Dates for your dairy… General Public Holidays for 2024
Add Hong Kong’s public holidays to your e-calendar at 1823 Hong Kong Public Holidays iCal Calendar.
Note: As the second day of Lunar New Year in 2024 falls on a Sunday, the fourth day of Lunar New Year will be designated as a general holiday in substitution.
Dates for your dairy…
Labour Day and the Birthday of the Buddha in 2022 both fall on a Sunday, the day following them will be designated as a general holiday in substitution.
In addition, since the day following the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival in 2022 falls on a Sunday, the second day following that Festival will be designated as a general holiday in substitution.
As Christmas Day in 2022 falls on a Sunday, the second weekday after Christmas Day will be designated as a general holiday in substitution.
Add Hong Kong’s public holidays to your e-calendar at 1823 Hong Kong Public Holidays iCal Calendar.
It seems a hard place for businesses to survive but the new Lee Tung Avenue has consistently offered creative and instagramable decorations. The latest for Christmas is ‘Butterflies of Hope’ and bc’s Christie Liu and Munchie took a look…
Created by award-winning Hong Kong visual effects director Victor Wong. The display which stretches along the whole street features a 7-meter stained glass butterfly surrounded by 350 LED butterflies. The kaleidoscope of butterflies includes a range of lighting effects during the day and night. At around lunchtime, the butterflies will reflect and refract the sun’s natural light to paint the street. At night artificial intelligence synced to music will create another instagram moment.
And while you are there check out Pizza Express‘s turkey pizza.
https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2020/Butterflies-of-Hope/i-JjxvxZN
https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2020/Butterflies-of-Hope/i-NzB5nBW
https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2020/Butterflies-of-Hope/i-ZLpxSJQ/A
The temperature has finally fallen, the shops are packed high with everything Christmas related from decorations to gifts to food. New food production and flavouring techniques have allowed companies to be ever more creative with their seasonal offerings.
As usual Marks and Spencer’s has a massive range of Christmas themed food products and biscuits all nicely packaged to make nice gifts. There are new flavours of crisps: Gluten Free Pigs In Blankets; Glazed Gammon & Whisky; Gluten Free Winter Berries & Sparkling Prosecco Crisps and Port & Stilton which are novel and flavourful, but at $35/150g insanely expensive.
Where Marks & Spencer does shine is with the traditional English favourites, which we found hard to find anywhere else. There’s a range of proper Christmas puddings and a real fruit Christmas cake ($279) topped with marzipan and icing (sadly not royal icing). The fruit cake is heavy moist and delicious. While the cake is a little stingy on the marzipan, short of making your own it’s the best we found.
And last but by no means least Marks has several packages of premixed herbs and spices to create your own mulled wine. They also work very well with spirits to create some tasty homemade cocktails.
https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2018/Marks-Spencer-Christmas-2018/i-mZ9pcr2
Looking for something different this festive season? Perhaps Pizza Express’ Christmas menu which includes two festive pizzas and a range of themed dishes might interest you.
The seasonal a la carte menu features a baked cheese melt starter ($65), a turkey Caesar salad ($128), Farfalle con Tacchino ($133, turkey pasta with a white cream sauce) and Pumpkin Cannelloni ($138) – this is ok, the pureed pumpkin, spinach and cheese filling is tasty but it perhaps could have been delicious if the pumpkin had been in chunks to give the filling some texture and substance.
There are two festive pizza: Tacchinao Rosmarino ($153) – a thin crust pizza topped with turkey, cranberry and sweet peppadew sauce, pancetta, mozzarella, tomato sauce, a sprinkle of rosemary and pine nuts. The Cicciolo e Fontina ($153) features pork, pork shin, fontina, mozzarella, Parmesan with caramelized onions, garlic oil, béchamel sauce and thyme served on a thin crust pizza.
Strange sounding combinations they may seem, but they’re both not bad. The turkey one, perhaps a little sweet to eat a full pizza yourself. But Pizza Express allows mixing and matching so we sampled a half/half combination which was delicious.
