Impromptu Kitty

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As I've been doing for the last 2 weeks, I dragged my ass out of bed early in the morning and turned on the TV to watch the 2016 Olympics in Rio.  As my eyes gained the ability to focus after the first few minutes of being awake, I grabbed my phone and opened up Facebook.  I had the option of reviewing my memories with the On This Day function, so I checked them out.  A year ago today I happened to have lunch for the second time at the Hello Kitty Chinese Cuisine (Hello Kitty 中菜軒), thanks to visitors who demanded that I take them there.  I decided to share a picture I took that day, which showed a group of 6 middle-aged "uncles" having dim sum at a restaurant where every other table was occupied by a female or a child fan of Hello Kitty.

So... when Hello Kitty finally decided to wake up this morning, and wondered about what to do for lunch, she decided that she wanted to have some Hello Kitty-shaped dim sum.  Thankfully the restaurant was only a short walk away, and we managed to arrive shortly before 1 p.m.  As luck would have it, we only had to wait about 5 minutes for a table to open up.

We wanted to get a couple of old favorites for the usual photo op, but also wanted to try some new items.  Given that there were only two of us, it was decided that we would just stick to dim sum items and dessert.

Hello Kitty spring rolls (春卷) - the spring rolls were kinda skinny but tasted fine.  They went out of their way to make this into a "Hello Kitty" item by decorating a rice cracker which, unfortunately, got a little stale despite being wrapped in cellophane.

Hello Kitty custard buns with egg yolk (流沙包) - one of my favorite items here.  Not only did these white buns looked like Kitty, they were pretty tasty, too!  Love the runny, savory custard inside.

A video posted by @growing_boy on Aug 19, 2016 at 11:39pm PDT

Of course, I just had to do what I love most... which was to poke Kitty's eye out with my chopstick!  This time around I made sure to take a video of it... and also made sure to twist the chopstick around.  Yes, I'm cruel and sadistic.

Hello Kitty steamed sausage rolls (腸仔卷) - we originally thought that they would stuff these would Chinese sausages (臘腸), but these were just little cocktail franks.  Still pretty decent.

Hello Kitty steamed prawn dumpling (蝦餃皇) - as always, only one of the dumplings had the whole face painted on.  These looked a little better than the ones from my visit a year ago, but I was still impressed by the ones from my first visit.

Hello Kitty coconut and red beans Chinese pudding (椰汁紅豆糕) - not a fan.  The coconut milk pudding on top tasted fine, but the bottom layer of red bean mash tasted a little foul.

Hello Kitty mango pudding (芒果布甸) - this was much better.  Both the layer of mango pudding and the fruit jello tasted fine.

Not bad for the two of us.  We got out in just under an hour, by which time there were close to 20 people squeezed inside the front door waiting for their tables, not to mention more people outside.  We discovered new items on the menu, and vowed to round up more people so that we could try the food at dinner.

We also went to the boutique next door to check out all the branded items they were selling, such as chopsticks and chopstick rests, ceramic coasters, fridge magnets, stuffed animals, canvas shopping bags...etc.  Of course they also had different types of wine made by Château Berthenon in Côtes de Blaye in Bordeaux, including a "limited edition" release for the 40th anniversary of Hello Kitty a few years ago...

P.S. When Hello Kitty posted a pic of the dishes onto social media, she included the caption "貓全部都係貓全部都係貓", because it was indeed a bunch of cat faces on the table.  This, of course, was a reference to the song that's recently gone viral in Hong Kong - forcibly inserting the words "雞! 全部都係雞! 全部都係雞!" into the melody of Mariage d'amour that was made famous by Richard Clayderman.  So for the next two days, the two of us had that damn melody running through our heads...