'We've packed our passports.'
'And bought our phrasebooks.'
'Because we're off on our biggest, craziest adventure yet.'
Delicious. Delicious.
Meow! Meow! Bee!
'We're travelling further than we've ever done before.'
'To uncover the authentic routes of Britain's favourite takeaway foods.'
I've always wanted to know how to make proper sweet and sour sauce.
'Going off the beaten track
'and being welcomed into some of Asia's hidden worlds.'
How marvellous is this?
'From the high rises and hot woks of Hong Kong.'
The heat on this is really, really intense,
but listen...
It's like a jet engine.
I love it.
'To the sweltering tropics of Thailand...
'..where they say it's impossible to eat badly.'
Thai food has arrived in Britain, but by crikey,
it's only the tip of the iceberg.
'And we fulfil a lifelong ambition to explore Japan.'
That is perfect. Wow. Look at that.
I've just had a sushi-gasm.
'We finish up in South Korea, where the spicy cuisine is sensational.'
This would go down a bomb down the local.
'So leather up and take to the road.'
'For one extremely hairy...
'Asian adventure!'
We're in Hong Kong. This is Asia's world city.
It's famous for finance and fantastic food.
And it has one of the highest concentrations
of restaurants per capita of anywhere in the world.
Chinese is now the most popular takeaway in the UK.
So what better place to come to track down the origins
of our favourite dishes than Hong Kong, our gateway to China?
Hong Kong is a dazzling, busy, crowded, hot,
steamy and stunning place where East meets West.
And it's here where our love affair with Chinese cuisine began
almost 150 years ago.
Hong Kong became a British colony in 1842.
Merchants ships crewed by Chinese sailors headed for Britain
bringing their cuisine to our shores.
Look at all the ships in the harbour! That's amazing.
What a city!
Today, Hong Kong is under Chinese rule,
home to seven million people,
and it's the most vertical city on the planet.
It's like Canary Wharf with chopsticks.
And the food here is Cantonese -
a mouthwatering mix of stir-fries, seafood and roast meats.
It's what we have on our Chinese takeaway menus back home.
Dave and I love a Chinese takeaway like anybody else.
What's your favourite takeaway?
Oh, beef and black bean sauce with crispy noodles, without a doubt.
What's yours? Well, good old predictable,
sweet and sour pork for me, matey. Oh!
We can't wait to find out how Chinese food here compares
to what we know and love back home.
Plus, we want to understand what our beloved Chinese cuisine
means to the nation that invented it.
We want to find out what Chinese people
have for their takeaways,
what they eat in their homes, and what they have for Sunday lunch.
What I'm looking forward to is to having a big adventure
in Hong Kong, to really immerse myself in Chinese cuisine.
There's got to be more to it than a number 42 with an egg fried rice.
But first, we've got to get our bearings.
Hong Kong is made up of a chunk of mainland China,
plus more than 200 islands in the South China Sea.
The beating heart of it is Hong Kong Island, so that's where
we're heading for our first taste of true Chinese cooking.
Nestled beneath the skyscrapers
that are home to some of the world's biggest banks,
are traditional food stalls that are knocking out
some of the most authentic Cantonese food in the city.
These open-air stalls, called dai pai dongs,
have been here for 60 years or more.
Today, they provide the perfect lunchtime fix
for busy office workers.
'We're meeting a two Michelin starred chef, Alvin Leung.'
So, you know, we're going to go to a dai pai dong.
This is my favourite one. Brilliant.
He's going to give us the lowdown on fast food, Cantonese style.
You know, the chefs here are amazing. They do thousands of these dishes.
Can you imagine doing this 14 hours a day in this immense heat?
He's doing the clams for us. And that's black bean, yeah?
That's black bean.
The dish is cooked in under a minute.
Practically done in a minute.
You see him stir-frying, or he's moving the things around. Tossing it.
Get everything coated.
The wok's fantastically versatile, isn't it?
You can make soup it in, you can sear in it, you can braise in it.
You deep-fry in it.
Deep-fry, yeah. You can even steam in it.
Look at that. Wow.
'He's done these clams with my favourite - black bean sauce.
'Get in!'
I love that! It's like a jet engine, isn't it?
It's so powerful.
Intense heat. It's over 200 degrees.
Scrub it and get on with the next dish.
This is the good thing.
You have the dishwasher and the stove all in one place.
Isn't that great?
Oh, sifu, thank you.
You know, you've got a complexity of flavours there.
It's a wonderful dish.
Aw, hey. Is it beautiful?
Aw, man, that is...
The flavours are perfectly balanced.
Fabulous. Thank you. Wow.
Alvin has challenged us to cook for him
and the sifu here on the dai pai dong,
but first, we'll need some ingredients.
This is what we call the wet market.
Fantastic.
Here we are. Wow.
It's bouncing fresh, isn't it?
We just need pak choi and choi sum, don't we?
Yeah. That's a good basis. Perfect.
Jobs a good 'un.
I've got myself caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.
You have, haven't you?
OK? OK, yes.
Very good, thank you.
22, she says. 22. Beautiful.
Oh, wow!
Hong Kong's surrounded by water, it's an island,
so here, we just love seafood. Everything is live.
Cantonese food isn't very spicy.
Instead, it relies on really fresh produce.
Everything is swimming. It's not just fresh. It's live.
You've got live crabs, live shrimps.
These are not the fresh ones, so don't take these ones.
These are what is on sale. Ah, right!
