Your Guide to Hong Kong Living LAUNCH ISSUE LAUNCH digest FREE Best Free-Flow Brunch Buffets Lamma Island Guide The Best Places to Run in Hong Kong Hong Kong Street How To: Ride a 12 Best Nail Salons Art Revealed Lift Like a Boss in Hong Kong The Best Turkish Spotlight: Top Five Take your Pick: Restaurant in HK Funky Chairs Car Park Space or Mansion? 18 Fun Things Hot Yoga Teacher to Do with Kids Holly Wong Visit www.localiiz.com for much, much more Content What’s New at Localiiz 2 pg6 Behing the Secret Walls 3 of Hong Kong Street Art This Man’s Flat is the Best 4 Turkish Restaurant in Hong Kong 12 Best Free-Flow Brunch 6 pg4 pg10 Buffets The Island Series: Lamma 10 Guide 18 Fun Things To Do with 14 Kids in Hong Kong pg3 The Best Places to Run in 18 Hong Kong pg14 5 Minutes With: Hot Yoga 20 Teacher, Holly Wong 12 Best Nail Salons in Hong 22 Kong Spotlight: Top 5 Funky 24 Chairs pg20 Localiiz Property Picks 26 pg18 How To: Ride a Lift 28 pg22 Like a Boss pg28 The Localiiz Team Localiiz Digest, Issue 01 Localiiz.com (HK) Limited November-December 2016 Suite 1501, Connaught Commercial Building Editorial Copyright 2016 Localiiz.com (HK) Limited. 185 Wan Chai Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong Managing Editor: Sophie Pettit All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole Enquiries: (+852) 2559 5626 Editorial Assistant: Scarlett Whittell or in part without written permission is www. localiiz.com [email protected] prohibited. To share content, please visit our website —www.localiiz.com — and find Sales & Promotion the original article whereupon visitors are For sales and promotional enquiries welcome to share a link back to the original please contact Katie McGregor on Localiiz article, with appropriate credit to (+852) 2559 5626 Localiiz.com, on their own platform or social or email [email protected]. media channel. Thank you for sharing! © 2016 Localiiz.com (HK) Limited localiiz.com 1 Welcome Win a Localiiz umbrella! Out & About Welcome to the first edition of the Tag #Localiiz and Show us your City! Localiiz Digest, where we aim to de- liver the very best of our website into your hands. We love nothing more than taking a glimpse into life in our fabulous city through Since its launch in 2012, the Localiiz the eyes of our readers. Each week, we website has become a go-to site for insight and information about our enjoy watching hundreds of shots fill up vibrant city. Our dynamic editorial our Instagram feed as you share your team publish new articles every day, and our small business directory adventures with us here at Localiiz HQ. provides an additional valuable re- Picking our favourite Snap of the Week is never an easy task with so many action-packed, source where you can find everything creative, and striking photos to choose from ... all in a bid to win your very own Localiiz you need in the 852. It’s no surprise umbrella. But we have hundreds to give away, so don’t be caught short in those pesky Hong that thousands of Hong Kongers visit Kong showers, and tag your best pics with #localiiz to be in with a chance of winning one and our website every day, and that we getting featured! have a following of 68k+ Facebook fans, plus a growing following on both Need some inspiration? Just take a look at these jaw-dropping shots of Hong Kong from Instagram and Twitter. some our previous Snap of the Week winners. Happy snapping Hong Kong! But while we fully appreciate the convenience of accessing information online, we also know that there’s @eloadefly nothing quite like kicking back with a leisurely read — and so the Localiiz @kimberleyfun Digest came into being! If you like what you read in this di- gest of our most popular articles, then why not visit our website where you will find a world of additional inform- ation about Hong Kong. @not_a_starving_artist To make sure you’re always the first to get our latest stories and updates on all of the best events coming up, join us on social media, or subscribe to our weekly digest. Enjoy! 