Sunday, December 4, 2011

The best Hong Kong dim sum

A Hong Kong dim sum restaurant session once upon a time was about tea appreciation. The baskets of delicate dumplings were a foil for the fragrant drink and considered snacks rather than a full meal.

These days, dim sum itself is a protagonist on the culinary stage. The diversity and sheer number of Hong Kong dim sum restaurants is stunning.

Noisy Cantonese joints where people eat with such determination there's a slight madness in the air; gilded, hushed dining rooms where waiters anticipate your every move; tranquil oases hidden on a mountaintop ... we've got it all here in Hong Kong.

We've picked our favorite Hong Kong dim sum restaurants to make it easy for the food-in-steam-basket fanatics. As we say in Hong Kong, please enjoy!

We've come up with 13 Hong Kong dim sum recommendations and so divided them into 3-4 per page. We've stuck a condensed version of the complete list plus addresses on the last page.

Aiya! Did we miss out your favorite Hong Kong dim sum restaurant ? Let us know which one, and why you love it so much in the comments box below.

Best after hours: San Hing (新興食家)

Celeb-worthy lau sa bao from San Hing.

A mix of elderly folk, celebrities and drunk people on a last stop before home share tables at San Hing for a Hong Kong dim sum fix at dawn.

Located in Kennedy Town, San Hing technically opens at 3 a.m., though customers will arrive earlier to secure seats. Especially on weekends, the shop is a madhouse in the wee hours.

Staff frantically churn out a wide selection of dim sum, stacked into giant bamboo towers. Customers are perpetually hovering around the food arrival counter, while an unending stream of new customers mill about looking to snatch seats.

Photographs on the wall show Canto-pop star Eason Chan giving props to San Hing's lau sa bao -- signature yellow custard "quicksand buns."

Other San Hing specialities include quail's egg siu mai, deep-fried milk and various seasonal dishes often not listed on the menu, such as osmanthus jelly during the summer.

The cost is a bargain, with dim sum dishes ranging in price from HK$12-$17.

San Hing has been around Kennedy Town for more than 20 years, though it moved to its current location a few years ago.

San Hing 新興食家, 10 Hau Wo St., Kennedy Town, +852 2816 0616. Open daily, 3 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Also on CNNGo: 12 things about tea your dim sum restaurateur won't tell you

Best VIP treatment: Fook Lam Moon

A very literal lau sa bao.

The first thing we encountered at Fook Lam Moon was a Rolls-Royce Phantom pulling up at the main entrance, casually letting out a rotund, weary-looking man and his two hungry, young offspring who bounced noisily to the door of the Hong Kong dim sum restaurant as though they were visiting grandma's house.

It isn't called the "canteen of the wealthy" for nothing.

Even though the joint is frequented by the rich and famous, anyone can rock up to Fook Lam Moon and feel like a billionaire.

The service is six-star-hotel-perfect without the robotic-ness. They don't overservice because, you know, celebrities just want to be left alone.

But staff have real charm that they turn on for every customer that walks through their doors. Not just wealthy regulars.

Compared with San Hing above, if you're willing to pay HK$60 for a basket of siu mai, you may as well be regarded as a high-roller.

Yes, it's expensive, but each dim sum gave our tastebuds an education.

Har gau are succulent and juicy, almost to the point of being soupy; their skins perfectly translucent. A signature shrimp cheung fun has a layer of crisp bean curd sheet to add another dimension of texture to an old standby.

The lau sa bao surpassed our favorites at San Hing. The bread casing was barely a centimeter thick and the custard filling would spill out in an appropriate visual expression of its name "quicksand bun."

Fook Lam Moon, 35-45 Johnston Rd., Wanchai, +852 2866 0663, www.fooklammoon-grp.com. Open daily, 11:30 a.m. - 3 p.m., 6 - 11 p.m.

