About my links and a blurb about wardrobe capsule and gratuitous use of the word crap

Just a quick one today.

I thought I'd explain the links I'm now putting up on the side.

They aren't particularly ordered, but broadly fall into 3 categories:

1.  Travel tips related
2.  Travel with kids related
3.  Food related - whether that be food bloggers or the ubiquitous openrice.com.hk, which leaves all other restaurant collections and reviews for dead (yes, urbanspoon, I'm lobbing that grenade in your direction).

I'll add them as I find them.

I think a special mention has to go to the capsule wardrobing link.  Mrs Brisket is a made capsule wardrober.  Our last trip for a few days was condensed into 2 carry on suitcases (for a family of 6, including a toddler which we took nappies for).  Pretty impressive.

In HK, there are cheap laundries everywhere.  Not everyone has the space to put a washer in.  Some apartments via wimdu or airbnb we've rented have had a washer, some haven't.  If we have to pay double our money for a place with a washer (or a less wanted location), we'll take the gamble that there will be a cheap laundry.  Generally around $7-$10 AUD for a few kgs of laundry washed, dried and folded.

Color Rich - purveyor of my cow neck pillow and all round cute stuffed crap - perfect for that blanket, pillow or bear hat

The other tip that this gives you?  If you have lots of carry one (which we will, as we will take full service again), you can either a.  take empty suitcases and fill them with your bargains of (crap) interesting acquisitions - actually, we fill it with cheap shirts and shorts (I still have an Oakley shirt from 2009 that has held up very well), socks, booze, souvenirs, Asian stationery (I have four daughters, there is a suitcase dedicated to stationery) - that sort of thing.  Likely you will wear something ahead of fashion at home; or b.  Travel out light and buy suitcases there.  I tend to buy them in little old vendors that aren't at the markets - they tend to be cheaper, then proceed to filling them with said crap.

One thing I love about travelling to HK is the cheap shopping - markets can be a tourist trap (or not, if you are prepared to be hard in bargaining and don't flash wads of cash around), but there are plenty of other cool places, some in malls, some just on the street.

Either way, I'm sure you will be less likely to hesitate on buying that 5th Rilakkuma towel.

Hi diddley ding dong crap.

Food Heaven in the sticks

Courtesy of circumstance, we found ourselves in a tiny apartment, out in the sticks.  Well, sort of sticks - technically Tai Kok Tsui, it seemed a bit too far from anything.  But it was cheap because the entire area is going through some sort of Urban Renewal, so we grabbed it.

Said Urban Renewal - to you, it looks yuk, to me, I see opportunity

How wrong we were!  I found food heaven and convenience heretofore unfound in cheap HK accommodation.

We arrived at night in Man Ying Street - no safer place in the world with kids

In no particular order, it was fantastic because:

1. It's a block and a half from Austin Station, which is like an 8 stop line that will quickly get you connected - that's a quick trip to Tung Chung for outlet shopping, Disneyland for, well, Disneyland and 2 stops from Hung Hom for a trip to China.
2. It's a little longer to Jordan, but not much - and that gets you down the 'backbone' of HK MTR stations.
3. Food - I think there are more cheap eats per steet than anywhere I've been, and pretty much tourist free (thus making them cheaper and more 'local') - and all different cuisines too.
4. 3 7-Elevens within a block.  Booze is sorted.
5. Near Jordan Road, so you can walk anywhere.
6. About 3 blocks from Temple Street Night Market and Woosung Street (more on Woosung in another post).
7. It's quiet by HK standards and a little safer to get kids over the street safely.

If none of this makes sense to you, then you'll need to read last year's trip a bit.  Or just trust me - it's a great place.

Typical Canto-restaurant, where we paid $15 for more food than we needed

Mini Parked in front of one of 4 Japanese Restaurants in a row

I love old school HK buildings

Urban renewal during the day

In 4 days, there is only so much eating one can do.  Once you remove the obligatory trip to Yoshinoya to satisfy the kids (and Mrs Brisket) and a gorge on egg tarts for one breakkie there isn't much time left to try everything.  I could be here a month and only need to travel a couple of blocks in any direction and never eat the same thing twice.

Restaurants line each side of Man Ying Street

Austin Station is also fantastic.  It's quick to a number of places (I finally made it to Tai O) and not as packed as say a Jordan, Admiralty or TST/MK station.  That is superb when you are yelling at 4 kids to get the hell on the train or risk losing an arm.  There is no stampede to work through.

