"No name" vs "name" durian, and durian sellers :)

During durian season in Malaysia, temporary stalls

set up to sell the fruit pop up on the side of many a street

 

A close up look at some of the varieties on durian

on offer at a stall in the Penang suburb of Fettes Park

 

A couple of days after I feasted on durian at a farm in Balik Pulau, I informed my mother that my appetite for the fruit had not yet been completely satisfied.  Rather than make another long -- by Penang standards -- journey to "the back of the island", my mother decided to try the offerings at a stall recommended by a friend that's situated closer to my family home.

 

After being told by her friend that the stall to go to was located in front of a particular bank in Fettes Park, my mother found a woman selling durian at that very location and promptly went about making some purchases, especially upon finding that the fruit were being offered for a bargain RM8 (~HK$15.28 or US$1.97) or so each.  But before the deal was finalized, we got a bit worried when the woman decided to announce, unprompted, that this was the first day that she was selling durian -- and thereby got my mother figuring that hers couldn't possibly be the durian stall that my mother's friend had recommended!

 

Upon asking around, my mother got to realizing that the more established stall in question was actually a few feet away -- and on the side of the road on which the bank was located rather than right in front of the bank like the stall we were patronizing was.  And as it so happened, my mother's friend was actually at that other stall buying some durian at the same time that we were over at the stall that we had mistaken for the recommended one!

 

Rather than settle for the seven durian we already bought from the neophyte durian seller (who volunteered the information that she normally sells baked goods!), my mother and I decided to scurry over to the other stall and have a look at what was on offer there.  After a quick look confirmed that it was a far more professional setup (despite being another temporary, seasonal affair), with this other durian seller being able to identify the varieties of durian he had on offer (among other things), we decided to get one more durian: an ang heh (red prawn) that was considerably bigger and more expensive (at around RM45 (~HK$85.86 or US$11.08) for just one fruit). 

 

Also, in contrast to the other durian seller, the guy at this more established stall happily opened up the ang heh we bought and proceeded to fill up one and a half plastic containers with the fruit's beautifully orange-colored flesh!  As I told a friend living in Hong Kong (where I've never seen such a thing being done at the time of purchase), this action essentially guarantees that the seller's not cheating you -- and that he or she is fully confident about the quality of his or her wares -- since you're being shown there and then what (and how much) you have bought.

 

As it turned out, the flesh of the seven other durian we bought that afternoon ended up filling two other plastic containers of around the same size as the ones into which the flesh of the ang heh had been loaded.  So, quantity wise, the purchases from the two stalls proved to be about the same value.  As for quality: I have to say that I did prefer the taste of the ang heh (which probably are my favorite variety of durian along with the D24 -- though I have to qualify this by pointing out that I've yet to have fresh versions of the super expensive Musang King or Black Thorn); but both my parents actually preferred the "no name" durian from the first time durian seller which they reckon were "kampung durian" from old trees.

Maybe the kampung durian represented a taste of nostalgia for my parents, who had many of those in their youth as well as over the years.  The point though is that these "no name" durian really ought not be sniffed at (no pun intended!) when they are the fruit of old trees -- since it's often believed that older is better when it comes to the fruit of durian trees.  And as a matter of fact, one of the tastier durian we had over at the farm in Balik Pulau was a kampung durian from an old tree which the farmer looked to have considered to be of equivalent quality to the "name" durian (including an ang heh) that he had put on our table! ;b

Durian -- the seasonal fruit that got me flying thousands of miles to feast on!

Yes, there really is such a thing as durian tourism!

The very first durian I had on my recent trip back to Penang

A rural corner of Penang that's rich in durian!

In what can now seem like another lifetime, I lived for a time in Dar es Salaam with a Tanzanian family, the majority of whose members were born and raised on the Tanzanian mainland -- and consequently had little love for the fruit known in Kiswahili as duriani and Bahasa Malaysia as durian, unlike this Malaysian and the sole member of the family who hailed from Zanzibar (where durian grow wild).

Naturally, when durian season came along, the Zanzibari-born member of the family and I decided that we had to have ourselves some durian.  Equally expectedly, the durian-hating family patriarch ordained that no durian could be brought into the house, never mind be opened and eat there -- and there any one who wished to partake of the admittedly strong-smelling fruit would only be allowed to do so away from the house, at the far end of the garden!

