Opening Party @ HK Watch & Clock Fair – 5 September, 2017

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The HK Watch & Clock Fair 2017 kicked off with an opening reception and dinner as buyers and manufacturers from around the world saw models parade some of the latest watch designs.
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Porker, Simple Food Done Well

It’s easy to walk past the entrance to Porker the new tonkatsu (Japanese cutlet bar) on Wellington Street and if you enjoy and appreciate pork and sake that’d be a mistake. The nondescript stairs wind down to a small friendly room adorned with playing card wallpaper – porker/poker – and some fine food.

As with beef, the Japanese will claim you’ve never had pork until you’ve eaten Japanese pork. There are designer pork farms across several prefectures which produce amazingly tender juicy pork weaved with tasty fat. Porker uses Sangenton 30 day aged pork from the Kagoshima prefecture shipped vacuum sealed, so never frozen, to preserve the flavour.

The menu features a range of teishoku (set meals) available throughout the day and a selection of appetisers and a la carte dishes which are only available in the evening. The signature dish is the Porker set ($200) which combines two of the restaurants best sellers deep fried breaded aged pork sirloin (120g) and tenderloin (50g) served with Japanese rice, soup, pickles and cabbage.

Even though it’s been deep fried, there’s almost no oil residue or oily taste and the breadcrumbs are lovely and crispy, the thick cut pork remains juicy and moist throughout. The sirloin has tasty fatty edge and good flavour. The tenderloin, served light pink is juicy, soo soft and tender that it’s melt in the mouth delicious.

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The Minced Meat Cutlet with tomato sauce ($80) features minced pork with melted cheese in the center, breaded and deep fried and then served with a tangy tomato sauce which has just the right sharpness to cut through the oils. Delicious.

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I’m not a great fan of eating pork entrails, the taste and texture just never really does it for me. But there’s pork entrails and Japanese pork entrails… The Pork Giblets Stew ($70) has a miso base with the entrails stewed until soft and tender. It’s full of flavour and offers a nice contrast to all the fried offerings.

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Unexpectedly the Tenderloin Cutlet Sandwich (2pc, $70) is a little disappointing – that sounds a bit harsh and perhaps it is – the thick cut tenderloin was a little dry and for a sandwich the portion size isn’t visually impressive. Perhaps we had expectations for this dish, whereas for the others we didn’t. It still tastes pretty good though, although overshadowed by the other dishes. It’s offered as a 4pc take out option at lunch time ($140) and you’d want four pieces to feel full.

There’s a single page playing card drinks menu with a range of sake, wine and shochu chosen to pair well with the food offerings. Currently Porker has no desert menu.

We haven’t extensively sampled tonkatsu style restaurants around town, so can’t offer a comparison against other offerings. Porker offers good sized portions of very tasty and well cooked pork which won’t leave you feeling hungry at for what in Central are reasonable prices. It’s simple food, done well.

Porker is the sister restaurant to the Japanese beef centric 298 Nikuya Room (Central) and 298 Nikuya Kitchen (TST).

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Porker
55 Wellington Street, Central. Tel: 6706 5298
Opening hours: Noon-2:30pm, 6-11pm
10% Service charge

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831 Live @ MacPherson Stadium – 30 August, 2017

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Veteran Taiwanese rock band 831 thrilled a packed MacPherson Stadium crowd with songs from their new album and a selection of their hits.
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Photos: Rolemodel Entertainment Group

23 Today, bc magazine

The 1st September 2017 marks the 23rd Anniversary of the launch of bc magazine – what an amazing 23 years its been, how the world has changed.

Massive thanks are owed to far too many people for me to list individual contributors for fear of missing out someone – but back in the 90s without Tom Hallahan and Mark Fitzsimons, bc might never have made it to your hands.

A big thank to all the advertisers who have and continue to make bc possible.