These side street markets are more interesting than the tourist markets

Temple Street is close by, I'm not always a fan, but it's worth poking down the side streets a few streets away for local food and stuff.  We bought some towels for $20 (HKD) to go swimming with.

I'll do some posts on what we did eat nearby, as well as Tai O (Venice of the East), Woosung Street and Cha Chaan Teng Food.

Suffice to say, Man Ying Street will be revisted and restayed at by us, hopefully in the middle of the year.  Do yourself a favour, get over here.

Don't do it, don't fly Deathstar

So we tried our first international flight on a budget carrier.  With 4 kids.

I'll try to keep this easy-to-read.

The title says it but some details and even positives to come from this experience.

To make this easier, it was a flight from Melbourne to Hong Kong via Singapore.

The bad stuff started when I got the ubiquitous "your flight has been cancelled for operational reasons" 2 days before we leave. Closer inspection reveals that it's the SIN-HKG stretch with Jetstar Asia that got the ol' boot.

I'd seen this happen before to others. Some older couple were waiting for hours in MEL domestic getting a flight back to Launceston scheduled for 2pm. They ended up flying out at 11pm, with a lovely 3 hour drive to look forward to at midnight. Notwithstanding the fact that Melbourne Jetstar domestic sucks big time.

Anywho, this isn't a rant.

So we ring up several times and get several different stories, a theme that is the only consistent approach in the way Jetstar deal with their clientele.

Cancel all flights out, rebook the entire trip (MEL-SIN-HKG) a day later. Nope, no time to waste. Aami weren't much help either, stating we had to incur a loss to attempt a claim.

Aftet several calls, we suggested that they rebook the second leg only and whaddaya know, there was a later flight. Instead of arriving at 1pm, we'd arrive at 8pm. Okay, so we compromised.

This is another issue with Jetstar service, you need to do the thinking and suggesting for them. Don't expect them to volunteer useful information. Another theme that carries through the Jetstar experience.

Flight from MEL to SIN was nothing exciting. We got a new A330 and the seats were pretty decent though the legroom was smaller than full service. I'll pay for the extra legroom.  You have to pay lots for rubbish food and drinks.

The typical travel hack for this is pack lots of snacks for the kids and fill water bottles in the airport and on the plane. It sort of works but I find that on longer flights, being served food breaks up the flight.

Kids have tablets each. Again this helps. Stock them with movies and see if you can get them to share, so each tablet has longer battery use. It'll save you a little from the last 2 hours being "how long until we're....". It won't save you from the Charlie n Lola vs Lion King 5th time arguments.  Nothing will save you from that.

Given we spent extra time in the air over Singapore waiting for a storm to finish, extra batteries would have been fan-flippin-tastic. There were more red rings on the flight map than the haemmoroids department of the RPA.

So we arrive at Changi.  Courtesy of some astute capsule wardrobing by mummy, we only checked the pram in on the way there, despite paying for 2 extra suitcases of checked baggage.

But the problem was because the 2 legs were no longer linked together, we had to fetch our pram from baggage. Which means clearing Singapore customs.

Now the transit area of Changi is pretty good but we were outside of it with very few restaurants at 9pm with 16 hours to kill. Not fun.

So we go to the Jetstar counter and ask about what to do. Come back at 11pm. So we needed to eat, had nowhere to relax and had to kill time outside of transit.

After paying for an overpriced meal which was still pretty good we let the kids play in a playground full of other screaming kids - so much that it'd test the engineering of that floor.

11pm comes, we spend an hour in line only to be told that there's no ability to allocate seats so early on the flight, therefore no checkin. We need checkin to get back to transit and sleep. So after some polite firm insistence we get our boarding passes and go in.

Short trip, Jestar, what next?

A strange post?

A great deal has happened in the recent past.  We had wanted to move to Hong Kong and when work fell through (and with it, a VISA) and accommodation fell through, we had to return to our home town.

But we had 4 nights accommodation and flights paid for, so we thought "hey, why not make use of it?"

It'll also give me the opportunity to flight test a low cost carrier and a two stage flight to HK.  

Usually, we just jump a Qantas flight on super special and fly directly to HK.  This time, we're with Jetstar (cheerfully nicknamed "Deathstar").  Flying from MEL-SIN-HKG over a fair number of hours.

