bc magazine

Christmas Pizza Anyone?

Looking for something different this festive season? Perhaps Pizza Express’ Christmas menu which includes two festive pizzas and a range of themed dishes might interest you.

The seasonal a la carte menu features a baked cheese melt starter ($65), a turkey Caesar salad ($128), Farfalle con Tacchino ($133, turkey pasta with a white cream sauce) and Pumpkin Cannelloni ($138) – this is ok, the pureed pumpkin, spinach and cheese filling is tasty but it perhaps could have been delicious if the pumpkin had been in chunks to give the filling some texture and substance.

There are two festive pizza: Tacchinao Rosmarino ($153) – a thin crust pizza topped with turkey, cranberry and sweet peppadew sauce, pancetta, mozzarella, tomato sauce, a sprinkle of rosemary and pine nuts. The Cicciolo e Fontina ($153) features pork, pork shin, fontina, mozzarella, Parmesan with caramelized onions, garlic oil, béchamel sauce and thyme served on a thin crust pizza.

Strange sounding combinations they may seem, but they’re both not bad. The turkey one, perhaps a little sweet to eat a full pizza yourself. But Pizza Express allows mixing and matching so we sampled a half/half combination which was delicious.

Dessert options are Apple Tortino ($88, a baked apple, cinnamon and puff pasty combination topped with vanilla gelato) and a Snowy Date Pudding ($88) which is rather nice. The warm pudding in a sauce of honey yoghurt and raspberry coulis topped with vanilla gelato.

The festive menu is available at all Pizza Express outlets until 1 January, 2018

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2017/Christmas-Menu-Tasting-Pizza-Express-Wanchai-9-December-2017/i-cx5Ntpc

Tai Po 22-12 Kowloon at Shek Kip Mei

League leaders Tai Po Dragons defeated Kowloon Ladies 22-12 at Shek Kip Mei, while SCAA CWB Phoenix claimed third, seeing off City Sparkle 38-8. In the Women’s Premiership, the two leaders confirmed their positions – Valley Black prevailed 30-15 after being pushed hard by USRC Tigers and Gai Wu Falcons beat HKFC Ice 29-12.

In the contest to top the Premiership Development League it was Kowloon ahead early and looking effective and full of running. On 15 minutes a forwards move was worked across the backline, then on via the forwards again with hooker Yuk Wun Yip finishing off under the posts and converted by Ho Yee Mak.

The Dragons were quick to reorganise and spent much of rest of the first half in Kowloon’s rear quarter, albeit against a determined defence. Just before the break Tai Po leveled the scores, 7-7, taking possession in midfield and passing quickly out to the left wing for Kwong Sau Yan to go over.

Three minutes into the second half and Tai Po took the lead courtesy of a wonderful solo effort by Oyinlola Kim Lee, who secured a turnover at a ruck inside her own 22 and then ran 70 metres, slicing through the Kowloon back line en route to scoring in the right-hand corner.

The rest of the second half saw Tai Po looking to play a territorial game, through sharp kicking and forcing errors and then looking to exploit them. Two similar team tries won the Dragons the game, securing the ball in the centre, working it for a couple of phases, and moving the ball quickly down the right-hand channel, once in the hands of Wong Wing Ying, and then by Chui Tung Yan in the 57th and 74th minutes respectively.

A last-minute try from Kowloon, by Hiu Tung Chan was little more than a consolation score.

Tai Po coach Tsang Hing Hung was understandably pleased with the effort “In the first half, our girls were not really concentrating, we allowed [Kowloon] too much space. But after we lost that first try, we reorganised and got our girls keeping pressure on them, and then we controlled the game through the rest of the half,” said Tsang.

“Throughout the game our ball handling and decision-making were not so good, leaving our attack weak. But our positioning was good and that kept us in control. We played pretty well after the first try.”

For Kowloon, Jonathan Ho saw an important game slip from his hands but he had no complaints about the winners. “We just gave them an early Christmas present today. The result was largely down to unforced errors that we made. Really we just killed ourselves,” he rued before adding. “Our own mistakes kept us inside our own 22, and gave too many opportunities to Tai Po.”

