On Dining - Pigeon Perfection

Roasted pigeon, artichokes, baby spinach & lemon chutney at On Dining

On Dining* is the Upper Modern Bistro crew's second restaurant, a larger (2-storey) and slightly more upscale restaurant and bar in Central, in the same building as Arcane (which is also excellent).

I'd read a couple of times on my friend's blog Diary of Growing Boy about ON's pigeon, so that's basically why we were here. Oh, that, and we were celebrating a birthday.

Wishing it was in my Neighborhood

Daily Meat - Roast Chicken at Neighborhood

Neighborhood is the newish restaurant helmed by chef David Lai of On Lot 10 fame. On Lot 10 closed a few months ago, and just before it did, Neighborhood opened.

As the name suggests, the format is that of a neighbourhood bistro, and is the kind of ideal bistro I wish I had within walking distance of my house. (I'll even excuse the American spelling). Neighborhood can be summed up thus: A menu that changes weekly, ingredients that are sourced thoughtfully, well priced, with small surprises here and there, but mostly it's about well-executed favourites.

NUR - More Than Bearable Lightness of Being

Oyster - NUR Feast menu, June 2014

(Sorry about the punny title. I couldn't help it... #notsorry)

This is going to be another one of those posts with photos collated from several meals at NUR, which I currently have a restaurant crush on.

NUR is completely different to anything that's available in HK. It's not solely "organic" for the sake of it, and although often touted as "new Nordic", it's not a wholesale import, or carbon copy (thank goodness) of nouveau Scandinavian/Noma-esque cuisine.

Ho Lee Fook - Where is Chinese Food Going?

Wagyu shortrib with green shallot kimchi, jalapeno puree, at Ho Lee Fook

Yes, yes, the restaurant's name is intentional.

That's basically what Ho Lee Fook is about - tongue in cheek, not too serious, funky Chinese food. It's not a throwback to Chinatown Chinese (like Fu Lu Shou), but I'd say its an example of the evolution of Chinese cuisine.

Carbone - Old School Birthday Feast

Veal parmesan at Carbone

The jetsetters among you will know that Carbone is a cult New York restaurant. There, it's had mixed reviews, and when I tweeted about it opening in Hong Kong, I immediately got replies about how expensive it's perceived to be. Plus, I've learned to be wary of "big name" restaurant imports into HK these days, so I didn't expect much of Carbone, until some trusty pals went to check it out - in general they had pretty good things to say, so I put it on my to-try list.

The Woods - A Cook's Cocktails

The Caprese at The Woods

If you follow me on Instagram (I thank you), you'll have noticed I've been at The Woods quite a bit these past few weeks. As my friend J quite aptly put it, "I know that place is like your office now..." (I will admit to having held more than one work-related meeting there, ahem). It soft opened in June by the three Chow sisters, and Victoria*, the youngest, is the one behind the drinks & food.

Mott 32 - Not Just a Pretty Face

"Pata negra" pork, dried chilli, peanut

Maximal Concepts has been on a bit of a roll. In the past few months, they've opened Fish & Meat, Stockton and Mott 32 - the latter is the group's first foray into Chinese food. Situated deep down in the basement of the Standard Chartered Bank Building in Central, I was hoping the location's previous incarnation would have been something super sexy like a bank vault, alas, it just used to be another (less interesting) Chinese restaurant. The decor is pretty sexy though - 50s industrial meets old Shanghai, with a bit of prohibition moodiness, realised by Joyce Wang. It makes for a great cocktail bar in addition to being a serious restaurant.

Ronin, Hong Kong, and the search for Wow

Ronin

I love eating out (duh), and just like anything you choose to immerse yourself in, you quickly find yourself in search of "wow" moments. To me, achieving a state of "wow" on the palate is seriously not dissimilar to an orgasm, however cliched that sounds (ok, very). It makes you ecstatic. You come out of the meal fists pumping and gasping for breath because it was, quite literally, taken away.

