Hong Kong postcards

May 24, 2017 By Susan Blumberg-Kason Leave a Comment

I’m always learning about amazing artists and authors on Instagram. When I started following Belinda Bath in Hong Kong, I was completely hooked. Her photographs are so beautiful and I’ve never seen anything like them before (this coming from someone who collects Hong Kong photography books). As I’m apt to do, I checked out her online store (a new website is in the works) and inquired about her postcards.

A week later I received a whole slew of them! The packaging included a sticker with her logo, which in Mandarin sounds like Bai Lian Da. Lian is the character for lotus, so I love how she incorporates the lotus in her logo.

It’s always nice receiving a personal note!

My photos definitely don’t do her cards justice, but I hope they show why I’m so enthralled by them. Each of these thumbnails is a postcard inside the package.

A sample of the postcards themselves.

Belinda Bath also sells larger unframed prints, mostly of Hong Kong, but also Singapore and places in Europe.

I look forward to seeing her new website and online store.

Book of the week–Lucky

May 1, 2017 By Susan Blumberg-Kason Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago I saw an ad for a new book about New York Chinatown on a museum website. The author, Henry Chang, was going to have a book event there and while I wasn’t going to be in New York for the event, I suddenly felt desperate to read it. The cover totally got me.

You’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I can’t help doing that. This one was so gorgeous and the police story set in Chinatown seemed like a perfect book to take along on my recent trip to New York. When in Rome, right?

Lucky (Soho Crime, 2017) just came out in March and is part of Chang’s Detective Jack Yu series, which I hadn’t read before (and I’m now wondering why because Henry Chang is an amazing writer and his Detective Yu has a great voice). It’s a quick read and perfect for a weekend away or a couple short flights.

Jack Yu was born and raised in Chinatown like the author, and in this book Yu’s childhood friend, the gangster known as Lucky, is gearing up for a grand comeback after nearly dying in a coma. Lucky gathers a crew of misfit triad members to pull off some daring and violent robberies around New York’s Chinese community. Manhattan Chinatown, Flushing, you name it, they’re shaking it down.

Chang tells the story from Jack Yu’s point of view and from Lucky’s, which really works structure-wise. And he really brings Chinatown to life, taking the reader into the Ching Ming holiday to respect the deceased and to dim sum and cha chaan tengs (Cantonese tea houses) and to the underworld like massage parlors and karaoke bars.

He scatters Cantonese phrases in his dialogue, which is really fun. It’s not always translated, but the reader can get the gist just fine. Chang also subtly refers to racist instances in American pop culture in a way that shows the reader why these sayings are so wrong. Like some Amazon reviewers, I hadn’t read other books in Chang’s series, but now I’m eager to read more.

Brunch in Brooklyn

May 1, 2017 By Susan Blumberg-Kason Leave a Comment

When I was in college in Baltimore, my parents visited a couple times and always took my friends and me out to eat. I remember mussels in Fells Point and dim sum (there was like one place in the whole city in the late 80s/early 90s). As much as I wanted to build my independence, I always looked forward to their visits.

So this past weekend I spent a couple days in New York visiting my oldest son. Over the last couple years, I’ve gotten to know the owner of Hey Hey Canteen and always try to stop by her restaurant. It’s a Hong Kong thing.

This past Sunday, my brother, son, and one of his roommates trekked out to Gowanus/Park Slope for brunch.

I’m a Jewish mom, so one of my biggest worries in life is that my kids and anyone else I’m with won’t have enough to eat. The solution: order 2/3 of the menu. The menu at Hey Hey Canteen is inspired by Hong Kong comfort food. Everything is made to share, so share we did!

Hey Hey serves three types of homemade cold drinks. My brother ordered the hibiscus chia and I had the almond chai. I’ve also had their turmeric ginger cayenne tea (not pictured) when I was there last August.

Now for the food! We ordered two types of dumplings: pork with bacon bits and chicken without bacon.

Eggplant fries. I’ve had these before and they are amazing.

Lemongrass chicken wings:

Chrysanthemum Caesar. I admitted to Kay that I don’t care for chrysanthemum tea, but loved this salad. She reminded me that the flowers and the leaves aren’t the same. Duh. This salad was beyond delicious.

