Tag Archives: Hong

The poon choi is ripe this year in Hong Kong

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It’s Christmas, and when I’m not celebrating the birth of the baby Jesus, or the pagan rituals of winter solstice by going to a hockey game in Minnesota (versus the former Frenchies of Quebec City, now known as the Colorado Avalanche), I’m enjoying a bowl of poon choi, a traditional type of food originated from Hakka cuisine.

According to Wikipedia, which can make someone sound knowledgeable in a Coles Notes sorta way, Poon Choi was invented during the late Song Dynasty of China. When Mongol troops invaded Song China, the young Emperor fled to the area around Guangdong Province and Hong Kong. To serve the Emperor as well as his army, the locals collected all their best food available, cooked it, and put it in wooden washing basins. By doing so Poon Choi was invented

Hong Kong’s Centre for Food Safety (CFS) today released the test results of a seasonal food surveillance project for "poon choi" which is popular at festive gatherings. A CFS spokesman said the centre recently collected 15 samples of "poon choi" from food factories, restaurants and cooked food stalls for microbiological tests, including those for pathogens Bacillus cereus, Clostridium perfringens, Salmonella, Staphylococcus aureus and Vibrio parahaemolyticus.

All the poon choi samples passed the tests.
 

Batman hit by Hong Kong pollution

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Producers shooting the new Batman movie have, reports The West Australian, been forced to cut one scene involving the caped crusader – played by Christian Bale – jumping out of a plane into Hong Kong’s famed Victoria Harbour.

The South China Morning Post was cited as saying producers felt the poor water quality was just too dangerous for the action hero when shooting for part of the film takes place there in the coming week.

A source was quoted as saying, “There was supposed to be a scene where Batman jumps out of the back of a Hercules C-130 and into Victoria Harbour. The plan was for Batman to be seen jumping into the water and then climbing up some bamboo, or something similar, onto a pier. But when they checked a water sample, they found all sorts of things, salmonella and tuberculosis, so it was cancelled. Now the action will cut to inside a building."

A spokeswoman for Hong Kong’s Environmental Protection Department was cited as admitting that harbor water was not suitable for swimming due to untreated sewage.