Get those ones, OK?
They're the ones we want.
Oh, defo, look at those.
About a dozen, eh?
There we go.
Some scallops? Scallops, yeah.
Thank you. That's smashing that, isn't it?
We're going to do a stir-fry with seafood and Chinese greens.
I hope you've got wok it takes, Kingy!
♪ Hong Kong Phooey!
♪ Quicker than the human eye! ♪
Hong Kong on a dai pai dong!
I can't believe it, dude.
Kingy, I'm a bit nervous. So am I.
We're cooking for the sifu who owns this establishment,
and also a two-star Michelin chef who is an expert in Cantonese food.
And we are but two humble Northern cooks.
But never mind, we're going to give it a go, because we're like that.
Tenacious, if nothing else.
Now, we're going to cook a prawn and scallop stir-fry.
We've kept this simple. Respect the fresh ingredients.
Everything must be properly prepared. The same goes at home.
When I do a Chinese meal,
I'll have little pots of everything ready to go.
We're going to cook the dinner in about three minutes.
This is a culinary sprint, not a marathon.
Are we ready?
Huh!
Let's go.
The heat is so important.
Garlic, sliced.
Pump up the volume, pump up the volume!
Ginger.
Brilliant with seafood.
And that's flavouring the oil.
We're using groundnut oil cos there's not much taste
and it's a really high temperature.
Are you ready? Get it in.
Six big prawns, de-veined. Watch these little fellows bounce.
Medallions of scallops which I have seasoned lightly.
We put them on and we want them to catch on one side.
Say when, Kingy. I'll tell you, mate.
Right, they're catching. Rice wine.
One spoonful of.
All right, Kingy? Yeah, mate.
Spring onions going in.
'As well as spring onions,
'garlic and ginger are key for an authentic Cantonese flavour.'
Mangetout.
Pak choi. Choi sum.
They're going to wilt like us in this searing heat.
Red chilli. Wah!
I'm feeling manly.
We need some liquid in there. They're sort of wilting.
Right, some light soy sauce.
The heat on this wok is really, really intense.
It's great, cos you can regulate it.
Listen, it's like a jet engine.
I love it.
Right-o, matey.
In Cantonese food, seasoning is minimal.
It's all about preserving the fresh fragrant tastes.
You don't want to kill the scallops, prawns and the wonderful greens.
And a teeny drizzle of sesame oil.
Toasted sesame oil is for serving after, for dressing.
Don't dry cooking with it. It'll be rank.
Now...
Very simple, very quick.
That's it Kingy, we need to get this out fresh.
They're going to get to taste our stir-fry.
Come on, sifu.
After you, mucker!
'Fingers crossed Alvin approves of our British take on Chinese food.'
Well, I'm really tempted to taste this,
and see if you guys have really learned the secret of wok chi.
Alvin, what is wok chi? Wok chi is the power from the wok.
Basically, it's from the heat, the intense heat, the hot oil,
and then you put in the herbs, the ginger, the green onions,
the garlic, and before you put in the vegetables and seafood,
and it flavours the whole dish.
We put the spring onions in with the veggies.
Would you have put the spring onions in first into the oil?
I would have, because it think it basically flavours the oil.
Who knows? You may have discovered something new.
Alvin, could you ask sifu what he thinks
about the look of it, initially?
He says, "Not bad, not bad." Now, to Chinese, not bad is good. Oh.
We're are not very complementive people, OK?
So, when he says not bad...
Guys, let's taste, come on.
Nice. Really nice.
Um...
Very well seasoned.
I don't need to add any salt, I don't need to add any chilli sauce.
The only criticism I would have is that the sauce is a bit watery.
We never...
It's good to thicken the sauce, cos the sauce is very important.
It has a lot of flavour.
You want to thicken it so you can coat all the vegetables.
If we had put some cornflour through the soy,
we would have thickened it as well, had a nice glaze.
It would have looked better as well.
Yeah, it would, it would.
I really like, guys. Excellent.
He said, "It's OK."
You know, I think we've learned more about wok cooking
from you and sifu in three minutes
than we have done in like ten years of pottering.
I want to try that recipe again. Yeah. Work on the wok chi.
'You know, Dave, it's interesting.
'We don't tend to think of Chinese food as a healthy option
'in the UK, but here, it's convenience food
'that's good for you too.'
Now we've got to grips with Cantonese fast food,
I reckon we need to find out what people eat at home
and how food fits into family life.
Well, you're in luck,
because we're going to gate-crash a local family's weekday dinner.
So, it's bye-bye to the big banks of Hong Kong Island
and hello to the New Territories on the Chinese mainland,
where three and a half million people live.
Speaking of the banks, Kingy,
Hong Kong has more billionaires per capita
than anywhere else in the world.
Yes, and you need to be loaded to buy your own gaff here.
House prices in Hong Kong have doubled over the past four years,
so nearly half the population lives in council owned skyscrapers
with subsidised rents, like the one we're going to eat our tea in.
This is a government housing estate on the Hong Kong/Chinese border,
and it consists of hundreds of high-rise apartments.
Now, each high-rise consists of 456 flats spread over 38 floors
with approximately 12 flats per floor.
With four to five people living in each apartment,
that makes a total of 2,200 people in each high-rise.
Now, as you know,
Dave and I are not adverse to "a mam knows best".
Now, well, this is "Chinese grannies know best".
I wonder what we'll find.
Our destination is floor 35, home to the Feungs -
a typical Hong Kong working family.
