Enjoying Life: March 2015

I made a short trip to Copenhagen in last August with 2 friends. The weather wasn't great during our stay, summer had ended, there was some rains and it was a bit chilly.

We stayed in Skt Petri which is a 5 stars design hotel, the only good thing with the hotel is its central location, not worth the money at all.

We arrived in the evening, quite disappointed with the food fair as there were not enough food stalls, I was expecting something like the night market in Malaysia or Taiwan. Despite that we did have a good evening and night with some local friends.

The next morning after brunch we headed to Nyhavn, the harbour with colourful buildings by the canal is a landmark of Copenhagen. The place was so crowed with tourists from all over the world, we walked into a jewellery shop and there were two or three Chinese staff, guess the spending power of Chinese has extended to Scandinavian countries!

We did a canal cruise for about an hour and it was quite fun, we got to see some famous buildings and landmark including Operaen and The Little Mermaid.

It was even more fun when it started to rain, we regretted for not choosing the boat with cover.

It was still raining when we finished the canal tour, not in a mood to walk around the harbour in the rain, we took a cab to art museum, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. The collection is built on the personal collection of Carl Jacobsen, the son of the founder of Carlsberg Breweries. My favourite spot of the museum is the palm garden with glass roof, plants, fountain and sculptures. After looking at endless sculptures and paintings I felt tired and sleepy, guess I am not very artistic!

We were craving for Chinese food and found Royal Garden on the internet, food was surprisingly good.
After dinner we went for English movie at Palads Cinema which is opposite of Tivoli Garden, the famous amusement park. The cinema complex is housed in a colourful palace style building which you wouldn't even think it is a cinema.

Day 3 started with breakfast at a food market, had some delicious Danish pastry and fresh fruit juice, after that we spent the whole afternoon shopping at Stroget which is a pedestrian shopping street full with designer shops, boutiques, souvenir shops, restaurants and cafes.

Dinner for the night was at Kokkeriet, a one Michelin star restaurant. What a tiring meal which took 5 hours and food was’t impressive. We had the tasting menu for 9 or 10 courses, I only like two or three courses, just don't think they were special or innovative.

On day 4 we went to the palace Amelienbourg Slot, it is the home of the current queen, we were not interested to wait for the changing guard session, we took a few pictures and left for Frederiks Kirke, it is a nice little marble church.

After that we visited Design Museum which is not far from the palace, it was a very enjoyable visit, I was amazed to see so many design of chairs.

While strolling back to the centre, we encountered a Smorrebrod, Danish open sandwich restaurant Ida Davidsen which was recommended by the travel book. They had many selections of open sandwiches, all three of us ordered a different one and we were all very impressed.

Due to we were leaving on that evening, we just relaxed after lunch, walked around the city and did more shoppings.

Overall it was a short and enjoyable trip with the company of good friends.

Hong Kong is labelled as shopping and food paradise and I totally agree with. In my last trip to Hong Kong my favourite meal was at Tim Ho Wan, the michelin dim sum.

It was my second visit to Tim Ho Wan, the first time was with a friend to the branch at Sham Shui Po a few years ago, I was very impressed with the baked bun with bbq pork at that time.

This time I went with my mother and a friend to the branch at Olympian City which was recommended by the taxi driver as this branch is newer and the environment is more comfortable.

We arrived in the morning about 10am and there was a small crowd waiting to get in to the restaurant. I already pre-warned my mother before Hong Kong trip that we would need to queue up for restaurants especially those popular one. I registered at the counter and was given a ticket number for our table. We picked up a menu at the counter and decided our orders while waiting, got in after 30 minutes, handed over the order list to the waitress and the dim sum arrived shortly, everything was about efficiency!

There wasn't many selections on the menu which I was quite surprised, but everything that we ordered was delicious. My friend and my mother are both very fussy with food but they both agreed that the food there was good.

My favourite dish is still the baked bun with bbq pork which is their signature dish, the bun might not look very appealing but it tasted so good. Each portion comes with 3 buns, next time I will order one portion for myself, no sharing for this super yummy bun!

I was also quite impressed with the steamed egg cake, it was fluffy and soft, totally didn't expect it to be that good. The other dim sum that we ordered were turnip cake, spring roll, cheong fun (vermicelli roll), sui mai, pork and preserved egg congee, osmanthus jelly, everything was just good.

We spent about HKD200 which I think is quite reasonable for good food and efficient service.

Tim Ho Wan opened its first branch in Malaysia a few months ago, I will give it a try when I next go home, hopefully the standard is maintained.