So a review of that effort (and any tips) will be forthcoming.  As noted in other places, a big tip with Jetstar is a. bring your own tablets and b. Buy snack food for the trip.  It's even on the Jetstar website, so they're cool with it.  The other advantage is that we touch down in Changi Airport, can buy dinner and breakfast and then fly the shorter jump to HK.

No trip to Macau this time :(

Cannon in New Territories - HK isn't just shopping, you know?

More cool history stuff

Walled City, New Territories

Lovely lights in HK

So 4 days in HK - we'll do as much as we can in those four days and post lots of photos and new tips if needed.

We plan on spending some more time on HKI this time

Hong Kong, how we love thee.

Tsing Ma/Tsing Yi Bridge

On the road again

Just a quick post to keep the blog going and talk about our upcoming trip to HK (again).

The plane tickets were too good to miss.  And Disneyland is a place my kids love at a price that I can tolerate.

But we'll spend overnight in Singapore at Changi Airport.

So a couple of tweaks on our plans.

We'll jump off the plane and stay in an apartment in Kowloon for a couple of nights, near Jordan and Austin stations.  Then onto Disneyland and then back in HKI.

This is hopefully going to get me a couple of good nights' sleep.  

More importantly, it'll give me an opportunity to visit the Woosung Street Temporary Cooked Food Hawker Bazaar.  A link to a couple of Aussie foodies and their trip there.

Apartment was (dis)courtesy of airbnb.com

A couple of warnings - last time we used wimdu and it was pretty much hiccup free.  We tried both this time and apart from the first couple of nights accommodation which looks okay so far, their service has been deplorable.

We booked an apartment.  The person who owns/manages the apartment ignored all correspondence from us. Our credit card had a 'bar' or 'hold' over the funds via a pre-authorisation from airbnb.  The vendor neither cancelled nor contacted us and so after a couple of weeks we contacted airbnb. It eventually got sorted, but not without airbnb threatening that under their rules (read them, we were told by the girl answering the phone - she was Aussie) we would lose all of our money.

Eventually after 2 weeks and calls to our bank, we got our authorisation money accessible again.

Pretty poor form from airbnb, though.  Really should have a means whereby if the owner/manager of the apartment does not accept, then no authorisation should be put on the card.  

Wimdu were way better.  A similar thing happened, but with 2 key details.  1.  The landlord accepted and then tried to back out when the price was too good (they did make a mistake) - so less 'pre-authorisation' lock and more 'take the money once accepted'.  2.  Wimdu apologised profusely and were prepared to find us similar style accommodation and then foot the bill for any difference; or were happy to refund.  Their service was very friendly albeit very slow.

My tip is that if you are planning to use these services (I'll continue with wimdu next time I need something) then leave more than enough time to iron out hiccups. Have 2 months' worth of accommodation monies locked up isn't fun.  We had the cash for a third apartment if need be, but realistically, leave time, if it goes pear-shaped, then you have time to wait out the pre-authorisation lock 'refund'.

Onto the positive parts - look HK is expensive accommodation wise and these places offer a good sized (for HK) room/apartment for a lot less - great for larger families.

And my other tip is get one near an MTR.  Last time we were too far from one and it made travel inconvenient.  We took taxis but a larger family does scare some off.  Having said that, we had some great experiences with local cab drivers, including one bloke who says "No money, no honey" all the time.

Octopus, Hung Hom food, accommodation tips, kid safety tips

Sorry if this ends up being more text, less (or no) pics, but I'll try to keep it text-minimal.

This is the sort of entry one makes to collect up little bits and pieces of information that have no real place of their own, yet are many helpful tips that if ignored could have a significant impact on the holiday outcome.

I'll start with the small bits:

1. If you have kids, especially if you have girls (and you are Western) - look out in Tsim Sha Tsui and anywhere where there are touts - mostly of subcontinental and middle-eastern origin.  My grandfather is Indian, and there are some lovely Indians/Pakistanis/Middle Easterners (Raja Fashions have some great guys in there), but the ones who are in the TST area, looking for tourists to fleece are dodgy people and gave my daughters the creeps.  Trust you gut on this.

Chungking Mansions - home of dodginess in HK, watch out for touts, they want you to come here

2.  Get accommodation near an MTR line.  This has a two fold purpose.  You won't have to walk obscene distances to get transport and generally, if there's an MTR, there's places to eat, supermarkets and other shops.  It's frustrating to think of going somewhere to eat and how much effort it is to do so.  Walking downstairs and having something within distance is uber-convenient.