Jackie and Lulu's.
Hello, Jackie? I'm Dave.
Pleased to meet you. Jackie, hello.
I'm Si, very nice to meet you. Yeah. Nice to meet you.
Thank you for... This is Si. Hello. Hello.
'University student Jackie lives here with his Grandma Lulu,
'two brothers, and Dad and Mum.'
And my mother.
'All six of them live in this two-bedroom flat.'
Here's my bedroom, and I share the bedroom with my younger brother
and also my grandma.
So there's three of you sleep in here? Yeah.
My younger brother is sleeping here. OK. And me, I will sleep in here.
Yes. And my Grandma Lulu is sleeping here.
Ah, she's got a little bit under there? Yes.
Ah! A little pull-out.
Yes.
So here's my little kitchen.
And you see our servant today.
Ah, with a LITTLE CHEF!
'Like the majority of families here,
'Jackie's parents both work full-time.
'Mum is an accountant's clerk an hour away in Kowloon.'
'And Dad is one of the half a million Hong Kong residents
'who work over the border in China.'
So there's two woks and a wok ring and a rice steamer.
'So Granny's in charge of feeding the family.'
Lulu cooks for six, in a kitchen the size of a broom cupboard,
and tonight, we're squeezing in.
'First, a bitter melon, pork and black bean stir-fry.
'Bitter melon is a bit like courgette, er, but bitter.'
So this is...? Palm sugar! Palm sugar, yes.
I think this is why it tastes good.
That's a lot of palm sugar!
I'm doing...
Some water.
Some water?
I don't think I've cooked over a very small Chinese grandma before.
It's brilliant. Yeah.
She must feel like it's like having the Gruffalo in the kitchen.
She's fantastic.
Oh, look, now.
Jackie, now I know why you live at home. Yeah.
And there's a chicken dish coming now. Is there?! Yeah. Where from?!
'This 70-year-old doesn't stop for a second.
'Every night she cooks five or six different stir-fries, plus rice.'
So what dish is this one? Sweet-and-sour pork, Kingy.
It's sweet-and-sour pork... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
With sweet-and-sour sauce. Ah, yeah!
'Ah, love it! Lulu knows just how to make these Englishmen
'feel right at home.'
Like magic.
She's got stuff hidden everywhere! It's brilliant.
Right, this is the sweet-and-sour sauce. This is it.
Juliennes of carrot, right?
I've always wanted to know how to make proper sweet-and-sour sauce.
Everybody loves it. Yes, pineapple now.
Ohhh, look!
And the peppers. Yeah, peppers. Ooh, you can smell... Lovely. I like it.
Hurray!
Wow, very big.
Ohhh!
Tomato ketchup. Yeah, ketchup!
Oh! Crumbs.
That's three quarters of a bottle tomato ketchup.
I think it is a whole bottle of ketchup, Kingy.
'Crumbs. Dude, that's 700 calories in the tomato sauce alone.'
'Do you know, sweet-and-sour pork's been on Chinese menus in Britain
'since 1908?'
This is so sweet and savoury and...
Smells fantastic. It does, doesn't it?
'I'm telling you, this one's definitely sweet.'
Ah, look at those. Fantastic, Kingy.
Beautiful.
'This family feast
'has only taken Granny Lulu 45 minutes to rustle up.'
Now I feel as though I've arrived in Hong Kong.
Yes, it doesn't get more traditional than a family meal.
So let's start.
That's fantastic, that sauce.
So nice and crispy. Mm.
You are a good cook, aren't you, Lulu?
You must love her, man.
And, you know, this super-gran isn't just a genius cook.
Did Lulu look after you? When I was young, yeah. Yeah? Yeah.
Yes, yeah.
When I'm the baby, yeah. When I'm a baby.
I've been living with my grandma for 19 years.
'Grandparents living in to help out working parents
'is a really common set-up in Hong Kong.
'And Jackie's dad is a manager at a computer parts factory
'over the Chinese border.'
Do you work during the week in China,
and you come back to Hong Kong at the weekends? Yes.
Because in Hong Kong, it's a lot of factory... Yeah.
There's not any factory.
That's why many people have to work in the mainland.
So there's really no manufacturing base in Hong Kong at all? Yeah.
It's all in China now? Yes. It's all in China now, yes.
The food is just so good.
And produced in next to no time, in the smallest, smallest space. Yep.
But bundles and spoonfuls of love and care,
and that was beautiful to see.
Thank you very, very much. Yeah, you're welcome.
..you're welcome.
Try again.
You are welcome.
Man, your granny is the coolest granny. She is the coolest granny.
Every night, Jackie sits down to that! Yeah. I mean, fantastic.
It was a banquet. It was.
Cor, I bet Dad looks forward to coming back from China
for the weekend. I bet he does as well.
But, you know, it also... It gives Lulu a place within the family.
Yeah. Every night, I bet she puts that down with pride.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's her role, it is her worth.
Yeah. Proper family.
And I bet there's loads of people here that do exactly the same
as we've been in receipt of in that flat, man. Yeah.
It's funny to think that 6,000 miles away in Britain, people are
tucking in to sweet-and-sour pork just like Lulu's.
Well, thank you, Hong Kong. Lulu, we love you.
Hong Kong is impressive enough by day,
but at night, the skyline comes into its own.
We've headed for Temple Street in Kowloon.
One of the city's biggest night markets.
You could fill a truck, couldn't you? Oh, aye. It's everything.
