I was lying in bed one day browsing one of my friend’s websites whilst desperately hungover. The website / Instagram feed / Facebook page is dedicated to publicising some of the more humorous slogans adorning t-shirts and other assorted clothing worn (many think unintentionally, but I like to think with total self-awareness) by passers by on the streets of Hong Kong. My personal favourite was a dark-blue tabard-type thing (think canteen worker apron at school) being worn by an old Chinese lady. It said simply “IF I WERE A BIRD, I KNOW WHO I’D SHIT ON”. On reflection about 20 minutes later (still horribly hungover, trying desperately to elbow my way through to a 7/11 to buy a bottle of Coke on a crowded street filled with slow walking families in 35 degrees Celsius and 95% humidity) I began to really understand what the old Chinese lady must have felt.
My friend’s website is the sort of thing which makes you chuckle, laugh out loud and occasionally (if you’re really unlucky) do one of those snorting pig-grunt things you do when you find something really funny and can’t control yourself. Like the Tumblr page dedicated to Michael Jordan’s poor fashion choices*, you might stumble across it occasionally and send the link to a friend in the days before your Facebook feed started screaming at you to “TAG YOUR FRIENDS” every 5 seconds and, therefore, taking all of the fun of the chase out of it.
I have the same issue from time to time with restaurants. I miss the chase – the uncertainty – the dubious pleasure of simply casting around trying stuff and occasionally uncovering a golden nugget of Michael Jordan wearing triple denim and a Kangol beret on a golf course.
Although the endless and easily accessible “best of” lists have undeniably improved the quality of my overall eating experiences, they have also taken away some of the joy of finding something that hasn’t been plastered all over the internet first.
As Michael Jordan once said, “I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I cannot accept not trying”, which let’s be honest just about beats the bird shit mantra most of the time. It was this kind of attitude which made him one of the greatest sportsmen ever to have lived. Having read his book, it also meant that, when he failed and someone beat him at Pac Man, his response was to buy his own arcade machine and immerse himself in practice until he could beat the guy to dust. It is also the kind of attitude which means I will travel across untamed jungles in search of great Hainanese chicken rice, which had so far proved elusive prey in Hong Kong.
I have written about Hainanese chicken rice before. It’s essentially a dish of boiled chicken, rice and a few condiments, which I can assure you tastes a hell of a lot better than it sounds. I have high standards for this kind of thing, which meant I was braced for disappointment and (having not properly digested the true meaning of Jordan’s parable) was willing to import a Pac Man machine from the US if that’s what it took to drown my seemingly inevitable post-meal sorrows.
The prospect of Hopa House in Kwun Tong was tantalisingly un-researchable. The place was relatively new, didn’t appear on any of those increasingly outdated “best of” lists and even the usually trusty Open Rice had pretty minimal coverage. Being a freezing cold Sunday night 40 minutes away from home (which, to be frank, is pretty much as far as you ever need to go in Hong Kong unless you want to drown or go to China), the chances of Jordan triple-denim-eque failure were also substantial. I was sceptical. I quickly checked my phone and googled “Pac Man arcade machine for sale Hong Kong”, just in case. My dining companion, who had suggested this endevaour, is usually incredibly reliable for food tips, but I did question her for a moment when she casually dropped in “so how many people do you think are in there?” as we turned the last corner after a long walk to be greeted by metaphorical tumbleweeds.
In case you are interested, the answer to her question was three, but in fairness it quickly filled up with a crowd of eager locals, which either meant we were in for a treat or that we were at the only place which served food within a 15 minute radius of the nearest residential building, which was a distinct possibility.
The menu, which weighed about as much as a small watermelon, is the type of thing which sends shivers down the spine. It veered wildly from here to there, seemingly without direction. One second you were donning cowboy boots and a Stetson by being offered US prime steak and lamb chops, the next you were on a fishing boat in Malaysia with sambal vegetables and pomelo salad and then (hold on!) it was a last-minute trip to Italy for pizza and pasta. Happily, we were there for the chicken rice, so we didn’t have to mess around with deciding how many continents I’d like to cover in my meal.
As it was, the chicken was soft, juicy and delicious, the rice nicely fragranced and the homemade chicken and goji berry soup excellent. It was indeed the best chicken rice I have had in Hong Kong, which I like to think is a reasonable endorsement. We also ordered perfectly serviceable side of boiled vegetables and took up the opportunity afforded by the biblical-size menu to have them smothered in cheese sauce. I slightly hated myself for this, buy hey, I didn’t want the menu typist and the chef’s tardis-style larder to feel underutilised. When in Rome and all that.
The atmosphere – brightly lit, no real charm, but clean and very friendly service - is nothing to speak of, but that wasn’t really the point, as it really shouldn’t be when you are eating good chicken rice. For all its virtues it is not really a tablecloths kind of dish.
So, like Big Mike in tartan dungarees at his daughter’s wedding, this was one of those rare and joyous finds that I am proud to say was uncovered without the aid of the “best of” brigade. Sure, people have been there before. But did they write about it, bombard you with photos and take all the joy out of it in advance? Well, in fairness, they might have done, but I didn’t read them. So there. Anyway, if you like chicken rice and finding new places as much as I do, you should go. And you probably shouldn’t have read this first. Unlucky.
*http://wtfismikewearing.tumblr.com/ in case you are interested.