Best rural experience: Choi Lung Restaurant (彩龍茶樓)

Shek Wai Ling (top right) says her customers travel more than an hour to eat dim sum at Choi Lung.

Choi Lung Restaurant is a three-story family-run teahouse on the waist of Hong Kong's highest peak, Tai Mo Shan. It is a great place to recharge after a hike.

Go early to secure the freshest Hong Kong dim sum experience in this self-service teahouse. Diners have to prepare their own tea and rest on simple plastic stools.

Despite the humble set-up, Choi Lung has been running for more than 40 years with a group of dedicated fans.

"People would drive all the way here from Sai Wan for a bowl of black bean ribs with rice. The rice bowls used to be made of porcelain but people kept dropping them so we switched to stainless steel," says waitress Shek Wai Ling.

We recommend the bean curd sheet wraps filled with chicken, taro and fish maw. The taro is cooked just through with a crunchy outer layer, the chicken is very tender and the fish maw is juicy.

A vegetable stall outside Choi Lung's front door is also well known for selling locally grown produce.

In November, the restaurant will serve fresh watercress purchased directly from the farms nearby, which Shek promises to be "very sweet and rarely found."

Visit Choi Lung at weekends as some dim sum are not served on weekdays, such as the black sesame rolls.

Choi Lung Restaurant 彩龍茶樓, 2 Chuen Lung Estate, Route Twisk, Tsuen Wan, +852 2415 5041. Open daily 5 a.m. - 3 p.m.

To get there, take a taxi from Tsuen Wan station for around HK$60 or take minibus 80 at Chuen Lung Street near Tsuen Wan wet market.

How to eat sushi

With chopsticks or fingers? Wasabi or no? A double Michelin-starred Tokyo chef sets the record straight and shows us the way

By Mark Robinson, Noriko Yamaguchi 8 July, 2011

Two Michelin stars under his belt and Koji Sawada is still seeking perfection.

So, how do you eat sushi, the quintessential Japanese delicacy of vinegared rice topped with raw fish and other ingredients? With your fingers? With chopsticks? Dipped into soy sauce; daubed with wasabi? One mouthful or two?

The only certainty, it seems, is that its proper consumption demands both etiquette and practicality. To put the matter to rest, we enquired at the top: Sushi Sawada, on Tokyo’s most prestigious intersection of Ginza 4-chome.

With two Michelin stars and only seven seats, Sawada is a shrine to this single wondrous dish -- and to straight-talking master Koji Sawada’s constant quest for perfection.

How to eat sushi: The hands

Sawada's technique for the perfect sushi experience:

1. Grip the sushi -- do not squeeze.

2. Roll it partway over.

3. Turn it upside down.

4. Dip lightly into soy sauce.

5. Place whole piece in the mouth, letting the texture and delicate flavor of the soy-dipped fish touch the tongue first.

There’s a simple reason for inverting your sushi: the molded rice base will disintegrate if dipped directly into soy sauce. The rice will also soak up too much sauce, ruining the flavor balance.

However, if you’re lucky enough to score a seat at Sawada, you won’t be concerned with the dipping step. Like many top sushi masters, Sawada seasons each piece with his own soy sauce blend or a sprinkle of sea salt before serving, hence no need to dip.

“But the rest is the same,” says Sawada. “The fish should touch the tongue first.” Most mainstream sushi-ya (sushi restaurants) expect customers to dip, and you’ll find soy sauce dishes on the counter. Soy sauce is called “murasaki,” meaning “purple,” in sushi-speak.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Rafael Nadal - Inside Look

THE GOOD FIGHT

DEUCE

by Neil Harman

16.11.2011

Ever-sensitive Rafael Nadal admits he is a reluctant warrior at times, but also finds that the battle - more than winning alone - gives him the greatest satisfaction.

Read Rafael Nadal’s recently published biography – rather unimaginatively titled Rafa: My Story – and one of the first things you’ll notice is that he often cries.