You dance like that, dude.
See?
'The people here don't just believe in bargains, though, do they?
'They believe in fate, too.'
Are you superstitious, Kingy?
I am, mate, a bit, yeah. Are you?
I am, I am, but not half as much as the Chinese people.
I mean, fortune-telling, astrology, customs, superstition.
Yeah? Well, apparently, before any big event in their lives,
they always go to a fortune teller.
I'll tell you your fortune for nowt. What? Look into my eyes...
You are going on a long journey. Oh. So are you, come to that!
'There's a whole load of ways to see into the future, here, Si.'
Which one shall we go for? Shall we go for tarot, a kind of palms...
I'll have my palm done, I think.
'Yeah, but nobody could say, dude, our lack of lingo puts us off,
'though, could they? No.'
'Now, pay attention, Kingy, because this man has a gift that
'allows him to see deep into the core of my being.'
Aha.
My head?
'And he realises that you're stark raving bonkers.'
Oh, right. Oh, thank God for that.
What did he say? Thank you.
He said smashing long life and prosperity.
Oh. That's all right, then. Everything, yeah, is smashing.
Well, that's good.
'Right. Now it's my turn.'
'Simon King, surely you're not entrusting your fate to a budgie?'
'Well, yeah, but these are specially trained
'fortune-telling lovebirds, you know.'
Go on, mate. Pick one out. Pick a good'un.
Didn't want to come out. Ooh. That one looks keen, this one.
No, it's away back in.
It's not going well.
The one in the middle looks like he's up for it.
He's nearly got... Oh!
Is it good? What does it say?
Free! I'm free?
Ah, right. Smashing.
Seemed all right, that, didn't it? Yeah, and the bird was positive.
It was a very positive movement.
Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye-bye.
'Dave, you know I'm a bit psychic too, you know? Oh, yeah.
'I predict that next we will stumble across Hong Kong's
'most popular takeaway.'
'And I predict it won't be something
'you'll see on our takeaway menus at home.'
Curried fish balls! Yes!
Now, 37 million of these are eaten every single day in Hong Kong.
Thank you.
What did she say?
"Do you want them in a pot?"
'These fish balls, made from ground-up whitefish,
'are a cheap, filling snack which first appeared here in the 1950s.'
'And, about the same time,
'Chinese restaurants in the UK started doing takeaways too.'
Chilli oil. Chilli sauce.
Well, this is it. Our first fish ball in Hong Kong.
THE most popular ball on the planet.
Chilli sauce is hot. They're nice.
They're like...
boiled fish paste, put together, glued together into a ball.
OK, I've overdone the chilli. Oh...
Whoo!
They're like fish Maltesers. Do you know what I mean?
They are, aren't they? They are!
'Curried fish balls.
'Now, you don't see those down the Golden Chopsticks.'
'I'm in love!
'I reckon, you know, Dave, our adventure's off to a flying start.
'We've tasted real Chinese cooking here in Hong Kong, and found
'that they love our favourite foods just as much as we do.'
'And today we're getting to grips
'with a cornerstone of Cantonese cuisine.
'The delicious dumplings and other bite-size morsels known as dim sum.'
Now, we both love dim sum,
but Hong Kong is like the spiritual capital of dim sum.
Food for the heart.
'There's a restaurant serving these parcels of steamed, boiled
'or fried perfection in every Chinatown around the world.
'Best served between breakfast and lunch time,
'some folk reckon dim sum are the original brunch.'
'These days, going out for dim sum here is a bit like Sunday lunch is
'to us - a chance to catch up with your family and have a blow-out.'
'We've talked way into the kitchen of one of Hong Kong's
'most authentic dim sum houses to see some masters at work.'
Could you ask Mr Lai how long he's been doing this for?
Because he looks very, very skilled.
He became a dim sum master for more than 40 years. 40 years? 40 years!
Yes. This is the place to come for dumplings and good dim sum.
'These guys are serious craftsmen.
'They have to learn over 300 different dishes
'and feed over 700 hungry mouths a day.
'The biggest sellers are steamed barbecued pork buns
'called cha siu.
'And har gow, a clear,
'bonnet-shaped dumpling filled with shrimp and bamboo shoots.'
That is a beautiful thing.
I mean, if Penelope Cruz was a dumpling, that would be Penelope.
'The instant the dim sum are cooked,
'the baskets are banged onto serving trolleys.
'The ladies known as aunties, push them around the restaurant,
'shouting their wares
'and doling out dumplings to hungry punters who tip them the wink.'
'And today, we get to turn trolley dolly.'
Does this make me an auntie?
'Wagon dragons, more like, dude.'
I'll tie you round the back.
Listen, are you going to be a miserable auntie or a happy auntie?
I think I'm going to go traditional. What do you mean?
They're kind of quite stern, really.
'I tell you what, dude,
'it's going to take more than a stern look to win this challenge,
'Auntie Dave.'
Cha siu mai, kai pao chai!
Yes? OK. What would you like?
Cha siu mai, kai pao chai!
There you go. That was three. Thank you.
'A hat-trick! I'm cleaning up with my trolley dolly charm offensive, you know.
'Take that, Myers, get in!'
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
'I guess it just goes to show that when food's this good,
'it sells itself.'
It's easy being an auntie.
Plus it's so good, people love it.
And I think I've got two of their favourites -
cha siu mai, kai pao chai.
'These little dumpling numbers are selling like a...
'well, hot dumplings.'
You give us the wrong dim sum. Oh.