Undeterred, the one lover of that fruit in that family and I went on to do precisely that.  And if truth be told, I actually do think that durian are best eaten out in the open air -- or, at the very least, some place where their unique aroma can waft freely and spread out rather than be trapped and thicken in air-conditioned surroundings!

Put another way: I love the taste of durian and am okay with its natural smell -- but feel that its aroma gets unnaturally as well as overly intense in such places as Hong Kong's air-conditioned supermarkets!  Indeed, I've been known to literally hold my nose when I smell durian in air-conditioned supermarkets, and even feel like gagging on some occasions.  Yet, against the odds, the very regular sight of the fruit that's the source of those intense odors in recent months caused me to yearn to feast on them so much that I ended up booking a trip to a part of the world where some of the best durian are to be found!

As it so happens, Penang also is where I was born and my parents still live.  And it was in the company of my mother and two friends that I drove all the way to Balik Pulau (whose name translates into English as "the back of the island") a couple of days after I arrived back to my home state for some durian in the front yard of a farm whose offerings include fresh eggs along with fruit such as -- when in season -- the much sought-after durian!

My mother had called ahead to reserve five durian -- and a good thing she did too, as it turned out that every durian at the farm that day had been spoken for!  So even though we actually would have liked to have eaten more durian, we had to content ourselves with the five that had been pre-ordered (and content ourselves with heading over to Kim Seng Kopi Tiam afterwards for some assam laksa for "afters")!

Still, although the quantity was less than we would have liked, we really couldn't complain about the quality of the durian we were allocated -- and also the diversity, since the farm owner made sure that we had five different varieties of the fruit: which ranged in flavor from sugary sweet to creamy rich (my favorite) to bitter sweet (the preference of one of our party); whose texture ran the gamut from soft and sticky to thick and firm; and whose pulp's color ranged from lightish yellow to bright yellow to reddish yellow (as can be seen by certain durian being known as ang heh (red prawn), ang sim (red heart) or ang jin (red egg yolk)).

And although Malaysian durian are known to be stronger smelling than, say, Thai durian, I wasn't bothered at all by the aroma of the durian I ate that day in Balik Pulau.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I could hardly smell the durian around me at all!  I think one reason for this was because our feasting took place in the open air but it's also highly probable that the durian didn't appear to smell all that much because I was so focused on devouring my share, and all of us ate ever so quickly -- because, well, the king of fruits lived up to its billing in terms of its tasting so very good! ;b

Hong Kong from above

A scenic view of Tai Mo Shan from up high

 

On a clear day like today, passengers are treated to a veritable

view bonanza as their plane flies into Hong Kong :)

 

As regular visitors to this blog will no doubt have surmised, the recent lack of updates was the result of my having gone travelling once again.  Over the next few days, I'll reveal where I've been over the past week and also some of what I've been up to.  For now though, please enjoy -- via my photos -- the kind of views one is privy to on sunny days when seated by the window on a plane flying into Hong Kong... :) 

By foot from south of the Kowloon Hills to the outskirts of Sai Kung (Photo-essay)

The first year I was in Hong Kong, I went on what I've come to think of as the hike from hell -- during which I wondered whether I'd need to get a helicopter to come and rescue me.  Before I got to the stage of the excursion where exhaustion and terror began to kick in though, I remember reaching a point in the hike called Buffalo Pass and thinking it was a lovely place that I'd like to go back to at some time in the future.

But because that part of Hong Kong is pretty remote, it wasn't until years later that I was in the area again.  And as it so happens, it was on a hike that began at the foothills of Tsz Wan Shan and only ended at Mau Ping New Village at the southeastern end of the Ma On Shan Country Trail, on a day that saw me record more than 25,000 steps on my pedometer!  But even though it was a lengthy and exhausting trek, it really felt worth it this time -- and enjoyable too; what with the diverse scenery we passed through and viewed along the lengthy way that grayish but still pretty pleasant afternoon... ;b

From the Kowloon Hills, one gets a pretty good idea when

gazing southwards of how densely urban parts of Hong Kong is!

At the same time, on the trail itself, one is liable to

spot -- and, if not, accidentally step on! --

delicate winged creatures like this one ;b

Part of the route my hiking buddy and I went on that afternoon

overlapped with the War Relics Trail, along which could be seen

such as some caves that the Japanese military had dug in the woods

As the trail wended its way northeastwards, great views 

like this of Shatin and the surrounding hills revealed themselves :)

 In just a few hours on this hike, we had gone from 

urban Kowloon to the ruggedly green New Territories!