Char sui sweet potato hash. I don’t eat pork, so didn’t try the pork dumplings and I didn’t have this. But char sui is Cantonese barbecued pork and a staple of Hong Kong breakfast/lunch/brunch cuisine.

Cold sesame noodles:

Green fried rice. I love a good fried rice and this was one of the best I’ve ever had. If you don’t like fried rice, you just haven’t had a good one.

Hong Kong fried chicken sandwich, which I’ve also had before. The ramen crust is to die for and the bao goes with it perfectly.

We were beyond stuffed, although I talked the Kay the whole time (which was just as fabulous as her food) and didn’t eat as much quantity-wise as the others. Kay gave us these delicious chocolate cakes that look like canelles, but are chocolate cake throughout. They were so light and fluffy, and served with homemade ice cream and fruit preserves.

We had a few leftovers, but not much. Jake took them back to his dorm for later. I can’t wait to go back and am pretty sure it will be sooner than later.

Hey Hey Canteen is located at 400 4th Avenue at 6th Street in Brooklyn. The prices are so reasonable and the portions are perfect. They’re generous enough where everyone can have seconds, but not too much where you’re too stuffed to go on before the last dish comes out.

Photo Friday

April 21, 2017 By Susan Blumberg-Kason Leave a Comment

This is one of my favorite photos ever, taken almost 26 years ago when I was passing through Hong Kong with my father and met up with my college roommates for dinner one night. I’d always thought we’d gone to a Shanghainese restaurant and figured it was somewhere on Hong Kong Island. But a couple weeks ago I saw a Facebook post in a Hong Kong group I’m in and recognized the green tiles on the outside of the building in the posted photos.

I immediately thought to this photo and compared them a couple times (the tiles in the photo aren’t the clearest) and it soon became obvious that it was the same restaurant from my photo! The Red Pepper Restaurant in Causeway Bay is on Hong Kong Island, but it’s not Shanghainese. It’s Sichuanese. Thus the pepper.

It’s always fun to see restaurants from my time in Hong Kong that are still standing now. I just hope The Red Pepper will still be there the next time I’m in town.

Book of the week–Incensed

April 8, 2017 By Susan Blumberg-Kason Leave a Comment

I have to admit, I started Incensed (Soho Crime, 2016) by Ed Lin back in December. But then winter vacation got in the way as did other books I’d committed to review. So when I had a week of vacation in late March, I brought Incensed on my trip and quickly read it in two days.

Lin’s story is set mostly in the famous Taipei night market during the Mid-Autumn Festival. That holiday is one of my favorites, and I figured there would be more of the festival in the story, but it ended up not being very central to the story.

What I wasn’t expecting and absolutely loved was tension between that native Taiwanese and the mainlanders. For most people, the term “mainlander” conjures up images of wealthy Chinese shoppers from mainland China. But in Taiwan it refers to anyone who settled in Taiwan from mainland China in 1949 or after. So someone’s parent could be born in–say–Shandong in 1947, flee to Taiwan in 1949, grow up there, get married, and raise a family. And he or she would still be considered a mainlander. Lin writes about cultural differences in Taiwan and it’s fascinating.

The story revolves around a young, UCLA dropout named Jing-nan, who leaves the US to run his family’s skewer stall in the Taipei night market after both parents die. His uncle is a gangster in central Taiwan and up to no good. One night Uncle Big Eye sends his lackeys to Taipei to bring Jing-nan to him. Big Eye has a sixteen-year-old daughter he wants Jing-nan to look after when she spends a week in Taipei. Mei-ling is an aspiring singer, which is troubling enough to her father. But the real reason he wants Jing-nan to watch over Mei-ling is to keep her away from her ex-boyfriend, a Indonesian who was–god forbid–only 1/4 Chinese.

Jing-nan gets in over his head and Mei-ling disappears and all hell seems to break loose with the ganger uncle holding him accountable. The book was less mystery and thriller and more of a gangster and cultural novel, but there were a couple plot twists that kept this reader on her toes.

If you’re looking for a quick summer read or something to take on a trip, Incensed is a good choice. I’d give it 4 stars out of 5.