We wanted cha siu bao, but you gave us... Kai pao chai?
'Whoops!
'Dumpling identification fail!'
Ah, yes, thank you. Thank you.
'That's the last of me baskets gone!
'Looks like a win for the Kingy.'
Oh, in record time, Kingy. Boom! Host!
Yeah, hostess trolley. Smashing.
'Seems like we're naturals when it comes to smelling dim sum.
'I just hope making them comes as easy.'
'First we need some ingredients,
'so we're heading for Hong Kong's back garden.
'The fishing village of Sai Kung, in the New Territories,
'for a spot of shopping.'
It's one of the most popular places for locals to kick back
and indulge their voracious appetite for all things fishy.
There's a whole culture of it here. You walk along the prom,
look at the beautiful scenery,
you pick your fresh fish, you pick your fresh shellfish,
and then you nang it.
Yeah, it's the ultimate pick 'n' mix seafood platter.
We'd like to say, with a plethora of fishing boats just there,
that it's all locally caught and there's no food miles
but the truth is, loads of this stuff comes from China.
Hong Kong is so built up and it's so overpopulated,
it eats its way through a phenomenal amount of fresh fish.
It's not just fish. 95% of all groceries are imported here,
so living ain't cheap.
And we're after some super-fresh seafood to make dim sum.
So I hope you've got your wallet.
What a fantastic way to go out and get your ingredients!
It doesn't get much fresher, but how the hell do we ask for
six bouncing fresh jumbo-sized prawns in Cantonese?
Those ones. Go up a bit.
Not that one.
Yes! Yes. Good.
Thank you.
He wants 200.
We've only got 100. Hey?
200- that's 20 quid for six prawns. That's ridiculous.
That's like a major department store in London prices.
It's local at the source, isn't it? Go on, use your Geordie charm.
Right. Well, no, we don't want your hat, we just want the prawns!
100! For the pra... Hello! 100.
Is he telling us what I think he's telling us?
There's no need to be rude! Two?
Yeah, two.
Yeah.
OK. Oh, great, great, great. He didn't see the other 100. Smashing.
Ah! So you don't have to climb down. Excellent.
Hey! Great. One!
Look at that. Hey?
Oh, we get change.
Ah!
Thank you!
It was an amazing way to buy prawns but it wasn't cheap.
Cheap or not, dude, I'm sure they'll be belter in our dim sum recipe.
Here we are with the South China Seas behind us.
Yeah! We're doing dim sum Sai Kung style!
I'll be making a lotus leaf parcel with a mouthwatering meat filling
encased in rice.
And I'm going to do scrumptious prawn and crab dumplings.
But first, we need the necessary Cantonese cooking implements.
♪ Everybody was kung fu fighting... ♪
Where did they come from?
These are good for small work. Good for big work.
Good for medium-sized work. Good for mashing. Good for prepping.
They're good for shaving yourself when you lose your razor.
Everything can be done with your Chinese chopper. Indeedy.
First, I'm chopping chicken and pork loin to make the filling
for my lotus leaf recipe. Now, I haven't been too particular
about trimming the fat off this,
because the fat will seep into the rice
and give it additional flavour.
Fire up the wok and get some garlic in.
You kind of frizzle the garlic. Don't worry if it gets burnt.
Again, that's one of the things he says - don't burn the garlic.
It's kind of all right with this. 30 seconds. Wait till it goes crispy
and then cook off the meat.
That just needs to be coloured through.
Lovely.
This is a lap cheong sausage.
Wah-hah!
They're a sweet sausage, full of fat, really, really, really nice.
If you can't get to an Oriental supermarket,
try using sweet-cured bacon.
So it's not too meaty, we're adding some mushrooms to the filling mix.
This wouldn't happen to Rick Stein, would it? It wouldn't.
He-yah!
I'm making a sauce for the meat
starting with rice wine.
Isn't that a bobby dazzler?
Drink your wine and then make a lamp.
This is going to help the lotus wrap filling stick together.
Add some soy sauce and cornflour
and that's job done.
And watch it go thick.
It sticks together lovely so that'll be perfect
for our parcels.
We let that cool for about... It'll take about half an hour.
But what we are going to do is dress that
with just a splash of sesame oil. Give it that extra bit of doodah.
So that's the inside of Si's wrap sorted.
Now I need to start on my seafood dim sum.
The filling for the prawn and crab dumplings
is an assembly of fine flavours and fruits of the sea.
I have a lovely dressed crab here.
Pop that into a bowl.
These perfect prawns need chopping up.
Then add some garlic, ginger,
dried orange peel and water chestnuts before thickening the mix
with the old cornflour and water trick.
And the prawns are quite sort of gelatinous.
When that mixes with the cornflour,
hopefully they should be quite easy
to mould into my little dumpling cases.
Add chopped carrots and spring onions for a bit of colour.
Look at that.
It's like a mosaic. It's like a terrazzo floor
in a Victorian vestibule.
That's lovely, that, dude, lovely.
Let's make dumplings.
And I've got a dumpling dabbler.
People use them for packing your dumplings. I'm making my dumplings
with won ton skins, which you buy in packs of 50.
I've put a little spoonful of the mixture in the middle
and I've painted cornflour and water around the edge.
I pick up my doodah...
Little pleaty, like so...
Get it quite firm
and dab it down.
And that's number one.
My dim sum are parcels wrapped in a lotus leaf.
I'm using cold cooked rice.