And a big thank you to you the readers for your support – online publishing offers different challenges and opportunities and we are constantly working to keep you updated as to what’s going on in Hong Kong without giving you a digital overload… Thank you!

Blair Reeve: Author and Peel Street Poet

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New Zealander Blair Reeve has been writing and performing a rhythmic and comical style of performance poetry since 1995. He spent the first seven years of the new millennium teaching English in Japanese junior high schools before moving to Hong Kong where he continued to teach phonics to primary students until 2013. He graduated from Massey University (NZ) in 2012 after studying Japanese and English Literature and then turned his attention to more sustained creative writing by joining the City University of Hong Kong’s Masters in Fine Arts program. He completed this in 2014, and one year later published his first children’s book Hogart The Hedgehog Turns Nink. In September 2016 he published his second book for young readers, Greta von Gerbil & Her Really Large Lexicon. Currently he works from home, caring for his infant daughter and mentoring post-grad students at Chinese U for their portfolios in creative writing. He was a feature author in the Hong Kong Young Readers’ Literary Festival in March 2016 and will be performing at the upcoming TEDxWanChai event on October 29.

How long have you been involved in poetry?
I’ve been involved in poetry since I was a kid in the 70s. First as a reader of comic verse—things like Spike Milligan, limericks & nonsense verse. In high school I really took to analyzing poetry, but I didn’t start writing until I was about 20. I was a pretender of anguished verse, which came from being one of those dyed-in-the-wool Cure fans. I then took up writing poetry as something to be read aloud and performed. This transition from pretender to writer/performer happened around 1996.

What inspires you to write?
My inspiration comes entirely from other poets and poetry. When I see writing I like it makes me want to write better. Hence my early poems were all like bad Goth lyrics. Then I was inspired by other performer-poets during my Dunedin days of the 90s and some of the old Victorian stuff I read at that time, especially Gerard Manly Hopkins who had a really playful word thing going on. Dr. Seuss continues to be an inspiration when I read to my daughter and that led me to wanting to write comical anapestic rhyming verse. This is so much fun I’m sticking with it for the time being.

How does Hong Kong influence your writing?
Hong Kong influences my writing in an indirect way. My social scene is miscellaneous and so it frees me to be as experimental as I like. It also means the cultural inputs into my writing are diverse, and I like that. I like that my poetry is informed by so many different perspectives. But my writing tends to be interior and imaginative rather than worldly, and in that sense, Hong Kong as a direct subject has yet to make it into my writing.

Here’s an extract from Blair’s new children’s book.

Flaytoo the Friendly Mayfly (extract)
Said Phlooty the Mayfly to Flaytoo his boy,
“You’re four hours old now, you’ve played with that toy
since the moment your mother gave birth to you son.
You’ve only got twenty more hours to have fun,
so don’t hesitate, Flayt, get out in the sun.”

We’re fish food, young chap, and that’s perfectly fine.
I’ve nothing against fish who do need to dine,
but there’s no need to hurry yourself to their plate.
Your time here is precious. Their stomachs can wait.
So listen up kiddo, go fly to the ends
of the field and make lots of new wonderful friends.
Because mayflies like us—we don’t live very long.
We’ve only one day till the end of our song.”

Then Phlooty the Mayfly unflicked his four wings,
and left Flaytoo flying alone without strings.

Say what?” exclaimed Flaytoo, “I’ve only one day?
That barely leaves time for a Mayfly to play!
Well I certainly mustn’tly waste my time ruing
those four hours gone when I ought to be doing
what Phlooty suggested—travelling and seeing
how other flies spend their lives living and being.”

Peel Street Poetry is an open mic poetry night at Orange Peel. It runs every Wednesday of the month except the first. The environment is friendly and they love new performers, so come share your poetry or just listen along to some of Hong Kong’s sharpest poetic talents.

