Finding a slice of New York 🗽 in Hong Kong 🇭🇰
Max's Travels ✈️ - Episode 3
I travel a lot.
In 2024, I traveled to eleven countries and visited four islands in the Philippines. Despite all this, I only wrote two travel posts, which only covered about half of my travels. It’s a shame that I didn’t write more about each experience.
So today, I’m announcing a new series: Max’s Travels. Each installment of this series will cover one of my recent trips, focusing on the key moments that really stuck with me.
I know I haven’t written for a while, and don’t worry, the regular lifetothemax content will also be back soon! Max’s Travels isn’t replacing lifetothemax, it’s just a part of it. And I’ll be sure to leave a buffer post between each travel log, so don’t leave yet! Think of it as a new show on the lifetothemax channel.
The two travel logs from last year will count as the first two episodes of Max’s Travels, so this will be the third. Without further ado, here’s Max’s Travels - Episode 3!
Since I don’t have a visa allowing me to stay in the Philippines long-term, I have to leave the country every 59 days. Last October, for the first time since moving here, I didn’t have a trip lined up for the end of the 59 days, so we opted for a short and sweet day-trip to Hong Kong — what some people might call a “visa-run.”
Well, really, it was only a six-hour trip on the ground when you factor in getting to and from the airport. But we made the best of the time we had.
We only had time for three activities: breakfast, Victoria Peak, and a late lunch.
The view at Victoria Peak was breathtaking, and it brought back many memories of my previous visit with family years ago.
The commute to the peak included a pleasant walk, a ferry ride, and the steepest tram I’ve ever ridden, which was also a lot of fun.
And the noodles we had for our lunch at Tsim Chai Kee Noodle were delicious.
But the one experience that really stuck with me happened during breakfast.
Having just gotten off the plane with nothing but our backpacks, we got a taxi straight to the restaurant. Charlotte, as always, had done extensive research on the best spots to eat so we could squeeze the most out of our short time in the city. The place she picked for breakfast was the “Australia Dairy Company,” which promised an authentic Hong Kong breakfast.
As our bright red cab turned onto Parks Street, we immediately saw the line.
As former (and soon to be again) New Yorkers, we’re no strangers to waiting in line for the right restaurant. How long you wait for a New York restaurant is often proportional to how good the food is going to taste. Some establishments even have a “reservations line” for the people who have a reservation, a concept that seems baffling at first but only serves to make the place feel that much more exclusive. (The first time I encountered this was “Lil’ Frankies” in the Lower East Side, a good but somewhat overrated establishment, especially compared to “Supper” only a block away.)
So we’re used to waiting in line for the right place. But as I said, we’re ex-New Yorkers. We’ve been living in the Philippines for just over a year, and lines have taken on quite a different connotation. Lines in Manila, even short ones, can be painfully slow. Waiting is to be expected.
The line in front of the Australia Dairy Company was not short. Would this be a New York or Manila type of situation?
We hesitantly took our places in line. About twenty-five people stood between us and our first meal of the day.
Soon after we arrived, a woman emerged from the establishment, holding a pen and a notepad, and began making her way down the line. She stopped in front of each group, asked how many people were in the party, then jotted it down before moving on to the next group. At least they had a system!
Soon after the lady disappeared back into the restaurant, another employee came out dressed in all white. He flashed three fingers at the first group in line. With only his fingers and a single word, he was confirming that the first group was made up of three people, just as the lady would have written on her notepad. It was a cold greeting, especially compared to those we had grown accustomed to in the Philippines, but it was efficient and to the point. After a simple nod, the three people at the head of the line followed him into the restaurant.
Quick. Efficient. No wasted energy. — This boded well for our wait time.
The same order of events happened over and over again every couple of minutes, with the same waiter poking his head out, lifting as many fingers as there were people in front of him, then disappearing inside with the group. Soon enough, after only about ten minutes, we were next. Given how quickly the twenty-five people had been seated, we assumed the place inside must be massive.
Once again, the waiter poked his head out with the same stolid look on his face. He wasn’t here to make friends. This was business. In a split second, he looked at Charlotte, then at me, and shot two fingers up in the air.
We knew what had to come next. Our time to shine. Without much hesitation (not to be boastful), we did our part and nodded. I like to think he was impressed, that he could tell he was in the presence of people who had waited in sizable lines before. Maybe he could tell we had some New Yorker left in us.
If he was impressed, he didn’t show much. Instead, as soon as he saw our head start to drop into a nod, he spun on his heels, and with the back of his hand now facing us, he gave an effortless flick of the fingers, inviting us in. And so, we followed him inside.
We made it! We were in.
The first thing that struck me was the size of the place. It wasn’t tiny, by any means, but it was smaller than you would assume given the speed of the line. The whole place probably fit fifty to sixty people, and this without wasting an inch of space. Not only was every table full, but so was every chair, and we soon found out how they had accomplished this. We were shown to a square, four-person table that two other customers already occupied, and we took our seats. The table was to be split diagonally from one corner to the opposite one.