While Ho put the loss down to his own side’s errors, he conceded that Tai Po were on top for most of the game. “Their defence was exceptionally good, and that allowed them to put us under pressure that we couldn’t cope with. We are underperforming as a team. We won three games in a row but losing this means we aren’t good enough. This was a lesson, and we have to go away, re-work and step up again.”

In the Women’s National League 2, SCAA CWB Lammergeier showed why they head that table, retaining possession of the NL 2 Challenge Shield with a 59-5 win over City RFC Twinkles.

Additional reporting/images: hkru

Volvo Ocean Race Sailors Prepare For Rough Re-start in Cape Town

Strong winds are forecast for the start of Leg 3 of the Volvo Ocean Race on Sunday afternoon in Cape Town as the famous ‘Cape Doctor’ – a strong southeasterly wind – pays a visit over the weekend.

On Saturday morning the doctor made a house call bringing a steady 40 knots of wind, and at least one gust of over 60 knots was recorded. This is expected to moderate somewhat for Sunday’s race start, but winds are forecast to remain in the 25 to 35 knot range, with some gusts significantly stronger.

“It’s going to be full-on for the start,” says Vestas 11th Hour Racing navigator Simon Fisher. “Very strong southeasterlies and then when we get offshore it will be a decent sea-state we’re banging into as well. It will soften a bit but then we’re quickly into the westerlies and it’s the proper Southern Ocean. It’s going to be an intense leg in general.”

“It could be very windy for the first week and very high speed,” agreed Charles Caudrelier, skipper of Dongfeng Race Team. “I think it’s going to be a fantastic leg.”

Leg 3, from Cape Town to Melbourne, Australia is a nominal 6,500 nautical miles. The routing takes the teams down into the ‘Roaring Forties’, the area south of 40-degrees latitude where storm systems circle Antarctica, unimpeded by any land mass. Towering waves, steady gale and storm force winds, and ice-cold temperatures are a daily feature here.

“We should remember it’s late spring, just the beginning of summer and the winter has just passed in the Southern Hemisphere so the water is still bloody cold,” said race veteran Bouwe Bekking, the skipper of Team Brunel.

“I think the most frightening thing is that the depressions are still so strong… the amount of pressure that is in the air is just humongous. And of course, the water temperatures – hopefully with the ice limits we don’t encounter any ice – but if the water is just a few degrees above freezing and you get a southerly breeze, you might be having icicles off the mast some times. We’ve experienced it in the past… When we did this leg in the old days, this was the leg when the most damage appeared. The boats today are stronger than before, but still things can break.”

Deciding when to push for speed and when to throttle back to protect crew and equipment is a delicate balance. The stakes are even higher as this is the first double-point leg. The winner of Leg 3 will collect 15 points (7 x 2 = 14 plus a 1 point win bonus).

“I think we have a lot of experience on our boat and we have to trust that experience in the Southern Ocean,” explained Charlie Enright, skipper of Vestas 11th Hour Racing talking about finding the balance of how hard to push. “It not just about the points, it’s the fact we don’t haul-out in Melbourne, it’s the heavy conditions in the Southern Ocean, because you don’t want to break anything…To finish first, you must first finish.”

For Xabi Fernández, the skipper of MAPFRE, the race leader, the stopover in Cape Town provided a much needed opportunity to recharge.

“After the first long leg (Lisbon to Cape Town), it’s always important to be in the front,” he said. “We’re happy as a team. We had a good stopover. The boat is in great shape and the team is as well, so we’re ready to go.”

The start of Leg 3 is scheduled for 2pm in Cape Town, 12:00 UTC, and will be broadcast live on www.volvooceanrace.com.

Additional reporting and images: Pedro Martinez, Volvo Ocean Race

Hong Kong Finish Third in Maiden ICC World Cricket League Campaign

Hong Kong capped their maiden ICC World Cricket League Championship (WCLC) campaign with a major exclamation point, hammering Papua New Guinea by 94 runs to finish third in the league.

Anshuman Rath and Babar Hayat – as they have done throughout the WCLC – starred with a 142-run partnership that formed the basis of Hong Kong’s mammoth total of 323-4.

Although a maiden One Day International century again narrowly avoided Hayat, who fell for 89, Rath batted all 50 overs in registering an unbeaten 143 off 137 balls – his second ton in the WCLC campaign.

