HK Days 11 and 12

On Day 11 we went to the Big Buddha at the Po Lin Monastery on Lantau Island (Dai Yue Shan), where we had some vegetarian food. For the two of us, they brought four dishes plus soup and a gigantic pot of rice (the pot in the picture was maybe one-third full of rice). The soup was some kind of melon and herb soup - very tasty. It probably had a lot of MSG or something. Starting from the dish next to the soup and going clockwise, we had: 1) Pretty normal tasting bak choi and mushrooms; 2) Crispy turnip spring rolls (not made using the usual spring roll wrapper); 3) Vegetable medley with zucchini, celery, peppers, tofu, mystery melon, and some other unidentifiable stuff; and 4) Corn, mushroom, and tofu mush. Everything was pretty oily but actually really tasty too. I'm sure the oil had something to do with that. We ended up finishing everything except for the rice. By the way, note the bowl full of tea next to the soup, which is used for cleaning your dishes and chopsticks before eating.
As we left, we noticed that people in the other section of the restaurant had a lot more dishes, either because they were VIPs or because their tables were larger. They had fake fish in sweet and sour sauce and other fake meats. Too bad, as I'd have liked to have had some of that.

Anyway, we came back in the afternoon for high tea at the MO Bar in the Landmark Mandarin Oriental, as we pretended to be high rollers for an hour. I don't remember the details, but I believe it was about 200HKD (about 35 bucks) for two of us to have one tea set and a pot of white tea each. The tea set came in this pretty cool three-tired platter - I'd like to have one of these for eating snacks while watching TV.
As you can see, the bottom tier had savory bites and finger sandwiches, the middle tier had scones with very good jam and devonshire cream, and the top tier had sweets. Because I'm weird, we ate everything in order, starting from the bottom. Anyway, it was very good and surprisingly filling, but I guess I won't be going back anytime soon.

Had dinner with some relatives up in Kowloon. I didn't take many pictures, so all you get is this scallop. Check out the specialized cutlery.

The next day, we went up late to Victoria Peak and had a quick bite at McDonalds. Forgive us: the place is a tourist trap and everything else looked pricey. Anyway, we made up for it at dinner, which was at Nambantei in Causeway Bay, a Japanese restaurant with all sorts of grilled, skewered goodies. Beef tongue and chicken knees were just two of the many skewers we had.
Some other highlights were deboned chicken wings stuffed with goose liver or cheese, bacon-wrapped pork, delicious mushrooms, and these crispy rice cakes wrapped in seaweed and stuffed with salmon. The only downside to this restaurant was the price. The skewers were about 40HKD each (more for some, such as the goose-liver stuffed chicken wings), so it added up pretty quickly. Still, I've thought about this restaurant and drooled more than once since we got back.