Earth Hour 2017

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It's late March, and that means Earth Hour is once again upon us.  Tonight is my 9th year taking part in this global event.  I know the event is only 1 hour in duration and is largely symbolic, but I believe it sends an important message, and is a reminder to everyone that we need to do what we can to be kind to the earth, as it is our only home.

Our early dinner started late, which wasn't a surprise given our company.  Thankfully dinner was relatively simple and we finished quickly, so Hello Kitty and I rushed out of the Sheraton and crossed the street to the harbor front.

In a matter of a couple of minutes, the normally bright and vibrant Victoria Harbour went dark.  Half an hour before, one of Hong Kong's most well-known tourist attractions - A Festival of Lights - had been cancelled to mark Earth Hour.  Gone were the colorful flashing lights prancing around skyscrapers, and giant neon and LED billboards went napping.

Every year, someone inevitably fails to get the memo and leave their lights on.  Last year it was the People's Liberation Army, who kept their lights on the whole time.  They finally got the memo this year and went dark.  A couple of buildings were a little behind - some because of their internal clocks were slow, but pretty much everyone except for a couple of buildings around Times Square got with the program right on the dot.  And then even these guys got around to it eventually.

A post shared by Diary of a Growing Boy (@growing_boy) on Mar 25, 2017 at 8:43am PDT

Even when looking at the skyline during Earth Hour, it's not hard to see that there is still a certain amount of light pollution - just look at the haze in the sky.  That's pretty scary if you think about it.

It was pretty chilly out tonight and we were both underdressed thanks to the warm temperature during the day.  So we left a few minutes early and didn't wait for the lights to come back on, although a couple of buildings decided that turning out the lights for half an hour was good enough for them.

I overheard a few tourists talking amongst themselves, and even they realized that the lights were out because of Earth Hour.  People are becoming more aware of this event - which is now in its 10th edition.  That's a very good thing, especially in the age of Trump.

Ro ro for lunch

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I was having lunch with Fergie a couple of days ago when he mentioned that he had just gone to a dinner tasting of Alexandre Polmard's beef.  This is the man running a family business that has been aging their "vintage" beef for decades - which was labelled "world's most expensive meat" a while ago.  Apparently Derby Restaurant at the Hong Kong Jockey Club was doing a promotion, and Fergie thought the beef was pretty tasty and reasonably priced.

I pinged The Man in White T-Shirt, even though I thought the promotional event was already over.  Fortunately I was wrong, and we immediately made plans for a lunch tasting today.

We looked at the tasting menu on offer, but decided that it didn't have enough beef for us, so we ended up ordering all the choices à la carte - sharing all the starters.  It was clear from the pricing of the dishes that we weren't having "the world's most expensive meat".  No vintage beef on offer here.  But everything was still aged for 4 weeks, so not exactly your run-of-the-mill beef, either...

We started with an amuse bouche of deep-fried crab ball, with mashed potatoes inside.

Fly airplane, Vietnam-style

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Hello Kitty and I were entertaining a visitor from out of town, who requested that we go somewhere with old school table-side service.  Two places come to mind immediately, but ultimately we decided on Hugo's.  My first and only visit a couple of years ago delivered a couple of nice, classic dishes.  It would be nice to go back for a few more.

Thanks to miscommunication, Hello Kitty found ourselves sitting by ourselves at the restaurant while our visitor flew off to his next destination.  Well, since we were here and I had asked the staff to open up both bottles of wine that I brought... we might as well eat!

We start with the bread basket which, as always, had those delicious slices of garlic bread...

Once more for nostalgia's sake

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A few weeks ago, I found out that an old favorite restaurant of mine is closing.  My first time dining at W's Entrecôte was probably shortly after I arrived in Hong Kong more than 20 years ago, and its no-nonesense, straightforward offering of steak frites and other classics haven't changed much since then.

Second touristy lunch of the week

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I'm entertaining a visitor from China, and decided to take her to my favorite Yat Lok (一樂燒鵝) for lunch.  Yes, it's my second lunch here this week...

Roast goose, lower quarter (燒鵝下庄) - with just two of us today, all we can manage is a quarter of a goose. And once again, I felt that parts of the goose was just a little too charred.

Rice flour noodles in soup (淨湯瀨粉)

Blanched choy sum (菜心)