Hong Kong Ham

Media, music, and the life of a young scallywag in Hong Kong

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A Michelin Star Shines in Mongkok

Jan 12, 2010 3:55am

Serving up pork buns to our enthralled restaurant reviewer for pennies It seems an incongruous place to find a rating most chefs would strangle their sous-chefs for. But the gamy Hong Kong district of Mongkok hosts the cheapest starred restaurant in the famed culinary kingdom of the Michelin Guide. It is Tim...

I’m a food writer

Jan 10, 2010 5:15am

I don’t really like writing about food. I struggle to find more than one way of saying, ‘It’s delicious!’, and I prefer to enjoy my meals without having to dissect them. But when Asia Sentinel asked for a piece, I couldn’t resist writing about the excellent Tim Ho Wan, the world’s...

Avatar ain’t as amazing as you say it is

Dec 22, 2009 7:08am

I’ve been arguing with anyone who comes close to me that Avatar is not a five-star movie, or even a four-star movie. It is, as Time Out New York (but not the rest of the critical world, apparently) asserts, a three-star movie. For sure, the visuals are fantastic. Cameron has re-invented...

The drinking trade-off

Dec 22, 2009 1:16am

Imagine someone says to you: “I’ll pay you $1,000 a month to do this one thing. As a result of doing this one thing, your social life might be affected a little, but as well as getting the money, you’ll also feel better about yourself, you’ll stay in shape, and...

Jazz in Hong Kong

Dec 22, 2009 12:41am

Time off from drinking has freed up more time to re-commit to projects I’ve been putting on the back-burner in recent months. That means you’ll start seeing more of me over at Asia Sentinel in the months ahead (though it might not be under my real name). Last week, I got...

In defence of good wind

Dec 9, 2009 6:59pm

I can never understand people who call themselves environmentalists but reject the idea of wind farms on account of aesthetics. To me, wind farms are things of beauty, because they are a sign of environmental progress, and of humans learning to harness — rather than exploit — their natural environment. My...

A Google New World

Dec 3, 2009 8:28pm

I love the stoush between Google and news publishers (ie, Rupert Murdoch and few others). I strongly favour Google’s position — that they’re sending valuable traffic to newspapers that otherwise would struggle to get it — but I can see why Murdoch is being curmudgeonly about it (to improve his...

The John Campbell of old…

Nov 27, 2009 3:27pm

… is apparently the same as the John Campbell of new. Thoroughly nice, effusive, and book smart. This interview by Michele Hewitson in the New Zealand Herald reminded me of one I did years ago with Campbell while I was a student journalist in Dunedin. I was very pleased to find...

Why I’ll be taking it easy this weekend

Nov 12, 2009 8:10pm

Clockenflap, Hong Kong’s boutique music and multimedia festival, was great last weekend, but it was two long days outside. Congratulations Mr Justin Sweeting, Jay Forster, and Mike Hill. I was exhausted by the end of it. After and during that, my good friends Patrick and Tash were here, and, being a...

Surely we can reconcile this

Oct 21, 2009 8:36pm

I don’t have time to go into depth about this, but two stories caught my eye today. From the New York Times, ‘Experts Worry as Population and Hunger Grow‘: Scientists and development experts across the globe are racing to increase food production by 50 percent over the next two decades to feed...