Rath, who only recently turned 20, finished as the leading run-scorer in the league with 678 runs at an average of 75.33.

From the time Hayat was dismissed for an innings that came off just 80 balls and included 5 sixes, Hong Kong launched 98 runs off the last eight overs – atoning for Wednesday’s encounter where PNG restricted HK to just 60 from the last 10.

In reply, PNG lost early wickets for the second game in a row, falling to 20-3 in the first 6 overs. Nadeem Ahmed again caused problems, taking 2-36 from his 9 overs to finish as the tournament’s equal leading wicket taker with 24.

PNG did recover from 90-6 to post 229 but the result was always firmly in control for Hong Kong.

Although Scotland’s win over Kenya meant Hong Kong could only move up one place into third on the ladder, coach Simon Cook was delighted with the consistency and development his side showed over the two and half year league.

“It was a very good sign of where we are – we posted 300 plus in three games which shows we are getting more consistent in our batting areas, although I thought we left a few runs out there but that score was always going to be tough to chase. Our bowlers stood up again and were counted taking three wickets early,” Cook said.

“The journey you look at with our players a lot of them have come on a lot. The standouts are Anshy and Babar. Babar went up to number three two years ago and has started to take charge since then and for Anshuman to come on the way he has and Nadeem and don’t forget Mark Chapman who has gone onto better things in Auckland so there are a lot of success stories.”

“Very happy with the finishing position – we targeted second but the margins were very small and we were only a few runs away from winning it. It’s a very encouraging time – if you look at the other Associates around us now their age is a lot older than us so it’s a very exciting time for Hong Kong cricket.”

Captain Babar Hayat echoed the thoughts of the coach and was immensely proud of his team.

“Very happy with the way we finished – we could have won this league with the way we lost against the Netherlands. The way we trained and prepared we were right up for it and everything came together.”

“We didn’t know when we started how we would go but after five or six games we realised that we were good enough to contend and at least finish in the top four.”

“The way Anshy has developed in the World Cricket League has been incredible. The way he played today was amazing he just rotated the strike and then lifted the rate at the end. It was great to watch.”

“I’m really proud of the way I played I knew that if I scored runs it would be important our team and it started in the four day game where I took my time and then I got in and scored and got confidence coming into these games. It’s always nice to do well as captain.”

Hong Kong beat Papua New Guinea by 93 runs

Hong Kong 323-4, 50 overs (Anshy Rath 143 not out, Babar Hayat 89; John Reva 2-46)

Papua New Guinea 230 all out, 42.2 overs (Kiplin Doriga 89, Alei Nao 46; Ehsan Nawaz 4-54)

Additional reporting/images: hkcricket

Dongfeng Win Spectacular Cape Town In-Port Race

Vestas 11th Hour Racing and Dongfeng Race Team traded blows throughout the first half of the Cape Town In-Port Race course on Friday afternoon, before the Chinese-French team grabbed the lead midway through the race and stretched away for their first win in the series.

The victory vaults skipper Charles Caudrelier’s team to second place on the leaderboard for the In-Port Race Series, just behind MAPFRE who retained the overall lead with a fightback second place finish on Friday.

“The team did a fantastic job, very nice boat handling and good speed, so well done to the full team,” Caudrelier said after the race. “Our start was not fantastic, but after that we made a good call to tack a bit earlier and put pressure on Vestas and then we found some good speed. That was a key factor.”

Conditions were spectacular on the waters off Cape Town, with wind near 20 knots, under bright, sunny skies. Boat handling was at a premium in the fresh conditions and on the first two laps of the course, there were several very close crosses as the boats approached the turning gates.

Near the end of the second run, Vestas 11th Hour Racing were sailing on an awkward wind angle to the mark and had difficulty furling their big A3 downwind sail in preparation for the rounding.

It didn’t hurt them immediately but when they next tried to deploy the sail at the final top mark, it wouldn’t fully unfurl, and the team was very slow for most of the final run.

“We started well,” said navigator Simon Fisher. “At the second top mark Dongfeng did a great job, pushing us to the less favoured side, which pushed us back into the fleet, which put pressure on the downwind drop, which meant we didn’t have a great furl, and that hurt us on the last run. It’s just a great example of how things can snowball.”