Dessert options are Apple Tortino ($88, a baked apple, cinnamon and puff pasty combination topped with vanilla gelato) and a Snowy Date Pudding ($88) which is rather nice. The warm pudding in a sauce of honey yoghurt and raspberry coulis topped with vanilla gelato.
The festive menu is available at all Pizza Express outlets until 1 January, 2018
https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2017/Christmas-Menu-Tasting-Pizza-Express-Wanchai-9-December-2017/i-cx5Ntpc
https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2016/20161125-great-christmas/i-G5sCsjZ
It’s the week before Christmas and you’ve got nothing ready or planned… While the festive season for many in Hong Kong has zero religious significance it is a time for gifts and feasting. And there is no better gift that either cooking someone a good meal or gifting them a tasty bite. Thankfully our local supermarkets are all up to speed and there to make your life easy and Christmas a tasty treat.
bc‘s ‘no cooking needed’ Christmas feast starts with a trip to Great in the basement of Pacific Place with a side stop at Marks & Spencer is all you need – in fact a trip to Great’s website probably suffices as whether you want roast turkey, beef, lamb or pork all can be ordered online and delivered or collected. They also offer all the trimmings: roast potatoes, carrots, parsnips, Brussel sprouts, cranberry sauce, gravy, stuffing…. The roasts can be ordered uncooked or cooked and in different sizes depending on your needs.
Starter
Smoked salmon: IKEA offers packs of frozen smoked salmon (Lax Kallrökt) $69 for 200g.
Main
Roast Turkey, roast potatoes, parsnips, red cabbage, Brussels sprouts, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce.
Roast Turkey: Great: cooked US roast turkey $120-220/kg (4-6kg). Buy at the cooked food counter including Christmas Day. They also have roast beef, roast lamb and baked gammon if you prefer something other than turkey.
Roast potatoes: Great: cooked
Parsnips: Great: cooked and raw
Brussels sprouts: Great: cooked and raw
Red cabbage: sadly we couldn’t find any cooked this year
Turkey gravy/ bread sauce: Marks & Spencer: $49/400g
Cranberry sauce: Marks & Spencer: $49/400g
Stuffing: Marks & Spencer: sage and onion/ cranberry & orange stuffing
Bacon wrapped sausages: still unable to find this staple side dish in a cooked version.
Dessert
Christmas Pudding with Brandy Butter
Christmas pudding: Great: Cole’s Classic Christmas Pudding ($159/454g),
Brandy Butter: Great: Cole’s Brandy Butter $15.5/42g
Panettone: Great: An Italian Christmas favourite that can be enhanced wonderfully with a can of classic Bird’s custard mixed with a dash of brandy/ rum.
Cheese
Great’s cheese room is one of the wonders of Hong Kong, the choice is varied, constantly changing, delicious and if you’re used to US and European cheese prices, expensive – but what is Christmas without cheese?
English Stilton: Great: $46/100g
Christmas Cake + Mince Pies
A good tasty Christmas cake is a Christmas necessity, especially one with marzipan and Royal icing.
Christmas Cake: Great and M&S have several choices at different prices from $89 (Gluten free – M&S) upwards. Most are sadly more like fruit cakes than Christmas cake which is a shame as the two are subtly different in taste.
Mince Pies: Again Great and M&S have several choices, but after sampling several none are that special that we recommend one over another.
Drinks
Mulled Wine: Great: Shropshire Spice Traditional Mulled Wine Mix: $33.9/8g
Store Details + Contacts:
Great Basement Pacific Place, Admiralty Tel: 2918 9986 www.greatfoodhall.com
IKEA Causeway Bay, Shatin, Kowloon Bay www.ikea.com.hk
Marks & Spencer various stores www.marksandspencer.com
Edit: 21 Dec – Added Christmas cake photo and updated text
https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/Christmas-with-Chiu-Yin-Mei/i-nMW6cBx
Chiu Yin Mei owner of Food Allee celebrated Christmas with friends over mulled wine and food prepared by Yin on her wood fired stove. Good food. Good conversation. Happy Christmas.
