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Travel Brands
| 11.12.2005
Not long ago, I visited Honk Kong with my wife, Joanne ("J"). We've been to several places together. Typically, we like to go "urban", which means we're more apt to explore every single nook throughout a city rather than venturing out to the countryside. Honk Kong, like most Asian cities, is huge with many districts such as tourist, business, waterfront, textile, shopping, fish, meat, etc. You get the idea. We love to explore but almost of all the guidebooks available, stink. They all follow the same boring formula by breaking up a destination by sections of city, hotels, restaurants and "interesting things to see." My favorite section is "how to get there." Come on people. If you need to dive into that section, your probably not safe traveling off your own block. Even worse, are the friends and family who want to write down everything for you to do, exactly as they did on their trip. It's like they want to relive their own vacation again without the air sickness. Don't get me wrong. It's nice to get a few tips of good places to eat and quirky things to see, but when people start writing down the cheapest restaurants and hotels to eat and stay at, I draw the line. The point of a vacation is to experience people, places and things that you can't when you're not on vacation. Saving money should not be the driving factor. It reminds me of the time when a family member suggested I go to Service Merchandise to buy J's wedding ring. "They have a good selection and you won't believe the prices!"
We all have brands as people and our brands all fall neatly into the types of places we like to visit. Some like to travel to Europe, others to third world and yet others do the national park circuit around good old US of A. Who am I to judge? Matched to our brands and travel preferences are books and magazines. Makes sense, right? For instance, the Lonely Planet series is for people who like a little adventure in their travel. The only thing that's rough about the Rough Guide series is the high price for what's essentially black and white tissue paper with a spine. Came in handy on the train to Bombay. The Time Out series is nothing special unless you're going over seas to attend a variety of raves and experience the club scene. The Knopf CityMap Guides are at least doing something different. They're full of pictures and fold-out maps. Read more about them on my Books and Music section. Eye Witness's books are so beautiful with their glossy pages, maps and cut-aways that you don't even need to travel once you read the book. The list of goes on and on but believe me when I say they're all the same
When I travel and explore, I love to find all the hidden jewels a place has to offer. Where are the hip local galleries? What time does the REAL fruit market open? Where can you eat with locals? What are the 5 off beat things to do? And most importantly, what should I avoid? These are the questions I always think about every-time I embark. With all this said, I've always wished there was a travel book or "worldly" friend that was on brand with the types of things I care about as a traveller. I discovered that travel "companion" called LUXE City Guides while in Hong Kong and blogged about it back in august - "At quick glance, it looked like a cheat-sheet for things to do but as we started reading it, it was like having something custom written by a friend that has lived in Hong Kong for the last 20 years and jotted down all the hip places to check out as well as the ones to avoid."
I've been in contact with LUXE and they're keeping me in mind for when they do a Boston edition. While I'm waiting, I thought it would be fun to share some unique Boston China Town experiences. I used to live in that area many years ago and many of my old haunts still exist. Let me share my top 10 jewels and save you some rent money and lots of time.