As great a champion as he is, Rafa has had plenty to be weepy about during his 25 years: those glorious moments, the troughs of despair (Do you remember his distress at Wimbledon this year when, in the fourth round, he thought he’d damaged his left ankle?), the profound sadness of his parents’ marriage breakdown two years ago, the highs and lows that beset any warrior.

Yet throughout it all his most valuable personal traits have remained constant: utter fearlessness on court and chivalrous niceness away from it. Despite the thousands of miles he has travelled, the thousands of hands he has shaken, the thousands of interviews he has given, the thousands of vicious winners he has struck, those basic elements of the Spaniard have never changed and never will.

“I fight all the time to win every match. I appreciate the result”

One is often asked: “Is he really as nice as he seems?” The answer, quite simply, is “Yes”. He remarks that his parents, Sebastian and Ana Maria, were always very strict with him as a child, telling him to remember his pleases and his thank-yous, and to sit up straight at the dinner table, and not to talk with his mouth full. Well, we all attempt to do that with our children, but it doesn’t always work out.

To keep true to those tenets when people worship you and fall at your feet is not easy. Put yourself in his shoes (which he never puts on without untying the laces first) and imagine wrestling with the demands of being the No. 1 sportsman in your country and maintaining the discipline and single-mindedness required to succeed in a sport like tennis.

Of course, everyone can relax away from the spotlight. To get a true insight into what Rafa is like you need to witness him playing his beloved golf. He treats this sport as seriously as any set of tennis, and has frustrated many a golf partner by insisting on searching interminably for a lost ball.

Even for friendly rounds he has to be fully prepared. Last year in Indian Wells, for example, he was about to tee of with his occasional coachFrancisco Roig and the former Roland Garros finalist Alex Corretja when, suddenly, he leapt back into his buggy and disappeared back to his hotel.

Nadal With the exasperated course starter looking at his watch and threatening to cancel the tee time, the buggy came thundering back into view. Rafa had returned with the tips of all his fingers bandaged, just the way he does for tennis. Ever the perfectionist, he simply couldn’t have played without this strapping.

But these are the times of freedom, when Rafa can escape the confines of what he does for a living. Tennis is a mean business, especially at the very top, where Rafa has resided for several years, including 88 weeks as the World No. 1. He has won 10 Grand Slams, completing the full set at the US Open in 2010, and he has lost in four other finals, most recently to Novak Djokovic.

While 2011 is undoubtedly Djokovic’s year of all years, the man who has pressed this Serb harder than anyone else has been Rafa. Djokovic is now the Spaniard’s most distinct nemesis – an enemy of sorts, though Rafa could never bring himself to say the word.

After the US Open in September, when Djokovic won in four gripping sets in what many considered one of the top five matches of the past 30 years, Rafa said the following: “I didn’t feel any obligation to win the tournament. I am not one that feels that [only reaching] the final is a bad result. I don’t consider myself that good. I fight to be always there. I fight all the time to win every match. I appreciate the result. [Reaching] the final is a fantastic result. It’s smart to accept the losses with the same calm as the victories, and to keep working without thinking on the past.

“I was in the final of Wimbledon, final of US Open. I fought in both of them, especially this one. I went back to Spain [from New York] happier than after the Wimbledon final, because after New York I think I am on the right way to beat [Djokovic]. After Wimbledon I didn’t feel that.”

“If the job I did was easy, I wouldn’t take so much satisfaction from doing it so well”

Whether he’s piecing together the reasons for a loss; or rejoicing in the love of victory, after which comes the downtime when he wonders if he can possibly do it again, Nadal speaks freely of moments when doubts have assailed him. In the next couple of weeks, as he spends Christmas at home with his family in Manacor, a peaceful retreat on the island of Mallorca, he will take himself off to think about the tests to come.