Into the middle...
we put our lovely mixture.
A little bit more rice on the top, there.
Then what we do is, we gather it all together...
You can buy lotus leaves at Oriental supermarkets
or, alternatively, use grease-proof paper instead.
Little parcel.
All ready to get steaming, Kingy?
Make sure they don't touch or they'll stick together.
And they both take 15 minutes to steam,
cos the rice is cooked already.
They look amazing.
It's definitely food for the heart.
Well, Kingy, "dim sum" actually means a drop ON the heart,
because they were meant to be eaten as a snack, not a main meal.
Shall we? I think so.
Oh, little bundles of joy, Mr King.
How fabulous.
Whoa! How lovely does that little melange look?
Si...
Whoa!
They are flaming lovely.
They've got some life, haven't they? Cor, yeah.
Boom! Boom! Yeah, nice. The carrots are there, you've got crunch,
the water chestnuts.
That's lovely.
You could have the most wonderful dim sum party,
all sorts of different types of dumplings
and you can do all the work before your guests are there.
When your guests arrive, in the steamers, Bob's your uncle,
50 minutes later - serve it. Great. Oh, that's chewy.
Oh. Oh, man. They are good.
Jousahn - that's Cantonese for "good morning", that is.
And what a morning, dude! Back in the thick of it.
Monday rush hour on Hong Kong Island.
It's mayhem in this mega city.
Hundreds of thousands of people
are hurrying into the Central District
for work in the skyscrapers.
But we're here to find out what Hong Kongers eat in the morning.
I like the look of this for breakfast, Si.
Oh, it's fabulous, isn't it? Yeah.
It smells of Asia! Fish. I can smell fish.
Can you believe it? A quarter of locals here
have their morning meal out at least five times a week.
And Dave and I have heard
the locals are rather partial to a good old-fashioned fry-up.
There's Suzie. Hey! There she is!
Hey, Suzie. I've been waiting for over two hours!
You cannot be. You haven't got a watch on. So, if you want to eat?
I'm starving. Yeah.
All you two need is a fishing rod!
You have to help me down. Oh, I love you!
Hong Kong celebrity Suzie Wong
is going to show us how she likes to start the day.
You see? This is how this man makes tea.
Oh, yeah, look! So we have a stocking. A silk stocking!
Yes, silk stocking.
Back in the good old days of the jolly Empire,
the English love of a brew filtered through to the local population.
Now they reckon that straining the tea eight times through what
looks like my old granny's nylons makes the tea taste silkier.
This place is called a cha chaan teng.
A load of them opened up in colonial times
and they're still popular today.
It's as close to a greasy spoon as you'll get here,
serving mixed-up comfort foods to locals who want
a taste of Western grub on the cheap.
I guess, to them, it's a bit like chop suey and chips is to us.
A bit of what you know and a bit of what you don't.
There's a Spam noodle.
Spam noodles? Yes! Spam noodles.
♪ Spam, beautiful Spam!
♪ Beautiful Spam... ♪
This is brilliant. Now this is the French toast. Oh!
I tell you, the tea...
The eight-time passing...
It certainly draws the mouth.
Wow. Egg sandwich. Oh, egg butties! Corned beef?!
Corned beef! It's white bread, sliced, with the crusts off.
Fundamentally, that's a corned beef savoury sandwich.
This is a Pot Noodle with Spam and a fried egg. Yeah.
It's very westernised.
Are you going to have a try?
I'll give some to you.
Have a bite. Aw, look at this, Kingy.
It's a Hong Kong breakfast club sandwich.
Corned beef, egg, four slices white processed.
Double-decker, dude. Class.
It's not bad. Isn't it? No.
It's interesting. It's not full of expats in here. No.
I thought it'd be full of crusty old colonels
that had been left behind, having their bully beef and egg butties.
It's fascinating, isn't it, that you have these kind of echoes
of the cuisine of the past... from 100 years ago. Hmm.
You can see how important to a lot of nations Hong Kong was,
and from that, you get these multi layers of food
from different places around the world, different influences
brought in, and kind of mish-mashed together
in this mad city cuisine. It's nuts!
Come on, let's have a go. Yeah.
It is, um...
How do you like it?
It's strange, because the luncheon meat is quite kind of economy
luncheon meat, and the noodles do seem to be quite kind of instant.
Yeah, it is instant noodles.
How come you're not touching your French toast?
They're not worried about the calories, are they?
It's all a bit, um... Ah.
There's something inside it. What's the something inside? Peanut butter.
It's a fried white-bread
peanut butter, eggy, syrupy, sweet, buttery,
extra-butter sandwich.
Exactly!
This is the sort of food that killed Elvis.
A minute on the lips...
..a lifetime on the hips. Oh!
Trust the British to leave a legacy of corned beef and egg sandwiches,
spam and egg noodles,
and eggy bread! God bless 'em!
It's interesting that in the same way
we Brits have westernised Chinese cooking,
the people here have adapted our food for their tastes.
Well, that's not what you call an Asian treat, is it?
No. I mean, it's interesting, it's a legacy that we Brits left behind,
but I did feel it's come back to haunt me.
It's still coming back to haunt me, I tell you! That's wrong.
I wanted Asian adventure, not an egg sandwich.
We need to go and find something local. Something bright.
I've got just the thing - noodles!
Of course, Hong Kong's the place that brought us Brits
this key Cantonese ingredient.
And we've wangled a rare invite
into the back room of the Lau Sum Key noodle house in Kowloon
to learn the secrets of making the ultimate heritage noodle.