As we approached Buffalo Pass, we caught sight of these

rock formations that looked rather intimidating!

At the same time, when looking back, we already felt 

quite a sense of achievement from realizing 

how far we already had gone at that point :)

Upon catching sight of yacht-filled Hebe Haven, 

we knew we were back in familiar territory 

-- and close to the hike's end :)

Park Chan Wook's artfully deceptive The Handmaiden's Tale (film review)

A refined and restrained looking version

of advertising for Park Chan Wook's latest film

A more licentious poster advertising the

same Korean movie! :O

The Handmaiden (South Korea, 2016)

- Park Chan Wook, director and co-scriptwriter (along with Jung Seo Kweong)

- Starring: Kim Min Hee, Kim Tae Ri, Ha Jung Woo, Cho Jin Woong 

When I was a young girl in Penang, Malaysia, an aunt of mine had two South Korean friends: siblings named Chang Im and Chang Wook.  Maybe this has subconsciously pre-disposed me to like pretty much every film I've seen by the similarly named South Korean filmmaker, Park Chan Wook; this even though his works have varied so much, and include a drama about the divides and ties between the two Koreas (Joint Security Area), a vampire movie (Thirst), and ultra-violent vengeance films (including Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance). 

And then there's his latest, visually stylish interpretation of British author Sarah Waters' Fingersmith, which transposes her tale from Victorian Britain to 1930s Korea.  The Handmaiden had its world premiere at Cannes this past May, went on general release in its native South Korea on June 1st and began its Hong Kong theatrical run on June 30th.  I doubt though that it will ever be screened in territories like Malaysia because of the copious amount of sex and nudity in the film that earned it a Category III rating here in Hong Kong!

Those who seek to view this erotic thriller primarily for titillation should bear in mind, however, that the multi-layered cinematic offering has a running time of 144 minutes and takes a longer time than one might like to warm up and really get going.  Also, director and co-scriptwriter Park Chan Wook has audaciously opted for a Rashomon-style telling of its tall tale that's full of twists, turns, deceptions and betrayals, and may challenge viewers' patience along with ability to keep things straight in their minds by repeatedly going back and forth in time and replaying more than one scene from a different angle.

Still, this much is clear from early on in the film: a Korean con artist masquerading as a Japanese Count (Ha Jung Woo) gets young pickpocket Sook Hee (Kim Tae Ri) to infiltrate the household of a super wealthy ethnic Korean Japano- cum Anglophile who prefers to speak Japanese and be known as Kouzuki (Cho Jin Woong).  Pretending to be a servant called Ok Ju (who is then given the Japanese name of Tamako when she begins her latest employment -- an act of cultural colonialism that's not entirely unexpected in Japanese-ruled Korea), she is made the personal maid of Lady Hideko (Kim Min Hee), an aristocratic orphan who is both Kouzuki's ward and the woman he plans to marry -- despite being old enough to be her father.  

Despite Lady Hideko being lovely to look at, the swindler vows that he's really only after the substantial fortune she stands to inherit -- and tells Sook Hee she will get some of it if she uses the considerable influence that personal maids actually have to help get Lady Hideko to fall for him.  But complications ensue when, among other things, Sook Hee develops certain feelings for Lady Hideko that, even if never explicitly named as such, comes across very much as lesbian pinings and actual love.

When the sex scenes finally do take place, they are artistically shot like the rest of The Handmaiden; and artfully to, in order to ensure that even while there's pretty much full female (and some male) nudity in the film, not a strand of anyone's pubic hair is visible on screen.  At the same time, perhaps because some of the scenes and emotions seem to get so overwrought, I have to admit to being unable to keep from smirking, snorting and even laughing out loud at various points of what turned out for some viewers to be an at times unexpectedly -- and perhaps inadvertently -- funny movie! 

Looking back though, the first few minutes of The Handmaiden does seem to provide some indications that it was never meant to be an entirely serious drama.  Among other things: there's a larger to life quality to many of the characters, a wicked playfulness to at least one key player in the proceedings and a baroque fantasy feel to a great part of the movie.  In conclusion then: its high production values may deceive people into thinking it's a prim and proper period piece but Park Chan Wook and Co easily ensure that this daringly entertaining -- and unabashedly naughty -- offering is very far from being that!     