The mistake cost the team two places, as both MAPFRE and team AkzoNobel raced past on the run to the finish.

The second place finish represented a tremendous comeback for MAPFRE who were forced into a penalty turn just before the start, leaving them them the last to get across the line.

But the Spanish team kept pushing its way up the fleet, finally forcing team AkzoNobel away with an aggressive luff near the final top mark, setting the table for the pass of Vestas 11th Hour Racing on the final run.

Further back, Brunel and Scallywag engaged in a luffing match early on the first run. The Umpires penalised Scallywag for an infraction and following the penalty turn, David Witt’s team were trailing the fleet.

At the finish, a hard-charging Brunel nearly stole a place from Turn the Tide on Plastic. But Dee Caffari’s team, who had a very strong start to the race, held on for fifth place.

Cape Town In-Port Race Results
1. Dongfeng Race Team
2. MAPFRE
3. team AkzoNobel
4. Vestas 11th Hour Racing
5. Turn the Tide on Plastic
6. Team Brunel
7. Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag

Volvo Ocean Race In-Port Race Series Leaderboard
1. MAPFRE – 19 points
2. Dongfeng Race Team – 18 points
3. Team Brunel – 13 points
4. Vestas 11th Hour Racing – 12 points
5. Team AkzoNobel – 11 points
6. Scallywag – 6 points
7. Turn the Tide on Plastic – 5 points

Additional reporting and images: Volvo Ocean Race, Pedro Martinez, Ainhoa Sanchez

Tigers Look to End Valley Streak As Kowloon’s Good Form Continues

In the Women’s Premiership this weekend HKFC Ice will be looking to parlay their strong performance against Valley Black last week into a result when they take on Gai Wu Falcons (18:00, KG V). That’s directly after Valley look to remind USRC Tigers why they are unbeaten in 50 games (16:30, KGV).

Kowloon Ladies and Tai Po Dragons are the two sides atop the Women’s Premiership Development league and they meet at Shek Kip Mei (18:00), each having played and beaten the other two teams, Comvita City Sparkle and SCAA First Pacific CWB Phoenix, who face off at 17:30 at Education University Hong Kong.

The Kowloon – Tai Po game should be competitive with both sides winning twice in the Premiership Development. Earlier this season, in the opening game, newly promoted Tai Po prevailed 12-10.

Kowloon coach Jonathan Ho believes his side are ready to rise to the occasion this time. “We’re definitely out for revenge [after losing that first match] and this is a must-win if we are going to top the Premiership Development,” he said.

“It definitely won’t be an easy match but everything is looking according to plan for us. The last two games and our overall performance recently have really boosted confidence and raised atmosphere in the team. If our players are able to maintain that confidence, we can win this round.”

“We [the two teams] play a quite similar style, aiming to play for the wings, with not so much of a forwards game. So it will be about possession and speed down the line and on the wing. I think it will be close,” adds Ho.

Ho has some injury and availability concerns. Fly half Victoria Wong Ching Hei is recovering from a twisted ankle, and remains doubtful. Full back Fung Wai Man and prop Chan Sin Ying are both unavailable. “Every match is a tight game. Our girls are rising to that and we’re building our confidence. We know we are improving but we have to keep working because we don’t have the chance to play with the top teams. When we get to the Grand Championships, I hope we don’t have a rude awakening,” Ho added.

Tai Po coach Tsang Hing Hung has ambitions to challenge the top of this league, and sees the earlier win over Kowloon as one in the bank and wants to defend that success this time out. “If we can win this game, we’ll be top of the bottom group, and that is our immediate goal,” he said.

“We’ve focused on our defence in training. Kowloon have a pretty good, multi-functional attack, with Cindy Yuen as a playmaker. She is a very skillful and smart player but didn’t play in the last game against us, so we are preparing for that. But We are also really confident in our attack and if we can organise our defence, we can win this game,” continues Tsang.

The Premiership was perhaps a tougher challenge than Tsang had anticipated. “We were a little bit disappointed to end [the first part of the season] in the bottom four. Our target was to be top four but we lost a close game against Football Club while we had players away on national duty. But being in the bottom four is good for our development. The level here is quite close, and allows us to develop some of our young girls. Now our aim is to be top of this group,” he observes.