On the one hand there is enthusiasm for the weeks ahead, tinged with a sense of gloom if things do not go right. “I know only too well how remorselessly grinding the tour can be,” he says. The majority of his time is spent far from home, away from those he loves, those he grew up with and in whose company he can truly be himself. It is in these moments, sometimes openly, sometimes to himself, that he sheds a tear. “Sometimes this is a battle I wish I didn’t have to fight again,” he confesses. “But if the job I did was easy, I wouldn’t take so much satisfaction from doing it so well.”

http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/DEUCE-Tennis/DEUCE-Finals-2011/Rafael-Nadal.aspx?utm_source=ATPMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ATP%20World%20Tour%20Insider%20#48 - December 1 2011 (1)

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Learn Life from Golf

(CNN) -- "You drive for show, but putt for dough." That's the often-repeated mantra of the late South African golfer Bobby Locke, who put his own words to good use in winning four British Open titles.

Good advice for any golfer, but the skills needed to knock a small ball into a slightly bigger hole can be applied in many walks of life outside of the proverbial pleasant amble spoiled.

"The discipline in setting an immediate, action-orientated target, or job that one is completely in control of, boosts one's concentration, which is vital for success in every area of life," Irish professor Aidan Moran told CNN.

So, just as top golfers need to do more than just drive a ball 300-plus yards, success in any sphere depends on combining physical capability with mental focus.

And the good news is, all it takes is practice. The bad news is, it takes a lot of practice.

Moran, who has worked with three-time major champion and fellow Irishman Padraig Harrington, has utilized his expertise in cognitive psychology to produce the CD "Learn to Win at Golf" and a series of other media releases.

The discipline in setting an immediate, action-orientated target boosts one's concentration, which is vital for success in every area of life
Professor Aidan Moran

They aim to improve people's concentration and performance in academic and sporting situations, and the results are sometimes remarkable -- if not so easy to achieve.

According to Moran, who lectures at University College in Dublin, research has shown that it takes about 10 years -- or 10,000 hours of practice -- to truly master a skill like putting or playing a musical instrument.

Former Olympic table tennis star and now Times of London newspaper columnist Matthew Syed has written a book called "Bounce" on the same theme. His theory is that anyone can master the skills to become a top-level performer in sports.

Champions are made not born, is Syed's central argument; the myth of talent and the power of practice is his sub-text.

"I think everyone who has good hand-eye co-ordination has the capacity to be very good, certainly at an activity like putting," he says.

"In my own sport of table tennis, I don't think there's anyone who's reached a high level who actually has faster reaction times than the ordinary person."

Top golfers such as Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Harrington have suffered from poor putting in between bouts of success, so why is it so difficult?

I think everyone who has good hand-eye co-ordination has the capacity to be very good, certainly at an activity like putting
Matthew Syed

"My feeling is that it is really upstairs, that putting issues have to do with what's going on between the golfer's ears," says Dr. Alan Goldberg, a leading American sports psychologist who has worked with many players on the men's and women's U.S. circuits.

Even the professionals can sometimes seem as fallible as ordinary hackers, but Goldberg believes that what separates the superstars of sport from the average person is an almost superhuman ability to "mono focus" on tasks.

"I don't think you can coach self-motivation," he says.

Putting clearly requires no unusual physical ability, but does rely on the utmost concentration and the ability to shut out all distractions, which is why silence is always demanded when the top players prepare to take their shots.

"The biggest challenge in putting is keeping yourself focused away from the outcome," Goldberg says.

"Really good putters just concentrate on the feel and just focus on their body, get a right feel for the distance."

Moran believes the key is "partly physical, partly psychological."

"People tend to breathe in, so their center of gravity changes. You should breathe out gently when you putt -- it works," he says.

So plenty of good advice: keep focused, and don't get ahead of yourself -- it's a pity sometimes that the professionals don't take it.

American Doug Sanders missed a putt of less than two feet to win the 1970 British Open at St. Andrews, losing in a playoff to Jack Nicklaus.

"Do I ever think about the putt?" he said 35 years later. "Only every four or five minutes!"