My rating for the film: 7.5   

Funassyi-themed fare at the Hong Kong Wired Cafes' Funassyi Fair

Would you eat this Funassyi-faced omurice along

with the tonkatsu and salad it's served with?

 

How about this Funassyi hotcake and pear juice?

 

The Pear being served some of the Funassyi hotcakes

during its visit to the Wired Cafe in Tsim Sha Tsui! :O

 

Until last week, I did not know of the existence of Japan's Wired Cafe chain, and its two branch cafes in Hong Kong.  But thanks to Funassyi and the We Love Funassyi website/blog, I've had two meals at the Wired Cafe in Causeway Bay this week -- and plan to go there at least once more while its Funassyi Fair is on (i.e., until the end of next month)!

 

The first time I went to have a meal at the Wired Cafe, the friend I was with opted to order from the regular menu but I felt obliged to order both food and drink from the special Funassyi-themed menu.  Although the Funassyi omelette tonkatsu (as it's billed on the menu) looks gimmicky, it's actually not only tasty but also very filling -- seeing as the omelette is stuffed with rice that's cooked with corn and bits of pork.  As for the pear juice: it tastes both refreshing and healthy -- and I like it so much that I ended up having two glasses of it on my second visit to the Wired Cafe (as well as just one glass on my first visit)!

 

For my second meal at the Wired Cafe (which I had while waiting for Funassyi to show up this past Thursday for a "meet and greet" session), I ordered the Funassyi hotcake on the recommendation of The Pear, who had been fed a sample of it through its infamous "Illusion" at its first "meet and greet" event earlier that day.  If anything, this dish is cuter looking than the Funassyi omelette tonkatsu -- with the hotcake made up to look like Funassyi's face but also coming with strawberries arranged to look like red ribbon on Funassyi's "pear suit", light blue cream which alludes to the light blue part of the "pear suit" and mint leaves representing Funassyi's "stalk" along with some bonus blueberries and chunks of the kind of Japanese pear that Funassyi was before it turned into a pear fairy -- and actually also better tasting too!   

Although I know that the unofficial mascot of Funabashi is a genderless fruit which is totally fine with people eating pears and also food done up to look like it, I must admit to finding it a bit weird to cut into and up those sections of the dishes that had been made to look like Funassyi's face.  (And to judge from the reactions of some other diners as seen in Youtube videos like this one, I'm not alone in feeling this way!)  

 

Also, at both meals, I felt somewhat guilty when seeing what looked like Funassyi's trusting eyes gazing up from the dish at me!   So, if truth be told, the chances are high that I won't order another food item with what looks like Funassyi's face on it the next time I go to the Wired Cafe.  On the other hand, I have absolutely zero qualms to order more pear juice to drink.  And although I haven't succumbed to the temptation yet, I probably will also buy one of the kawaii Funassyi-patterned glasses that the pear juice is served in -- and which are available for sale while the Funassyi Fair is on there! ;b

A hike excursion that was heavy on the food as well as exercise! (Photo-essay)

There's no two ways about it: I love food, including of the fatty and fried variety.  And I also like my share of alcoholic drinks that I can imagine being high in calories.  So, I tell myself, I need to exercise in order so that I can eat and drink to my heart's content, yet keep my weight steady and actually lose a pound or two every now and then.  And since I don't much care to go to a gym, it's a good thing that I do enjoy going out hiking here in Hong Kong.

As those who hike with me know, I like to have a good meal after a hike.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say that my hike excursions wouldn't feel complete without a slap up-meal post exertions figuring into the equation!  Still, I have to admit that it's not usual for me to eat at two different eateries post-hike -- but that's what I ended up doing one day after hiking from Discovery Bay to Mui Wo via the Trappist Monastery... ;b

If I weren't so intent on burning calories, I could 

have taken the kaito from Discovery Bay to Mui Wo!

If I had done so though, I'd not have been able to

take in sights like these beautiful bunch of blue flowers ;b

It was a low visibility day but I definitely was not 

the only one out hiking in the area that afternoon!

Mui Wo beckons, and I allow myself to think of 

what I want to eat post-hike at this point... ;b

The China Beach Club has apple crumble 

and custard on the menu...

...and a great heaping bowl of apple crumble 

and custard was what I got there :b

Glutton that I am, I also decided that I couldn't 

pass up a meal at Wah Kee that day!

And despite already having had dessert, I opted for a big plate 

of Cantonese-style steamed fish and a bowl of steamed rice :)