Hongkong inlove with fine food

COME TO HONG KONG for the Great Eating Adventure. Sample foods and dishes that you never dreamed of, that melt on your tongue. Experience an atmosphere of excitement, energy and exoticism.

Imagine, for a moment, you're dining on a gently rocking sampan in the midst of a flotilla of million-dollar cruisers, surrounded by a fleet of floating kitchens, bars and cabarets. A bowl of hot Chinese soup, great trays of succulent steamed prawns, plates piled high with vivid green Chinese vegetables. . . the meal continues, washed down with local beer or strong rice wine.

Or, you're aboard a brilliantly illuminated floating palace (sometimes known as a Palace of Ten Thousand Light Bulbs), this time surrounded by fishing junks, and you are served in the plushest, most opulent of settings, watched by Imperial golden dragons. . .

Or, for another perspective, you are looking down on the myriad lights of Hong Kong Harbour from Victoria Peak, enjoying a sumptuous Western dinner and a breathtaking view of the Territory.

The scenes shift, the settings vary, and the menus in the thousands of Hong Kong restaurants run into hundreds of items. But one thing does not change: gourmets are unanimous in agreeing that for the very best, most authentic Chinese cuisine there is nowhere to compare with Hong Kong, indeed, for the cuisines of other lands; Hong Kong is also justly renowned. Why is this so?

Consider the unique position of this compact Territory on the southeast coastline of China. First, there is the abundance of fresh and rare vegetables, meat, fish and seafood that come in from the Chinese mainland as well as Hong Kong's own rural areas-the vital ingredients of Chinese cuisine.

Then there are the waters that surround Hong Kong, brimming with jumbo prawns, shrimps, scallops, crabs, oysters and a diversity of fish, Hong (A Chinese meal is a social occasion to be shared with friends. Here, Hong Kong residents. enjoy a sumptuous dinner under the fiery gaze of a benevolent dragon and the beady eye of a phoenix, both symbols of good luck.) Kong is situated on the estuary of the mighty Pearl River whose deep deposits of silt provide a limitless source of nutrients for the creatures of the sea. The fresh seafood of Hong Kong is renowned arid attracts food-lovers from all over the world.

Hong Kong's location at the hub of Asia is also of great benefit to its restaurants and customers. From the north, items such as raw fish from Japan are jetted into the Territory on a daily basis, while spices, herbs and fruits arrive jet-fresh from the tropical south. Similarly, fresh fruits, vegetables and meats from Australia. New Zealand and America are flown from the east into Hong Kong, while specialty items, such as French cheeses and wines, Scottish salmon and grouse, come in from Europe. Thus Hong Kong has become an extraordinary culinary entrepot.

Consider, too, Hong Kong's role as a great international trading port, a powerful manufacturing base and the world's third largest financial centre. It is no secret that there is much money in Hong Kong. Money is something of which most Chinese are proud and much of it is spent on lavish dining and entertaining. The wealth of modern cosmopolitan Hong Kong inevitably attracts some of the finest chefs in the world, both Western and Asian, who have created some of the greatest restaurants on earth, serving dishes from its five continents.

Above all. there is the ancient tradition of Chinese cuisine itself. As inheritors of the world's longest surviving great culture, the food-loving Chinese, with all their inventiveness, artistic taste and skill-and a tradition of thousands of years-have produced a unique cuisine, quite unlike anything else in the world. It is so rich, so varied, so creative that it is hardly an exaggeration to say that a great Chinese chef can produce as many culinary treats out of his natural ingredients as an artist can paint pictures from a palette of colours.

Come taste Hong Kong! Taste thousands of years of culinary artistry. Taste exotic dishes you have never even seen before, dishes that are as refined and delicate as a masterpiece of Chinese painting.