You know, Kingy, what I'm excited about
is, for years, the first Chinese food I ever tasted as a kid
was in my local takeaway
and it was chow mein. Yeah? It was noodles.
And it was the way the noodles were just fried on the bottom of the pan
and they were soft on the top
and there was something special,
and to wait kind of 40 years
to have the real thing, it's so worth it.
This place opened in 1931 and the family business
has been handed down from father to son,
ending up today in the hands of noodle artiste Jason.
How many?
About 30, 35.
35? 30?
Duck eggs are going to make it really rich, aren't they?
The colour of those yolks is going to go through the noodles. Fabulous.
It's good to see you get cracking, Kingy.
Did you have to?!
All that's in these noodles is eggs, flour and water.
Not mixed, but pressed into a dough.
How old were you when you started making noodles?
11 years old. 11? Yeah. Do you like making noodles?
I like doing this now,
but when I was young boy, I don't like this.
So far, so normal.
Having worked the dough to activate the gluten,
it's time for Jason's party trick.
OK.
Well, I can honestly say I've never seen a rodeo technique of noodle making before.
Yee-ha! Saddle up, cowboy!
The pressure of kneading with the bamboo and Jason's body weight
makes for a denser noodle with a springy texture...apparently.
And he's agreed to see just how dense
two hairy bikers can bum bounce his noodles.
I'll just pull me pants up. So, like, the crease in your bum...
No, not your bum, your thigh. No, that's what I'm doing.
Oh, I'm a machine, dude. I'm a machine.
You're getting good compression. I'm not surprised, there's about 20st of Geordie on the end of it.
I never thought I'd see the day when you were pole dancing.
Very flaming funny! Get on here. Hey? Get on.
And don't break his pole.
Right. That's it. That's it.
Yeah, let gravity work.
Steady on, Madame Butterfly! Have you had dance training?
It's funny you should mention it. It's all about the posture, in't it?
Keep your back straight, eyes forward.
Once the dough's been ridden to within 3mm of its life,
it's on to grandad's original cutting machine for noodle formation.
Wow! Wow!
It's a really, really strong dough, isn't it, Kingy?
Yes, mate. And that means you can cut it really fine.
Do you know what, they're a beautiful from of foodstuff, aren't they?
Yeah. I mean they look... so beautiful.
And long may the bamboo-pole method of noodle making continue.
I'll second that, Kingy.
The Pearl River!
You know, there's so much more to Hong Kong than the city.
We're heading out to the fishing village of Taikoo.
For hundreds of years, the Tanka people have made a living here salting and drying fish.
Their open-plan stilted houses over the tidal flats
are a world away from the high-rises of the city.
Hey, Si, you know how Hong Kong
would have been all sleepy fishing villages like this till the Brits arrived?
Back then, it only had a population of just 1,500.
I know, mate, it's mad to think
that there would have been English policemen in khaki shorts
in that colonial police station over there.
And that's where we're going to do some cooking.
We're going to do possibly the best egg fried rice you've ever tasted.
Don't say, "Oh, no, I don't like egg fried rice!" Listen, this is a minter. It is. It's brilliant!
We're going to do our own crispy belly pork to start the egg fried rice off.
Where could be better to roast some piggy than here in China,
where they produce over half the world's pork?
This piece is super fatty, so it should crisp up like a good 'un.
But it needs a marinade.
The dry ingredients are star anise, five-spice powder and salt.
Just give that a little shoomozel.
I love Sichuan peppercorns.
It's like the culinary equivalent of local anaesthetic.
It is, isn't it? And my department's the wet ingredients.
Grate two cloves of garlic,
some palm sugar and a thumb-sized piece of ginger.
Why do people say that? I mean, whose thumb's that?!
And we're going to marinate the pork in a plastic bag.
So that's our drys. Invisible tennis ball. Go on, then. Go on.
Thrown the invisible ball.
Oh, nice catch, dude.
Then add the wet stuff.
Plus a spoon each of hoisin sauce and sesame oil.
Just give it a good squidgy up.
You pop that in.
And then we're going to massage the pork.
You know, you want a kind of... put Barry White on in your head.
You know, that kind of... Hey, baby!
Go on.
♪ My everything. ♪
Whoo, baby! Laying on the love!
So look at that, no washing up.
Then put it in a moderate oven, about 160 degrees Celsius,
for an hour-and-a-half, an hour-and-three-quarters,
until it's cooked through and maybe a little bit crispy.
Obviously, take it out of the bag first.
And there's just time to emulate our colonial forefathers.
We'd take a little kind of tea-time gin and tonic, wouldn't we there? Yes. Yes, on the terrace.
Oh, yes, once the sun set over the Empire. Yes.
And fill ourselves full of quinine because of the malaria. Yah!
Oh, God! They're biting again tonight!
Let's shoot something as well, that's a good chap.
Yes, we did a lot of that, didn't we? Yes. Yes.
"Mad Dogs and Englishmen" by Noel Coward
Yes.
Cheers. Cheers.
Fabulous!
Cheers. Cheers. It reminds me of Broadstairs.
Come on, mate. The pork's got to be done by now.
That's me belly pork.
Oh! Beautiful!
It's very sticky, it's icky, it's just as it should be.
A mistake a lot of people make when they're doing egg fried rice
is just to pop the eggs into the rice and it ends up being kind of soggy.
You don't want that. Cook the eggs first in a kind of rolled up omelette.