3.  Get an Octopus card.  I've mentioned this a little before, but basically it's not just for transport, it's for everything - food (McD, cake shops, chain eateries, etc), drinks and basics (7-Eleven, Wellcome Supermarket etc), transport (bus, train, tram, ferry), the Peak Tram (skip the queues).  It acts as more a small change debit card.  If you use the machine at the MTR, remember it's a min $50 HKD to top up.  Can't use a Credit Card to top up, unless you have the local flavour.  Given coins go right up to $10 - you'll save some weight as well.

Octopus Card, with MTR gates in the background

7-Eleven Counter with Octopus Card scanner for purchases (the orange thing).  Good for buying beer at midnight.

4.  If you take money out of the machine, especially when you are going to be in a haggling situation over price (like markets), put the majority of notes out of sight.  Break one note ($500 or $1000 HKD) by buying a drink at 7-Eleven.  If the stallholders/persons you are bargaining with think you have more money, they'll try to prise it from you.

5.  Learn numbers and manners. Makes you look less like a tourist (read: goldmine), more like someone who actually respects the locals (and it helps with communication too).

Okay, that's the tippy stuff done.

Now a couple of food reviews:

Mikawaya Hung Hom:

In tiny Ming On Street, there are two highly rated hole-in-the-wall eateries. I've previously blogged about world class dim sum without the world class price.

However, every time I've walked past Mikawaya, it's been packed - a great sign for the food but not for the opportunity to eat it. 

Mikawaya has an English Menu

Tonight we managed to get in and eat. The lady waiting tables/the front was so welcoming. She love the girls, especially the 1 year old. But noting how she treated her other customers showed it wasn't because we were interesting, but that her customers were important.  It also means that without a high chair, she held the bub, whilst we ate.  Bonus.

Pork Ramen

Ok. Food. $38 gets one a sliced pork Ramen, which I did finish, but I jettisoned my idea of dessert after, as I was full. Mrs Brisket had the $48 Pork Cutlet ramen. She didn't finish. it was sooooo filling. Both of absolutely loved it. The ramen was subtle but full of flavour. After some flavourless soup in an Olympic food court earlier in the week (actually just avoid Olympic food court altogether), this showed you can get subtle but classy soup. Pork was really nicely cooked as well. Baby brisket spent the time she wasn't being held and photographed nicking corn kernels from my bowl with glee.

I ordered 3 bowls of Pork Cutlet with Creamy Rice for my 3 older kids and they got a massive plate, like 14 inches wide.  I've seen family sized pizzas smaller than that.  If I'd ordered one, I reckon it would have been enough.

Pork Cutlet Creamy Rice, too big to fit in the picture

My kids are good eaters but even they couldn't finish these. Again, our lovely waitress to the rescue. Without being asked (in between holding bub) she went out the back & grabbed a massive takeaway bowl with lid - enough for 3 kids leftovers.

Two Asahis to wash it down, this is easily the best ramen and Japanese in HK I've had. 

And Breakfast is sorted tomorrow morning!

Shop D, G/F, Lux Theatre, 14 Ming On Street, Hung Hom


Ninoen Japanese Takeway (near Temple Street Night Market):

One major problem with being a tourist in Hong Kong is going to tourist areas - if it's not standing in an overcrowded space with someone trying to sell you something you don't want, it's the overpriced food, doing the ‘authentic' Dai Pai Dong experience is more expensive than eating at a proper restaurant outside these haunts.

However, I digress. In around the market precinct I had to get my family of 6 fed, quick smart.  As I have mentioned, this presents challenges in finding places to eat. Even the chain restaurants are sometimes a gamble. We're happy sitting at a 4 person table, but even that may not be available in a busy period.

So when we looked at this little tiny place, we thought 'nope' but in fact they accommodated us with grace and good service.  A big tick for service.

Another big tick was for value. We rolled out of there eating more than we probably should have, thanks to a case of 'big eyes, little belly'.  I reckon paying HKD$5 (what's that, about 70c or so AUD?) for fresh salmon boat sushi is a bargain and the Unagi is excellent value as well.  The mandatory plates of gyoza and I'm happy too.

Nom Noms

There's only a slight downer - in Australia, all sushi is offered with soy, wasabi and picked ginger. Unfortunately, the ginger wasn't there. Not a show stopper, but it would be a little extra for the customer.  I would have been happy to pay for it.

