Hong Kong Diner was written by Jeremy Pang from the cooking school, School of Wok (and now celebrity chef as he regularly appears on TV) and is a collection of recipes inspired by Jeremy (and his friends) exploration of the Hong Kong food scene.

More than any other book I own and have read, this book made me want to get on a plane and go and discover a foreign city.  I absolutely love books that make you want to immerse into a culture and Hong Kong Diner really did do that.  I found myself looking up flights, hotels and restaurants and thinking about taking a trip to Hong Kong.  It looks like a really intriguing city and is now on my bucket list.

The recipes themselves were fantastic and after a simple tweet saying I had received the book and "which recipe do I begin with", Jeremy Pang himself replied saying "the first one of course" and so that is where I began, with the pineapple buns and pork chops.  It was really fabulous, so tasty and  just what we wanted.  The pork chop should be deep fried but with the sun shining brightly we were outside and so decided to braai the pork chop.  It turned out really beautifully even if it was not as crispy as Jeremy intended.  The charring really made up for the lack of crispiness.

Since starting on that very first recipe I have since cooked a fair amount from this book.  Everything has worked well and everything tastes wonderful.  If you have one Chinese recipe book then make it this one, you too will want to jump on a plane to Hong Kong.