Usually I'd try as far as possible to keep morality issues away from my culinary world because a) it will more or less ostracize a great deal of choices from my plate given the fact that I'm living in the part of world where Chinese "values" prevail, and b) the bottom line of me can be incomparably low and elastic when it comes to food decision so I don't see any reason why I should bothered with it anyway in the first place.
Yet another hotel is forgoing political correctness for mass local appeal. The Marco Polo Hongkong Hotel's latest culinary push is a new shark's fin buffet. The Tsim Sha Tsui inn's Cafe Marco, throughout August and September, will serve numerous specialty dishes with the endangered animal's part.
... The hotel will cook shark fins in all manner of unusual methods, including as an appetiser in green papaya salsa, mixed with scrambled eggs and even in desserts like mango cheesecake, coconut panna cotta and chocolate tart.
I mean, do we really need this in HK? A smart gourmet choice or simply bragging right? Granted shark's fin can be taken as symbol of wealth and prestigious, but the simple fact is that unlike most other meat and fish, as a ingredients shark's fin yields no flavor at all by itself. So why touts a dinner with it as the centerpiece?
The only palpable reason for such an idea is that they think the menu will stand out among the avalanche of PR releases we get daily and hence the seats will sell faster. Hey, this is shark's fin; it's rare and costly so come and get it. Yet, at HK$378 per head, the charge is a big giveaway for anyone who knows a thing or two about dried seafood: the price is barely enough to cover either the low grade pectoral fin (牙棟翅/勾) or even worse, the dorsal fin (脊翅).
I suggest you skip it but for this reason alone.