Honestly, it isn't high end sushi. You'll have better and pay huge amounts for the privilege.  You'll likely have worse and pay way more than you should for that dubious privilege.  Ninoen is good, honest sushi at a very good value price in an area known for fleecing tourists.  That gets it a big thumbs up from me.  Service gets another thumbs up from me.  Beer is 7-Eleven prices, not restaurant markup, another thumbs up.

G/F 27-31 Ning Po St, Jordan



Happy days!



Si Sun Fast Food:

Another example of somewhere well known, frequent openrice finalist, tiny space, etc.  But they do burgers.  But HK style, burgers.  Not Japanese style burgers (like MOSburger) or fast food ones like McD and Burger King (HJs), but HK burgers.

So HK style pork meat, or beef meat. No sauce (just sweet Asian style Mayo), this sort of plastic cheese that goes gooey and soft, sweet HK style rolls.  Grab egg if you like it.  

These aren't going to win a health award, but they're pretty good.  And cheap.

It may not look much, but it's amazing

Menu, in English.  AUD$2 for a double mince pork burger?  Don't mind if I do.

Don't expect much in the way of service, it's point n pay (with English and Japanese menus to help out), take a number and wait until it's called out (hence the reason for learning canto numbers).  They are reasonably accommodating to English speakers, but it isn't silver starred service.

1A Whampoa Street, Hung Hom



Hot.com (Dundas Street, Mong Kok)

So you're shopping at the Ladies Market with kids.  Good on you for bravery, you will be rewarded with endless attention and lots of cheap junk to buy your kids.

Now your family is hungry.  I understand that not everyone is as adventurous as we are - stinky tofu, fried squid and interesting street snacks that inhabit the streets around the markets (especially Dundas Street).

Hot.com will bail you out.  It's sort of a bits of everything western style food with an Asian twist.  Pizza cones (they're like tortillas wrapped around filling, corn mandatory, and then heated up), fries with gravy and cheese (pretty good poutine actually) and pork chop buns of a sort of Macau variety (but with sauce) which Mrs Brisket adored.

So, so wrong, and yet so good

$10 HKD for a Pork-chop bun? HK really is the place of good cheap food

Oh and bubble tea.

We really liked this place, and enjoyed standing outside on the pavement chewing away on some interesting food.  It seems like we overdo Western food when over there, but honestly we don't.  Si Sun, MOS burger and Hot.com are the only times we really ate western.  Mostly it was noodles, beef brisket, dim sum and Japanese food (HK has so much good Japanese food).

We also met a family (well two) that were holidaying from Western Sydney. They were staying together and doing stuff together and really enjoying it.  They had about 6-8 kids off memory between them all and were going around as a massive group.  Good on them!  After a nice chat about various things we'd done and they had, we finally got our bubble teas.

So if you are going at a busy time, be prepared for a LOOOOOOONNNNNNGGGG wait.  At least you can watch the people making takoyaki.

Oh, and 18 grams is over the road, should you be needing that 'real' coffee fix.

430 Dundas Street, Mong Kok

Saturday, in the Park. I think it was the 4th of November.

Ocean Park - lots of fun

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it, but when you have blonde kids and there are Mainland Chinese tourists around, you tend to be a bigger tourist attraction, than the one they paid for.  My (at the time 7 year old) Daughter thought she should start charging for photos.  True story.  

Travelling to OP in style, the circle on the mountain is the dragon next to the cable car

Same thing happened in Macau, Lamma Island, Disneyland et al.  My missus got the stage where she'd start photographing anyone and their kids.  One bird in Macau had a sleeping baby in a sling that she looked like she'd drop when she bent down to get that selfie with Gweilo kid.  Anyway, I digress.

So I thought Ocean Park was worth a write up for a few reasons.  Normally theme parks are a case of "if you know they're there, go.  You don't need to tell the world about it".  However there are a couple of tips to share and some photos.

Since we last went to HK in 2009, Ocean Park has gotten a lot bigger and the rides more numerous and better.  The big rollercoaster (which is a newbie) is fantastic.

These Pandas are worth the price of admission alone.

Lots of active sea-mammals doing their sea-mammally thing.

The big thing with Ocean Park is that it's so cheap compared to most theme parks pretty much anywhere in the world.  About $100 Australian for a family of 5 (the 1 year old was free).  And there's always something for each age group and adrenelin level (or visual level).

The other big thing is that the food is generally tolerable and cheap, if you go the Cant-faux route.  