Tsang will be without key players as youngster Lam Tim Yeung and veteran Ivy Kwong Sau Yan, as well as Poon Hoi Yan and Chan Tsz Ching are all away on national duty.

In the Women’s National League 2, leaders SCAA CWB Lammergeier will hope to take home the WNL2 Challenge Shield for a fourth consecutive week when they play eighth-placed City RFC Twinkles (4pm, HKIED). Revolution SRC, who last week took possession of the WNL1 Challenge Shield, are on a bye this week.

Additional reporting/images: hkru

Joey Yung and Twins – All, Hands Up and Dance

Celebrating their long friendship Cantopop diva Joey Yung and pop duo Twins, two of the biggest names in local music over the past twenty years, are releasing a song together entitled All, Hands Up and Dance.

“It’s thrilling that we have finally been able to join together for our first-ever musical collaboration after 20 years,” said Joey Yung. “It took us all back to some of the amazing times and sweet memories we have shared over the years. This song is a tribute to our 20 years of friendship.”

A three-day shoot at the Golden Reel in Macau saw the ladies create a music video, which will officially launch in January 2018. The song marks the first time that Joey Yung has worked with Gillian Chung and Charlene Choi despite knowing each other for 20 years.

Hong Kong secure World Cup Qualifier Berth With Win Over PNG

Hong Kong sealed their place in the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifiers as captain Babar Hayat helped his team to 23-run win over Papua New Guinea.

With the top four teams from the World Cricket League Championship progressing to the qualifiers in Zimbabwe next year, Hong Kong knew that a victory over PNG in one of their two matches would be enough to book their ticket.

They did that on the back of inspirational skipper Babar Hayat, who backed up his marathon unbeaten 214 against PNG in the First Class game last week with a match-high top score of 77 from 120 balls.

He shared 50-run partnerships with Anshuman Rath (37) and debutant Scott McKechnie (29) as Hong Kong built a strong platform at 177-3 with eight overs to go. But some accurate PNG bowling at the death restricted HK to 230 from 50 overs on what was a good batting surface.

In reply, Hong Kong got a dream start with Nadeem Ahmed (2-31) striking in the very first over. Tanwir Afzal (2-32) then struck twice more and Aizaz Khan (1-37) picked up a wicket with his first ball to reduce PNG to 4-30 in the 10th over.

But Mahura Dai and Sese Bau rebuilt the PNG innings with a 98-run stand to get the Hong Kong heart-rates rising. Nadeem provided the crucial breakthrough and Hong Kong continued to chip away through the lower order with PNG keeping the required rate under control deep into the chase.

Though eventually two run-outs in the 46th over sealed the contest and Hong Kong will now play PNG in their final World Cricket League Championship match looking to potentially finish as high as second on the ladder.

Simon Cook said after the match, “End of a long journey which started over two years ago, so to culminate now in our qualification is fantastic and we look forward to try and finish as high up the table as we can in the last game. The roller coaster nature of this game meant it was quite relieving to get off the field with a win.”

“It’s great to get qualification but there is still one game to go and there is still a chance to finish second, which is important for the sports institute points so there’s still something on the last game, ” added Cook.

“The achievement is huge, this is our first year in the top division and to come from where we were in Division 3 to where we are now, we are up there challenging, and if results went our way in the other game we would have had a shot at first place. All of the losses that we’ve had were within our control at stages and a win in one of those and that’s the difference between potentially winning this league.”

“With the population and facilities we have, this is unbelievable what the players have done against countries with far more resources and facilities. We have a young nucleus of a side and we have now retained our World Cricket League spot for the next cycle as well, which will allow them to kick on further.”

“The total we got was probably 30 runs light, we were very slow in the middle of the game in rotating the strike and the boundaries didn’t come.”

“Having the good start with the ball was crucial and then the partnership in the middle started to take the game away from us but a rush of blood from Dai saw him get caught on the boundary and that was the turning point to get us back in it and put the screws on.”

“Babar’s getting runs consistently, it was a little bit slow but it shows where he is at now in that he makes 77 and he is still a bit critical of himself so that’s an indication of how far we’ve come and that we need to do more than just making scores.”

Hong Kong 230/8 beat PNG 207 all out by 23 runs