Food Allee 22-28 Kennedy Street, Wanchai
Click on any photo for the full gallery of images
https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/Christmas-with-Chiu-Yin-Mei/i-6s6dwgg
https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/Christmas-with-Chiu-Yin-Mei/i-H9hX3FQ
https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/Christmas-with-Chiu-Yin-Mei/i-Qw8TWhL
https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/Christmas-with-Chiu-Yin-Mei/i-LM4Xjwh
https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/Christmas-with-Chiu-Yin-Mei/i-q9Qnsvv
https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/Christmas-with-Chiu-Yin-Mei/i-TXjcmZn
It’s late December, where has the year gone? The seasonal music and decorations that have been up for months have inured you to Christmas, yet suddenly it’s here and you’ve got nothing prepared… bc’s here to help with it’s ‘instant’ traditional Roast Turkey Christmas meal – no cooking involved, although you will need to warm some dishes up to fully enjoy them.
Starter
Smoked salmon + Rainbow Salad
Smoked salmon: IKEA offers packs of frozen smoked salmon (Lax Kallrökt) $66 for 200g.
Rainbow Salad: black chickpeas, carrots, peas, corn, potatoes, red bell pepper, green bell pepper, cherry tomatoes, parsley from Maya Takeaway, $88.
Main
Roast Turkey, roast potatoes, parsnips, red cabbage, Brussels sprouts, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce.
Roast Turkey: Great Food Hall in Pacifc Place have around 12 cooked US Roast Turkey per day $120/kg (4-6kg). Buy at the cooked food counter including Christmas Day. They also offer cooked roast beef, lamb and gammon if you prefer something other than turkey.
Roast potatoes: Great – $18/100g (cooked); M&S – $45/300g (need cooking)
Parsnips: M&S – $50/300g (need cooking)
Brussels sprouts: Great – $18/100g
Red cabbage braised with Bramley apples: $45/300g Marks & Spencer
Turkey gravy: $69/540g Marks & Spencer
Cranberry sauce: $59/300g Marks & Spencer
Stuffing: sage and onion/ cranberry & orange stuffing from M&S
Bacon wrapped sausages: sadly we couldn’t find this staple side dish in a cooked version.
For vegetarians: mediterranean vegetable stew / chickpea patty simmered in tomato sauce both $88 from Maya.
Dessert
Christmas Pudding with Brandy Butter
Christmas pudding: Great: several choices, M&S: $379/907g
Brandy Butter: $59/195g M&S or you can make it yourself it’s just butter beaten with sugar and brandy, or pick up a can of classic Bird’s custard and add a dash of brandy/ rum for a good alternative.
Cheese
Great’s cheese room is one of the unsung wonders of Hong Kong, the choice is varied, delicious and if you’re used to US and European cheese prices, expensive – but it’s Christmas so indulge.
A cheaper alternative is www.cheesebytom.com: cheddar 250g/$35, Brie 250g/$50 and other cheeses. Deliveries to Central and Lantau.
Christmas Cake + Mince Pies
Finding a good tasty Christmas cake is hard, especially one with marzipan and Royal icing
Christmas Cake: Great and M&S have several choices at different prices from $89 up – including the Hand Decorated Bauble Bar Cake (left) with marzipan and royal icing at $379. Most are more like fruit cakes than Christmas cake which is a shame as the two are subtly different in taste.
Mince Pies: Again Great and M&S have several choices, but none have a taste that leap out and say buy me!
Store Details + Contacts:
Great Basement Pacific Place, Admiralty Tel: 2918 9986 www.greatfoodhall.com
IKEA Causeway Bay, Shatin, Kowloon Bay www.ikea.com.hk
Marks & Spencer various stores www.marksandspencer.com
Maya Takeaway 173 Des Voeux Road, Central. Tel: 2111 4553 www.mayacafehk.com
Edit: 24 Dec – Added Christmas cake photo and updated text
