. This is one of those must eats for the new year because of it's meaning. "lo back go" is for 步步高升, a rough translation would be something to the extent of more luck each step of the way.
Here's the delicious Honey Baked Ham my mom brought all the way from the U.S.! I don't like honey or ham, but I will actually eat a few pieces of this. It's delicious. Get the 1/4 lb. It's the perfect size. She also brought an artichoke dip from Omaha Steaks. Unfortunately there is no picture because we ate all of it before I could get my camera out.
I was able to get a picture of this pate from Cova, which is a ridonculously overpriced and overrated restaurant all the movie stars and rich people flock to. Whatever. Seriously it's not bad but they need to get on the level of awesome French/Vietnamese Pate. I mean for real. Get with it! I can pay $8 US for something you probably paid $20 US for. Definitely another one of my pet peeves, people who don't know the greatness of french/vietnamese food. God damn.
And here's how our dinner of day #2 of celebration ended with some nian go. Here's a special one with sesame and coconut flavor. Yum!
Hope you are celebrating Lunar New Years with as much good food as I am. Happy Eatings! By the way, don't the pictures on my new camera look amazing?