Beer and Bespoke

Nov. 17-18

We went to Sam’s first thing on Saturday for Joanna’s final try-on. It’s a two-piece black suit with a button-up jacket sporting a Mandarin collar.

When you go to Sam’s the first thing they do is offer you a bottle of water. If they think you’re serious, they offer you a beer. And it isn’t just any kind of beer. 

That’s how I wound up with a can of an American style pale ale while I looked through books of swatches. 

I focused on the summer jacket first. I couldn’t find the pale ecru of unbleached silk, and wound up getting a lightweight wool. 

Then I found a low-contrast black and gray herringbone for a four-pocket vest.

It seems the beer is brewed with a special formula to reduce sales resistance. A tall, scrawny guy with three rhinestone earrings and a short pony tail stepped up and said he’d give me a special price on a second jacket.

OK. How much? He quoted in U.S. dollars. He was offering me a bespoke jacket at a price lower than something off the rack at Macy’s.

So now I had two jackets and a vest in the works. I was to come back Monday afternoon for the first fitting.

Sam’s is in an old mall called the Burlington Arcade near Granville Road, a block down from Kimberley Road. 

So we strolled up to Relax for a While to grab a quick lunch.

I was out of cash and asked the manager if the store took credit cards. No such luck, but there was an ATM a few doors up the street. 

By the way, if I bring a beer back with me is it all right to drink it here? Sure.

Most of the tailors in this neighborhood seem to be Indian or Pakistani. So if you wear a jacket, every few steps along the sidewalk, a man with a South Asian accent tries to hand you his business card and tell you he can make an exact duplicate of what you have on.

This time, the guy ambushed me halfway between the restaurant and the bank.

He wouldn’t take no for an answer. I told him, I’m all shopped out. I just bought two jackets and a vest. 

Where did you buy them? Sam’s.

He’s good, but expensive. I can give you the same quality for half the price. 

I give the guy this much credit: He didn’t try to follow me into the bank.

But he was there when I came out.

Here’s my shop. Come in and let me show you.

I don’t know why, but the guy didn’t piss me off. Most times I don’t like to have to say no twice. After all, his persistence was hilarious.

I got rid of him, though, when I ducked into one of the 25 or 30 7-Elevens on the block for a pint of Boddington’s Pub Ale to go with lunch.

We took Joanna’s suit back to the hotel and stayed in for a rest.

It was after dark when we left to go bar-hopping.

We stopped for dinner first at Kai Kee for preserved vegetable with pork belly and some greens on the side. 

Then we moved along the street to Zhang Men bar. Zhang Men is a brewery based in Taiwan. It has several bars there and a few in Hong Kong. 

Joanna told me that it is one of the first companies from Taiwan to open in an area under Red Chinese control.

It was refreshing to drink half pints of a series of craft brews. They weren’t the best craft brews I’ve had. Those are all in the States, but these were good. The line-up covered most of the bases—a Belgian blond, a few IPAs, including one called NEIPA that had zero bitterness units.

I asked the bartender about that, and he said, no, it wasn’t sweet. So I tried it.

The flavor was dry enough. It was in fact one of the better brews in the bunch.

Sunday we did equal time for Catholicism.

The Rosary Church, the closest of the Roman Catholic brand, is on Chatham Road, about three blocks from the hotel. We made it to the 12:30 service, which is in English.

As we stood outside waiting for the previous service to let out, I looked at the view and saw a very distinctive building that I thought was miles away.

We had passed it on the bus ride the other day to the Walled City Park. I wasn’t able to get a shot of it at the time. It looks like a huge dehumidifier.

I know bus rides, because of the constant stop and go, usually seem longer than they are, but it was still surprising to see how close it was.

The service was fun, and the music far better than they serve at St. Andrew’s.

I often go to Catholic services in New Jersey with Joanna. The order of service is close enough to the Episcopal that I still mix up some of the responses. 

The Nicene Creed is even tougher. The Catholics use the term “consubstantial” to affirm the nature of the Father and the Son. I always get lost there because I know it as “of one being.”

The hit of the service was the closing hymn, “Shalom,” which was in familiar Hebrew, “Shalom aleichem,” sung to a bouncy melody.

We figured that we had acquired enough good karma to deserve a sinful breakfast. So we went to the coffee shop across the street for chestnut croissant and chestnut cake. 

Chatham Road was new to us so we took a walk. 

We ducked into a short side street full of bars. The one on the corner was called Hair of the Dog II. It was about two in the afternoon and the place was still closed. Not much hangover help in these parts.

A few blocks away we found Hair of the Dog III. I don’t know where senior is.

We made our way through the waterfront complex to the Star Ferry terminal.

Kowloon is so full of attractions for us that, after almost two weeks, this was the first time we went to the Hong Kong Island side of Victoria Harbor.

It used to be an entertaining trip of almost half an hour. Now it’s more utilitarian, maybe five minutes.

The ferry lands you in a neighborhood of impassable roads. You need to use crossovers, passing through building lobbies and over bridges to get to Lockhart Road. That’s Suzy Wong territory.

William Holden’s hotel is still here. We saw it on our last trip four years ago. It has been rebuilt, so it is big and shiny, but all the charm is gone.

It was after 4, and the working girls were starting to take up their stations.

The church service let out around 1:30. By this time we had been walking the best part of three hours in rising heat and needed rest and refreshment. 

We avoided the loud bars on Lockhart Road, where there was only standing room, and went to a quiet one called Wan Chai Stadium. According to the sign, it’s “a sports bar with taste.”

We sat in a booth in the air conditioning.

They had Boddington’s and Stella on tap, so I had a half pint of each one. Neither is strong, but both are good. 

Stella Artois is one of few lagers I enjoy, probably because it has many of the characteristics, including the slight banana flavor, of a Belgian ale.

Our feet didn’t feel like walking several blocks to the ferry terminal, so we took the Metro back. Not as scenic, but much cooler.

We returned to Tai Woo on Hillwood Road for dinner. 

Joanna was eager to order the pigeon. So was I because I had never eaten it knowingly. I have eaten General Tso’s Chicken that came in very small bits. 

I once read in the New York Times about people harvesting pigeons in city parks. So I’m not sure.

Anyhow, this one came head and all. It was very savory and highly salted. Perfect with a glass of Tsingtao.

We followed that with a plate of whelk and choi sum. The snail was a tad rubbery and surprisingly short on flavor. The vegetables were very good, though. 

Then we had a dish of stir-fried beef and a little more choi sum served chow mein, that is, with pan-fried noodles. They brought a small dish of sweet vinegar that, when applied sparingly, added a tang to the beef.

I love the flavor of the crisp fried noodles as they absorb a sauce. The texture, though, is unbeatable. As the sauce sinks in, some of the noodles become soft and others still have a crunch. 

An interesting feature of Tai Woo is the fish tanks. They are open to the street. Various types of shrimp, fish, and things I don’t recognize are sitting in tanks with aerated water. 

We sat at a table near the door in the first floor dining room. Every few minutes somebody came in carrying a plastic bag holding a fish or a lobster (or maybe a jumbo prawn).

A man sits outside keeping watch over them, maybe like a shepherd in a field by night. He does get to go home. At closing time, the security gate comes down to keep poachers out.

So keep watch over your swimming stock, guys, and everybody stay well.

Harry