And not only were the tables full, they were even laid out in what I can only imagine must mathematically be the most efficient way of packing tables and guests together in an enclosed space. The tables weren’t lined up edge-to-edge, nor were they on a diagonal, but somewhere between the two, so that someone from the next table over occupied the gap between two people at our table.
Decidedly, Hong Kong lay closer to the New York side of the efficiency spectrum, if this restaurant was any indication.
I know I’ve just spent the last few paragraphs on our experience waiting in line (I thank you for reading this far, by the way), but it wasn’t even the line itself that stuck with me the most. Or rather, the line was only the first instance of what made this a memorable experience.
But before I get to what it is that stuck with me, let’s talk about the food. The food was good, yet strange. Both somewhat familiar and unlike any dish we had ever had. One of their specialties was their macaroni soup. You might be picturing a minestrone, or something creamier and more reminiscent of mac and cheese. But what we were served was a handful of macaroni floating in a beige broth. The macaroni and the broth were so close in color that you could only see the bits of mac that buoyed above the surface. The broth was clean and straightforward, perfect for breakfast. And to top it all off, like a fine dining chef might adorn a dish with caviar or truffle, floating atop the pool of macaroni lay two perfectly rectangular slices of ham. The pink of the ham popped on the beige backdrop. We looked around at other diners, unsure how to consume the ham with the soup, and noticed some customers had their ham pre-sliced into thin matchsticks. We decided to awkwardly rip the slices apart with a fork and spoon to make little spoonfuls featuring broth, mac, and ham.
It sounds like I’ve been dunking on this dish, but really it was actually quite good. Just, like, strange. Like a very unfamiliar marriage of very familiar ingredients. The rest of the food was also good, with the highlight being the peanut-butter-stuffed French toast (picture above), which was perfectly golden, resembling a deep-fried sponge with a salty nutty interior.
The food was all good, but as I said, that’s not what stuck with me. So what did it for me?
The reason this breakfast was so memorable was that, while sitting in a small restaurant in a new country, halfway across the world, I suddenly found myself missing New York. People will often say New Yorkers are mean, and I think to some extent, that is true. New Yorkers are mean, or cold, in the same way the waiter was cold when he greeted us with his fingers. No time for the niceties. Having lived briefly in the Midwest during the pandemic and now for a year in the Philippines, I’ve grown accustomed to the opposite end of the spectrum. Big smiles, big “Mabuhay”s. And I’ve loved it. I mean, nice people are nice. So, why am I drawn to New York?
What I came to realize during that fateful breakfast six months ago in Hong Kong is that this coldness, this bluntness, is bizarrely a form of respect. That seems oxymoronic, but let me try to explain.
In the same way that you can be more direct, even slightly rude, with a close friend, this coldness is an indicator of an unwritten trust. It is saying, “I know you know what’s going on here, let’s skip the pleasantries so I can get you some good food.” It’s also saying, “I know what I’m doing, so either get in or I’m leaving without you.” And this is reflected in little, minute details you won’t even realize are happening around you.
You might be sitting in Zazzy’s on Orchard Street in the Lower East Side, too full for your second slice of pizza. You approach the counter, and the guy, while rolling out some dough and simultaneously taking an order over the phone, the receiver pinned between his shoulder and his ear, still has the presence of mind to look up at you and grab you a box without saying a word. In the grand scheme of things, this might not be that impressive, or even something that you would pause to notice in the moment. You would probably just put your leftover slice in the box and go about your day, not giving it another thought. But when these micro-interactions happen to you fifty times a day, and then you leave the city, you start to notice their absence.
And it was precisely these micro-interactions that I was suddenly bombarded with in this small Hong Kong breakfast parlor. The line was the first of these, but then they kept happening. At the table, I raised my hand, and a waiter was already on the way with some napkins, having only momentarily glanced down at our table. When other diners were trying to pass by, and my bag was sticking out into the aisle, before I could even realize what was happening, a waiter had already relocated my bag to the other side of my chair. Even down to the two women working the register, one whose job consisted of counting the change, while the other dealt exclusively with the receipts, all in the name of not wasting any of their time or mine. All these little, unimpressive acts that usually go unnoticed make the whole experience feel like a well-rehearsed play. You’re just there for the ride. You’re just a cog in a beautiful machine.
New York is built on these micro-interactions. It’s what makes the city feel like it’s buzzing, just eight million people who are always “on,” doing what they do best. And you can sit back and watch the show, or you can be a part of it.
And that's how I was hit with a wave of nostalgia in a Hong Kong restaurant whose only resemblance to New York was in its symphony of efficiency. I somehow felt at home and comfortable in a country I had only just set foot in.
Thanks for reading all of this! I can hardly believe I wrote so much about my experience waiting in line at a restaurant. I also can’t believe you read this much about my experience waiting in line for a restaurant.
I haven’t written in a while, but I have some cool posts coming up. The next will be a general update on my goals for the year and my bucket list. I’ve also been writing a weekly training log while training for my 5K, which I completed a few weeks back. That’ll be out soon too. And I’ll also be coming out with Episode 4 of Max’s Travels soon, so keep an eye out for that!
That’s it for now ❤️