Shred it and put it in the eggs at the end, it's beautiful.
Right, put that in there. Just throw it into the pan.
First off, about two tablespoons of ground nut oil.
Now, we've soaked some dried prawns to flavour the dish.
Bung 'em in!
Now to this, we want the garlic.
One big clove finely sliced.
Pop that in. I tell you what, mate, I'm going to come round this side
and see if I can be a bit of a shield, cos the wind's up. Yeah.
Because you want to get heat under a wok, you know.
Now, take the pork... it's fantastic!
Ah!
Crushed Sichuan peppercorns.
Chinese five-spice.
And now the rice.
Never use fresh rice, you want stone-cold leftover rice,
cos you don't want it to go soggy.
So what I often do is if I'm having rice the day before, say with a chilli,
I'll do double rice.
And now for the fresh prawns, which need less cooking time.
If you're me, I dig for the prawns.
Wok-static in't it? Hey, man, it's absolutely beautiful!
And now the spring onions.
And now the omelette.
Look at the colours in that, though, it looks fabulous.
Well, some people call it rainbow rice, don't they? Yeah.
And lastly...a dressing of soy sauce.
That...looks and smells epic.
And where better to eat our seafood supper
than here on the shore of the South China Sea?
Well, what a perfect end to a perfect day. Mmm!
Well, unfortunately, our adventure in Hong Kong is nearly over,
but there's one last thing on our to-do list.
It's nice to head out into the wild blue horizon!
We're hooking up with The Mad Dogs, a Hong Kong biking club.
Hey! You all right?
I used to have one of them! Yeah! How you're doing? Are you all right?
They regularly get together at the weekend to bike out of the city
and into the surrounding countryside.
It's about an hour's ride to our destination,
the Tai Chu Hut Temple near the Chinese border.
It's like a pressure cooker, in't it? In't it?
Yeah.
What's the motorcycling scene like in Hong Kong?
We have the luxury of some really beautiful mountains,
some really beautiful closed roads.
And where we do get to ride is fantastic. Yeah.
It's not all motorway riding to get somewhere scenic,
you step outside your door, ride for five minutes and you're in some beautiful countryside.
Do you not run out of roads and places to go?
Pretty much in two hours. It takes about two hours.
Can you go into China and motorcycle there? We're not allowed. Unfortunately not.
Really? Unfortunately not, no.
Why, what happens? Perhaps we are too fast for the Chinese police.
I don't know.
There are 600 temples and shrines here in Hong Kong
where the dominant religions are Taoism and Buddhism.
This temple honours the sea goddess, Ting Hau,
who is worshipped by both faiths.
Here, The Mad Dogs are going to send us on our way
with a traditional Chinese good-luck ceremony.
And this is a bissum? Basically, yeah.
This is our way of blessing journeys and houses and workplaces and all sorts of stuff.
Expat biker Jeff is going to guide us through the bissum.
Take three of these, sir.
Thank you. And you get three of them. Thank you. Thank you.
So then we approach... So you light your incense stick.
This ceremony worships the gods of the land and air
and is typically performed for any new venture that might disturb them,
a new business, construction project or event, for example.
Or a couple of hairy bikers travelling through Asia.
This sort of ceremony is really important in Hong Kong.
No matter whether it's your house or your business, everyone will do this ceremony
when they first move in to get rid of any evil spirits that may be around, or any bad feeling that's there.
Just to kind of exorcise it? Yeah, absolutely.
And after a while of living here, you kind of get drawn into it.
And the more you hear people talk about it, the more real it becomes, I suppose.
I'm off.
To the Chinese, three is a lucky number,
so we've got three incense sticks.
Then we have to bow three times
and then give the gods a drink of rice wine.
And then bow to the sky and just pour a little bit on the floor.
Next, an offering of roast pork.
The way you cut the pig is very important too, isn't it?
It is, the position of the pig with the head facing the temple. Yes. Right.
The way the pig is cut, the way it's served, everything has a meaning to it.
Oh, so from the neck?
Using the Chinese cleaver to cut the pig from top to tail in one fluid stroke signifies completion.
And sharing the chopper means sharing the luck.
Wah!
Oh, thank you.
Oh, wow!
It's like the Hong Kong biker's equivalent to the bacon butty, do you know what I mean?
Mmm! Thank you.
Before we go, there's one last thing to keep the gods onside.
The eternal financial flame.
Offer them some paper money. That's alight.
What a great day, wasn't it? Wasn't it just?
I never expected all those people to turn up.
What was cool was people were joining us as we were riding through,
it was just brilliant, weren't it? Yeah.
And actually we were amongst ex-pats,
but they're ex-pats who have adopted the culture, appreciated it and get a lot out of it, you know.
And that pork was good, wasn't it? Excellent.
Aye, pork crackling and a joss stick.
Well, hopefully we're guaranteed a bit of safety on the rest of the trip.
Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much.
Our time in Hong Kong has come to an end.
You know, it's kind of reassuring that the Chinese dishes
we love back home are so important to Hong Kongers too.
Yes, I've also realised, Dave, it's easy to take Chinese food for granted.
It's so simple, just fresh ingredients cooked quickly.
And you know what, mate, that its beauty.
Our journey to discover the roots of Britain's favourite food
continues next week when we hit...
Thailand!
♪ One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster! ♪
But will our efforts to cook Thai food impress the locals?
Good. Very good. Good. Good.
Oh! Champion. Champion!