Dragonboat report and Chinatown food
So today was the harshest day by far. I forgot how many 250m or 500m we did, but my technique's bad and it seems that physical coordination is not my strength, and that it's even worse when the instructions are given in English (despite being almost accent-less and practically fluent). Could not follow the rhythm at times, and even if the heart wanted (we had two simulated races against more experienced teams), the body could not follow, and I had to skip a few strokes, paddle with bad technique for the last stretches of the 250 or 500 metres. Painful, and I have hypertrophied biceps now. _O_ (I was told by Alex that shadow boxing, lifting weights with a frontward gesture is good training.)
After the training, our team went for a late-evening munch at Van Roy in Chinatown... which I haven't been to for the past ten years. Teammates were singing praises about the "pork fat" dish that is the pork chop combo (the champions' meal, complete with steamed veggies, mounds of rice, more than enough _deep-fried_ pork chops and a fried egg to finish off what's left of your monthly quota of cholesterol), but while three or four members of the team settled for that, the remaining eight or nine went for ordering our food "Chinese style". And it's obvious that large groups at Chinese restaurants is a ++, b/c it's basically a buffet on a turning table. :D
We had a few non-descript beef stir-fry dishes, tung choi, an eggplant + pork pot that stinked fish sauce (but as anything that stinks, it actually tastes great - see foul-smelling tofu XD), quails prepared in a way I've not thought of before (probably deep-fried, with ginger and scallions. I mean, duh), a plate of various seafood deep-fried salt/pepper and chili/onions, a rice pot with chicken, fish and Chinese mushrooms (tung gu), and to finish it off, a plate of those said bestest deep-fried pork. May've forgot one... Can't tell whether even half of that stuff is proper Chinese food, but eh. So much deep-fried stuff though - it probably cancels all the work-out we've done since the beginning of the season.
Speaking of season (ends), I dialed NHL Mobile on my phone midway through dinner, just to see the Oilers being whipped 5-0 with 5-6 mins left to the game. Gee, with Roloson dead, so are the Oilers. >_>
Ohhhh...Van Roy's pork chop special. It's so bad for you, but I can't help but fall prey to it each time I visit it. I usually order congee with it so I don't feel as bad and it's much lighter than the rice.
It's especially good post-drinking when you most crave greasy, fried food and good for sharing between two people. Then you don't feel as terrible if you ate it all yourself (which I've done on three occasions so far...)
The special used to be even greasier (the rice used to be fried with so much oil) before it went through its renovations and the place even sleazier/crummier with suspect regular clientele.
Yeah, the last time I saw that place was way before the renovations, so I do recall the crumminess, etc. The clientele that night was indeed shady and suspect. ^^;
I hope you do blog about food while in HK!