Peel Street Poetry Open Mic
Date: 2nd, 3rd, 4th (and 5th) Wednesdays of the month
Venue: Orange Peel
Tickets: Free
More info:
www.peelstreetpoetry.com

Edited: 1 November 2016 – extract amended, last line was missing

Barfly: Iron Fairies

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There are many bars and restaurants but not many like Iron Fairies, whose origin lies in a children’s tale of the same name written and published by miner, designer and author Ashley Sutton. Stepping through the Iron Fairies portal is like stepping into another world of the type you see on television, in the cinema or in your imagination.

https://youtu.be/3M7LDAStQbg

Resembling a furnace room, there so much going on your eyes don’t know where to look, perhaps when it’s full of drinkers the experience will be different but the feeling of entering another realm was compelling on our visit. The ceiling of butterflies whispering and flowing like waves. The low cast iron tables inset with candles and mounds of iron fairies to resemble fires. The six furnaces that dominate the bar, the walls of iron working tools, the bundles of fairies dust… A smorgasbord of stimuli that are not pictures or printed wall designs as you’d expect, but real and physical and reward close inspection.
It must be a bitch to dust and keep clean.

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With live music, crafted cocktails Iron Fairies is going to be one of the places to be, but to enjoy and appreciate the wonders of the this part of the Iron Fairies world – there’s books, a website and bars in Bangkok and Tokyo – go when it’s less busy, read the tale, wonder on the identities of the twelve fairies and their tales of love and life.

Iron Fairies
LG/F, 1-13 Hollywood Road, Central, Hong Kong (the entrance portal is around the corner and down the stairs)
Opening hours: daily from 6pm – 3am

5:58 – 28 September, 2nd Anniversary

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5:58 when para-military police in green army style fatigues and armed with shotguns and semi-automatic rifles advanced on thousands of peaceful HongKongers and without warning opened fire with tear gas and started pointing rifles at those advocating democracy.

5:58 when HongKongers respect and faith in the police disappeared.

5:58 when Beijing exposed the reality behind the facade of one country two systems.

87 canisters, a gift from 689 to those who wish to stop him destroying the city and people he’s supposed to lead.

87 a blunt statement that nepotism, cronyism and corruption are the way of the future and free speech and democracy a thing of the past

Two years have passed, but none forget. We’ll be back!

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Queen + Adam Lambert @ AsiaWorld Expo – 28 September, 2016

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The show must go on as Queen + Adam Lambert entertained almost 10,000 sing-a-long fans at AsiaWorld Expo as the legendary rock group final made it to Hong Kong.

There is no replacing Freddie, as a couple of video clips showed, but Lambert works hard to entertain in what must be the strange job of filling the boots of a man who’s influence dominates the evening. Fans want to hear the classic songs, so he can’t make them his own and yet he’s not singing in a covers band… Tough task, but he makes a pretty good fist of it.

At 2 hours and 15 minutes the show is tight, professional and includes most of the hits. There’s an entertaining drum-off between Roger Taylor and his son, a long solo from Brian May and the two song encore ends with band waving goodbye to the strains of God Save the Queen.

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If there’s a complaint, beyond the, as usual, very average sound at AsiaWorld Expo, it’s that the show feels very orchestrated and choreographed. It lacked those moments of spontaneity and improvisation that can turn a good/great concert into a truly memorable even legendary one. Still a fun night out and there’ll be a lot of hoarse voices this morning. Thanks Freddie, Roger, Brian for so many great songs that will live forever!

Seven Seas of Rhye
Hammer to Fall
Stone Cold Crazy
Fat Bottom Girls
Don’t Stop Me Now
Killer Queen
Somebody to Love

Love of My Life
It’s a Kind of Magic
Drum Battle
Under Pressure
Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Another One Bites the Dust
I Want It All
Who Wants to Live Forever
The Show Must Go On
Guitar Solo
Tie Your Mother Down
I Want to Break Free
Bohemian Rhapsody
Radio Gaga

encore…
We Will Rock You
We Are The Champions

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Photos: Warner Music Hong Kong, tube.hk