For a fabulous dinner, go to Grand Chau Chow (1) located in the heart of China Town on Beach Street, has some of the best authentic cuisine around. They use to have the house specials printed on color paper taped all along the perimeter. The only problem was that it was in Cantonese. Now, you can find most of the specials in the menu or just ask. My favorite is Pea Pod Stems, Grilled Twin Lobster, Sizzling Black Pepper Beef, Scrambled Eggs with Shrimp and of course, Tea. You'll only see hip locals in this place. After dinner, take a right out the door and then your next left onto Oxford Street. Up this very narrow street on the right is
a little hole in the wall basement restaurant called Wai Wai (2). They hand make their ice creams and the Ginger and Coconut flavors are the best ever. Don't let the run down look fool you. They also have very simple, authentic and cheap fare. Great for a second date or a first date gone bad. If you're still hungry, continue to the top of Oxford and at the corner of Oxford and Essex is a Fortune Cookie factory (3). They sell giant bags of slight rejects for $1.00. Some are cracked or have no fortunes in them. Ever wonder where you can get your cell phone "unlocked?" Any number of shops along Tyler Street (4) will take care of you. They also have many video games at a discount. If you continue up and over one block to the corner of Harrison and Beach (5), there is a restaurnt supply store where you can pick up almost anything for a song. Get a giant wok and some soup bowls for under $10.00. If you want to buy fresh authentic vegetables and fish to cook in your new wok, head down to Super 88 Market (6) on the corner of Surface Road and Lincoln Street. They're are a few of these around the Boston area but this one has the greatest selection. Hopefully you have something to cover your nose from the stench of fresh fish being cut up. If your down that way around lunch time, drop in to a pub called Weggies right across the street from Super 88 (7) on the corner of Lincoln and Beach Streets. The owner is chinese and his name is Reggie. He named the pub phonetically in the way that Chinese people pronounce their "Rs." The fare is simple pub food and drink. They also have pool tables. If you want to get in the "know", ask them what happened to the video store across the street. Go ahead...just ask! Most people like dim sum but certain places are better than others. There are a few along Washington Street (8) but I'm hoping my friend Jeanne (very well travelled and adventurous person) will comment in her favorites. She has literally done dim sum in several parts of the world. Now if you're beat from banging around China Town all day, you should get a massage. I know of many places to do this but it might not be your type of place. For a quick massage, go to the plaza on the corner of Washington Street and Boylston/Essex Streets (9). The name escapes me (most do) but it's on the second floor and this guy is fairly famous around the area.
Good luck and happy travels!
posted at 10:16 AM
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4 Comments:
Wow, Service Merchandise? You brought back great memories! I thought Service Merchandise "SM" went out of business when Lechmere did years ago. I guess I was wrong...
I used to love SM, especially their toy section. Whenever I had the cash, I would hop on the Green Line, get off at the Lechmere T stop and walk down to SM to buy GI Joe's and Transformers. What many kids didn't know at the time, was that SM had the best selection of my favorite toys. The reason is simple, not many people knew SM had toys. So, while kids and parents fought long lines and sometimes each other for the hottest Transformer in Child World, I was in line at SM (probably behind Scout) waiting to pay for my new Decepticon. ah, the good ol' days. :)
I didn't even know they had a jewlery department?? It might be hard to wrap a good story around a Service Merchandise" ring purchase...."That's the most beautiful ring I've ever seen...did Scout pick that up in his travels or is it a family heirloom?" "Oh! Thank you! He actually had it on lay-away at Service Merchandise and make his last payment on Saturday..." OY!
I haven't had dim sum all over the world, but I have had it at most places in Boston and many in NYC Chinatown. My new favorite place in Boston is Hei la Moon at 88 Beach Street.
Also, the New Peking Cuisine Restaurant on 10 Tyler Street is one of the few Northern style (Mandarin) restaurants in Boston's Chinatown. Their hand-pulled noodles are good, and they have hot pot if you're in a big group.
I like Vietnamese food best, but I keep going back to Hu Tieu Nam Vang, on 7 Beach street. This hole-in-the-wall place has great pho and virmicelli, and I love the plastic green chopsticks and the name -- Nam Vang!
I wish I had been to more dim sum places over the world and I am still trying, but in Boston here are three:
Chau Chow City, Essex Street: Great variety of dumplings but the fried and other food (i.e. all the food not in closed containers) goes quickly if you are not sitting close to the kitchen and if it does gets to you they might be a bit cold. Try to get a table upstairs.
China Pearl, Tyler Street: The Boston Chinatown standard. It's always really crowded so come early if you can. Try to be on the main level - you are more part of the action. The food is usually good but it can vary from visit to visit. A lot of variety. It can get very crowded and waiting on the stairs is not fun.
Emperor Garden, Washington Street: a vast room reminiscent of a Hong Kong dim sum eatery. Good variety and if you sit near the steam table you can see when the fried and other selections come out of the kitchen and are piping hot.
I have heard good things of Hei La Moon and have to try it.
A note on when to go: if you get there early (like 10:30 or before) you usually don't have to wait but a lot of interesting food doesn't come out until noon and you usually can't order anything from the kitchen if you want to until after 11:30.
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