Again, probably avoid "street food" dim sum and the like.  The mobile food carts near the souvenir shops after the entrance are a definite no-go on every level.  Steamed Salmonella with Dysentary satay on a stick.  Faux-Malaysian and all sort of awful.  Pretty much avoid anything 'ethnic' in a HKers eyes (stick to Canto food and American style food).  Same applies for Indo, Malay and South East Asian food in Disney, especially in Mystic Manor.  It's going to taste bad, and ruin the next 2-3 days of your holiday, without gaining you any street-cred.

The 'diner' on the right hand side after you enter isn't bad.  Beer isn't cheap there (beer and bottled water are good price indicators), bottled water is prohibitively expensive by HK standards (but okay by AUS) and necessary for the humidity, and the food isn't fantastic and quite expensive, but it won't hurt you too much.

Entrance to Oceanarium, the diner is part of the blue globe to the right of this

The big tip is the food at Panda Kingdom Diner, just after the Panda display (yay!).  It isn't cheap by my cheap-HK standards, though at about $30 to feed a family, it's reasonable.  The food is adequate - the usual Char Siu and various other roasted animals and veges on steamed rice.  Not challenging, and not the best example - but it's a theme park and it'll do.  And it doesn't make you feel yuk and unable to ride afterward (I went on the massive rollercoaster twice immediately after).

These birds are allowed to be free, and don't fly off.  Must be on a good wicket.

More non-edible birdage

In our cage of death

As for the park - if you suffer from Height-based phobias, like my wife and my oldest kid, there's now a tunnel rail between the two parts of the park.  Me, and 2 of my other daughters (the baby went with mum, no arguments) went on the cable car.  Generally the cable car takes lots longer than the underground, due to lines.  And the underground railway is quite cute - mimicking a virtual reality underwater vessel.  So the tip is, check the lines before deciding or one group will be waiting half an hour for the hour.

The usual caveats about ride heights and vomiting apply for all the other rides.  Don't go on a rainy day, you might miss rides.

The view from the cable car

If you don't like the cable car, you can still get a good view in the "rides" part of OP

The other big tip relates to leaving the park.  It's a pain.  We took a taxi there (well worth the fee - though HK taxis are uber-cheap anyway), and the bus back (as of writing, the South Side of HKI doesn't have a train line, though it is being built).  Now this bus back turned into a two hour ordeal of waiting and standing and sitting in back-cramping positions - just to get to Central station.  Just don't bother if you have kids. Pay for the taxi.  Don't be deceived that the bus holds 50 people so that line will reduce quicker than the taxi line.  It won't.  

Get yourselves dropped off at your accommodation direct with a taxi and partake of a 7-Eleven dinner or something easy like that.  You'll be too tired to want anything to try eating out.  You'll avoid the 2 hours back to central, the 'trying to locate the train' in the night (which requires more walking, which you've already done all day) with whingeing, tired kids.  Then the train back, the walk back to accommodation, et cetera ad nauseum.

Ocean Park is well worth a look.  Good value, excellent rides, reasonably priced souvenirs and food.

Sweets, cakes, tiny spaces, eggtarts, 7-Eleven and booze.

One of the massive issues with taking a family of 6 around HK is finding space to eat (and food that will please all).

Sometimes, you just can't be stuffed pulling everyone into a table or into the narrow, tiny, overcrowded shop that contains it.  

Sometimes just fitting is more important than trying the most authentic local cuisine.

Sometimes you stand at the door of a tiny little shop you've been wanting to try, like the Romans at Hadrian's Wall, hoping someone will want you there.

Hong Kong allows for all these moods.

7-Eleven/Circle K are a goldmine of interesting meals.  Really!  No sarcasm font or anything.  You see in Asia, 7-Eleven isn't the home to fridges and fridges, held to ransom by Coke for their products, and hot-dogs of questionable pork content.  In Asia, they are actually good.

7-Eleven in Mong Kok

In Hong Kong, they have a range of items such as sushi (which isn't bad), sandwiches (what is it about Asian sandwiches that are so good?) and microwavable meals (and a microwave in which to heat them).

(A word of warning.  There's these counters:

Manned (or womanned) by some usually lovely ladies that serve out various 'street foods'.  Eat these at your own risk, not because of health, but because they aren't a patch on real street-food.  Just don't.  Real street food is a dream, this is the equivalent of frozen home-brand dim sims from woolies).

