To those who have already read this post previously, I have updated this post wih a video footage that I found on my SD card as I was clearing it.. I think this video really helps bring to you the sense of actually being in a wet market; I hope you feel the same! 🙂
The best part about being in Hong Kong is the food. The best part about the food here is that you can always get it really fresh. I mean, live-and-still-jumpy fresh. I love seafood, and Hong Kong, having a history of being a fisherman village, to this day still have access to fresh seafood everyday at outdoor “wet” markets.
Along with butchers and vegetables/ fruit stalls, it is a place where seafood from the day’s catch lay fresh on ice, or whole live fish swimming in tanks. Shrimps, lobsters, crabs, all kinds of shellfish – mostly live are available for purchase. I personally think it’s the seafoodie’s heaven. Depending on the season, different seafood will best to eat. I have never tasted clams so sweet and 鮮 (see meaning on my other post). I totally just swooned.
Anyway, whenever my mom goes to the wet market by nightfall, she buys a lot of goods deals for the night’s ‘seafood meal’. You get a lot of good deals by dusk/ evening because that’s when the day ends and everything fresh, must go. My last seafood dinner at home over break, consisted of lobster, clams, snails, and my favorite veggie – 菜心 (choi sum, literally meaning the vegetable heart).
I just have to say, white wine clams are my absolute favorite. Plus, my mom’s cooking with the incredibly fresh catch, it’s heaven on Earth. The juices that come out of it is soooo yummy (I don’t even have words to describe it!) It would make a great sauce base for anything.
[My mom cooks with only garlic and white wine, without any salt at all, and it comes out quite salty actually.]
These were in season during December. They were so crunchy, sweet and .. just delectable. You will have to try it yourself to even come close to understand my love for these.
These snails are my dad’s absolute favorite. The consistency is kind of like octopus, but has a completely different flavor. We usually dip it in chilli-ed soy sauce. Yum.
Unfortunately, nothing in America will come close to a meal like this one cook by my mom. Heck, you can’t even buy fresh clams, let alone clams this good. For the love of food, I may just have to move back home after my studies here in the US…