I don't think you can coach self-motivation
Dr Alan Goldberg

To escape such nightmares, the long putter seems the obvious refuge as it adds stability to the stroke, with the club anchored under a golfer's belly.

It worked to brilliant effect for Keegan Bradley, who became the first professional to win a major with it earlier this year, but Goldberg believes that golfers who switch will make only temporary gains.

Better, perhaps, to adopt the attitude of the great South African golfer Gary Player, who often performed miracles around the greens.

"The more I practice, the luckier I get," the nine-time major champion was once famously quoted as saying.

So for the high-handicapper, the message is that hours of practice makes perfect. Non-golfers can take this tip from Moran and apply it to a host of everyday tasks:

"Seeing and feeling and performing a skill in your mind's eye, using your imagination to rehearse and practice it to perfection."

The question is: Do you have the dedication to achieve your goals whether on or off the course?

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/17/sport/golf/golf-putting-tiger-bradley/index.html?hpt=hp_mid#

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Theodore Roosevelt Quote

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” – Theodore Roosevelt

The above quote applies to both discovery and gratitude. With discovery, you’ve got everything at your disposal to make great inroads in yourself. As for gratitude, show it for all that you’ve had and have, and you’ll discover what you need to continue to flourish.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Quote: Steve Jobs

"If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer is "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Friday, August 5, 2011

Federer - Wisdom at 30

THIRTY-LOVE FOR FEDERER

by ATP Staff

03.08.2011

As he approaches his 30th birthday next Monday on day one of the Rogers Cup in Montreal, 17-time ATP World Tour Masters 1000 champion Roger Federer insists that he has many good years of tennis ahead of him. Federer, who is No. 3 in the South African Airways ATP Rankings behind new World No. 1 Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, said during a telephone press conference Wednesday that he is encouraged by the longevity of past players such as Andre Agassi, who won 15 titles, including two Australian Opens, after turning 30.

“I [have] inspiration [from] guys that played for a very long time, like Andre Agassi, Jimmy Connors, Ken Rosewall, Rod Laver, as it's very inspiring to see what they've been able to do,” said Federer.“People tend to say that after a certain time or when you have kids you can’t win any more. I don't want to say I'm a special case, but I've won so much, I feel like if I put myself in the right position, do all the right things, I'll definitely get a shot again of winning big tournaments.”

Federer, who won his lone 2011 title in the first week of the season in Doha, played down the significance of turning 30. “Birthdays happen. They're part of life. I'm happy I'm getting older. I'd rather be 30 than 20, to be honest. To me it's a nice time.”

A winner of the Rogers Cup in 2004 and ‘06, Federer added. “I’m excited to see how the Canadians are going to celebrate my birthday this time around. Sometimes they start singing 'Happy Birthday' during a match. I'm not going to play on Monday, but you never know if they're going to do something crazy another day.”

Federer, who reached the quarter-finals and final in his past two appearances in Montreal in 2009 and ’07, will play The Rogers Cup and the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati, where he is the defending champion, in preparation for the US Open, an event he won five straight times from 2004 to 2008.

“Every time the US Open rolls around, I'm very, very excited,” expressed Federer. “It’s a great feeling coming back to New York. Honestly, I liked it from day one. It was one of those tournaments I right away I fell in love with.”

The 16-time Grand Slam champion last lifted the trophy on Arthur AsheStadium three years ago, defeating Andy Murray in straight sets. Though he hasn’t won a Grand Slam title since the 2010 Australian Open, the 16-time major champion believes he has several more opportunities to add to his Grand Slam haul. “My game is in a good place right now and I'm excited to see how I'm going to do at the US Open,” said Federer. “I don't feel it's my last chance, not at all. I see many more chances to come.”

http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Tennis/2011/08/Features/Federer-US-Open-Chances.aspx?utm_source=ATPMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ATP%20World%20Tour%20Insider%20#31 - August 4 2011 (2)