Sangas (my kids love the tuna ones, I liked the tonkatsu chicken style ones).  Usually there is Sushi in these fridges as well.

Frozen Dinners for Microwave

7-Eleven is everywhere, so never a far walk from your room/hotel/apartment.  They are cheap (most meals are in the HKD$12-$15 range - about $1.70 to $2.20 Australian; Sushi about 60¢ to $1 Aus per piece, Sangas about $1.50-$2.00 per Sandwich).  And they provide cutlery.

Not pictured is the ubiquitous Instant Noodle/Instant Ramen shelf.  Again cheap, and a gazillion times better than the Maggi and Mi Goreng wannabes in Aussie supermarkets. 

There's also another staple 7-Eleven sells that we wouldn't dream of in our nanny state.  Booze.  Cheap booze.  A parent's dream.

You see, some people think that parents have this amazing mechanism to cope with things.  

Reality is, we just think about booze whilst that tantrum we are desperately trying to control is out of control.  Whilst the rest of the surrounding world would like to cheerfully strangle our little brats (hey, let's face it, we do too!), we're thinking of our next beer.

Hong Kong sells it everywhere and cheap.  You are allowed to drink it on the street (an option I regularly availed myself of).  And you know what, I don't see any alcohol fuelled violence or anti-social behaviour.

Cheap.  2x500ml cans of Tsingtao Draft for HKD$12 (about $1.80 Aus).

Spirits are just about the only alcohol seriously taxed in HK.  Still, $13 Aus for a bottle of Vodka.  I never bought it but hey, just putting it out there.

Love this. Worth every HKD.  Which wasnt' much.

Asahi - but not the real stuff, just the adjunct laiden (usually rice) stuff served cheaper in Japan.  Okay, but worth the extra 50¢ a can for the actual beer.

Another option is the cake shops/bakeries.  Designed in much the same way as the Asian Bakeries in Oz (get tong and tray, get food, pay at counter).  There are a number of chain cake shops like Saint Honore and MX Bakery.  These do an adequate cake and other sweet or savoury Asian-style bakery food and are realistically priced.

However, look for your local hole-in-the-wall bakery.  They're there and they are close to where you are staying.  They'll usually be a million times better than the chains, and significantly cheaper.  We had one over the road from 7-Eleven and near our local cafe de coral that sold some great sandwiches and the best egg-tarts we tried in HK (though not Macau).  Cost $2.40 each.  That's HKD, not AUD.  That's about 35¢ AU.

Egg Tarts, nom nom.

Sweet shops are fun too.  They're everywhere and as with most competitive businesses, service is better.  And the kids will love them. Even if they don't like the more exotic (read: less gweilo) items, there will be something for them.  Some photos from a few we tried:

Not all sweet shops are tiny, but most are.  Daytime is the best time for space.

Picture menu, always helpful

Mango Ice, Mango, Taro "sundae" - really nice and not too challenging for the kiddies

These are filled with mango with a chewy rice mochi like outer layer, and coconut on the very outside, very nice

Despite all the walking, I came home considerably heavier than when I left.  So much so, that my tailored suit no longer fits (I shrunk, it didn't).

I've covered the chain restaurants.  These are worth a shot.  If you want more room (and "Western style" burgers) got to MOS-Burger, a Japanese burger train.  We met a HK-American local and her nanny (and her one child) who kept telling us that we were her idols, once she'd heard we came from Australia with 4 kids in tow.

Sometimes, you want really good, really local food.  First thing to note - you are best to arrive outside usual meal times (lunch, dinner) and either arrive before or after the lunchtime/dinnertime rush.  This will help.

When you have kids, a number of places are really accommodating.  It's not Japanese service, but it usually quite nice.  Sometimes it's really really nice, like the lovely ladies at Mikawaya in Hung Hom, who were overjoyed with Gweilo kids in their little place.  I don't have a pic, more's the pity.

We went to the dumpling place in Hung Hom mentioned in previous posts and they squeezed us in no-probs.  Not loitering does ingratiate you, and we were able to eat there again, without any fuss.

Tiny dumpling place

In the streets surrounding Temple Street (away from the touristy areas, we were accommodated in this tiny little place (Japanese food, not people) who really were gracious in their service.

Tiny Japanese Place, Good Service

Another Japanese place - this time, Hung Hom

 So all is not lost, you can eat with kids in HK.  According to your mood or theirs.  

And if all else fails, there's booze.