20k www.bit.ly/localiiz-subscribe 68k+ facebook.com/localiiz 9k @localiiz or #localiiz 3k @localiiz or #localiiz @ingrantom @thisgirlabroad 2 Out & About Behind the Secret Walls of Hong Kong Street Art Words by Sophie Pettit We all know the iconic line from Fight Club, over. While bare-knuckle punches are re- the movie that gave us adrenaline-pumped placed with bags of artistic talent and tones men pounding the life out of each other in of wit, as we quickly learnt when chatting some dark underground warehouse — and to regular contestant Szabotage, things can Brad Pitt’s abs. Well, now imagine that ag- still get pretty personal. gression with acrylic paint and a giant can- “One year I flashed my pants to the vas, and you’ve pretty much got the Secret crowd,” the award-winning interior designer Walls live art battles … just substitute some and architect told us. “The guy I was up boxer flashing for that washboard. against was called Alex Wong, so when I The series of live street art battles has pulled my trousers down my boxers said ‘SO guy in appearance so on my wall I drew him taken Hong Kong by storm since landing WONG’. It’s supposed to be a battle so I like packaged up as a boyband doll, complete on our doorstep in 2013, bringing some of to throw in a bit of gentle piss-taking. I might with his own art equipment and ladder. He the hottest names on the block together in not be able to outdraw my opponent, but I looked over at my picture and knew I had 60-minute head-to-head combats across a can certainly outwit them.” him. It’s all done in good humour of course, blank eight-by-eight-foot wall. Hailing from the contemporary art hotbed but it does pay to do your homework.” This not-so-secret event has a lot in of Shoreditch in London, Szabotage moved While the talented trickster is taking a common with that brutal movie. What to Hong Kong almost two years ago to de- break from this year’s Secret Walls series started as a small, intimate shindig back in pict his vision of this unique city through art, to focus on his own solo projects, we cer- 2006 in a tiny bar in East London has now fusing East and West. He tells us that his- tainly can’t wait to see if he makes a cheeky spread across the globe, shining a spotlight torically in the UK and Europe, street artists comeback in next year’s battles. After all, on artists in major cities including New York, use more of an attack approach, which may what’s a party without a little flashing? London, Lisbon, Berlin, Tokyo, Copenhagen, explain his witty tactics during the Secret Dublin, Amsterdam, and of course, Hong Walls battles. Follow the amazing work of Szabo on Kong. Battles are set up and promoted “I like to research my opponent before Instagram (@szabotage_me) and Facebook (@ through word of mouth and social media, the battle so I can build a story around them szabotage.me). and come with their own set of rules (only in my work. It helps me to win over the black and white markers and paint can be audience by showing them my humour and used, no sketches used as a reference) and, keeping them entertained. One year I was like in the movie, a buzzing crowd to win up against an artist who was quite a small localiiz.com 3 This Man’s Flat is Out & About Turkish Restaurant in Hong Kong Words by Sophie Pettit Dubbed as ‘Airbnb for foodies’, PlateCulture is the latest app taking Hong Kong’s foodie world by storm, giving us access to some of the best home-cooked meals around the city. We pull up a chair at the table of Turkish masterchef Papa Theo, who’s winning hearts (and stomachs) across the 852. masterchef Papa Theo, I’m totally sold on the idea. And it seems I’m not the only one. A Growing Appetite Since launching in Hong Kong a year ago, PlateCulture has garnered over 5,000 subscribers, and close to 50 hosts, and now features cuisines from 15 different countries. In the case of Papa Theo, the man who will “only serve you food that is good enough for (his) two sons to eat”, the menu is overflowing (quite literally) with traditional homemade recipes from Turkey, which he learned from his mother and teachers. “Cooking is the biggest passion and hobby of my life,” Papa tells us, as we nibble our way through twelve dishes in his spa- cious family apartment adorned with colour- ful paintings, beautiful French windows, and Asian, Western, fusion – you name it, Hong of the globe – be it French, Italian, Mexican, a very neatly organised children’s craft table. Kong has it. When it comes to dining out, Japanese, Greek, Turkish – the list goes on. A stay-at-home chef by day, a stay-at- our city has an insatiable appetite for the home papa by night, this man was born to latest, tastiest, and trendiest cuisine on the How it works cook and play host, and today we are treated block – so much so that choosing a place to Simply browse the profile of hosts on the to his family favourites, including Babagan- eat with friends can become an overwhelm- app, read about their background, dishes, oushy Eggplant Salad, Classic Shepperd’s ing challenge.