Anyway, it's a big deal when I am wowed. Lately, I've been very lucky - just in the past month, I've scored 3 wows - big personal record.

One of these was at Ronin. I've been here three times now, but only two for a proper meal. If you don't know that it's the new sister restaurant of Yardbird, you've probably been living under a rock, but it's okay, there's nothing wrong with rocks, especially with whisky.

Table for Two - Vegetarian Food Crawl in Central, Sheung Wan and Sai Ying Pun

Black bean veggie burger at Light Radiant Food

In the developed world, we hear about health problems that stem from overabundant diets - from obesity to gout, yet in the developing world, the health problems come from malnutrition, the direct opposite. Policymakers and activists around the world are trying to remedy this, and one social enterprise hitting both these birds with one stone is Table for Two.

Founded in 2008 in Japan, Table for Two has been helping feed children in poverty-stricken parts of Africa and China through donations made from restaurants in more developed nations. The consumption of healthy meals in restaurants, offered through partnerships between Table For Two and restaurants, raises money for the children's meals.

Healthy Summer Dining Experience map via Table for Two

Table for Two was brought to Hong Kong late last year, and the team here have devised a great "Healthy Summer Dining Experience" in August (starting August 1st). Buy the designated "Table For Two" meal (or drink) at their partner outlets, a portion of proceeds will go to charity, and by snapping a picture of your meal, there are prizes to be won too.


I was lucky enough to have been brought along on a little food crawl with the lovely ladies of Table For Two to get a sneak peek on some of the fab food and drink on offer. It was lovely to see so many great names on the list of participating restaurants (and bar). We didn't cover all of them on the crawl, so do check out the map (above) for the full list.

Shugetsu, more ramen in Hong Kong

Tsukemen

I wrote a review for Time Out Hong Kong on another new-ish ramen place in town, Shugetsu. They make their noodles on site, and are known for their "dry" ramens (as opposed to soup). I tried the abura ramen and tsukemen. I won't repeat my thoughts about them here - simply go to the Time Out piece.

Yardbird - Hong Kong's hottest yakitori joint is smokin'

Chicken meatballs

I hate hype for the sake of hype. The bad thing about that is, once I smell hype, I think, "uh-oh, this could be horrible". I don't know why my immediate thought isn't, "oh wow, so many people are raving about it, maybe it really is awesome". I think it's a terminal illness they call cynicism.

Celebrity Cuisine - Quintessential Cantonese Luxe

Chicken wings stuffed with birds' nest

We've all heard stories of misguided visitors looking for chop sui in Hong Kong (hey you, the guy looking for Peking duck in Hong Kong, don't you dare chuckle either), but sometimes even locals don't know where to find good, classic Cantonese food. Restaurants like Celebrity Cuisine and Manor are the last bastions of traditional Cantonese fare in Hong Kong. This is one restaurant that the Hong Kong Michelin Guide was finally right about - Celebrity Cuisine is a star-worthy restaurant (although whether it should have 2 stars is arguable). For a restaurant that specialises in the traditional, it's relatively new - didn't open till 2007 - but the chef, Cheng Kam-fu, has been in the biz for more than two decades; he was the private chef of late Hong Kong tycoon, Lim Por-yen.

8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo BOMBANA - Push the gondola out

Rib (for two)

Just look at that. Geezus. Tender, juicy, with the right amount of fat, good bite, excellent beefy flavour. Oh, if I could just eat that off the day-m screen now. It might seem weird that I crave steak from an Italian restaurant (that's not a steak Florentine), but this one from 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana is better than any I've had at steakhouses in Hong Kong. (Though I'm yet to go to talk of the steak-town, Steakhouse at Grand Hyatt, which I've heard very good things about).

Cantopop - Organic is Good Business

... but little else.

I know it's not fair to judge a restaurant after having tried 2 things at the opening cocktails and one lunch, but as far as judgment on a purely personal am-I-gonna-come-back-if-I-had-a-choice grudge goes, my mind is pretty much made up for now.

Sous vide char siu and egg rice

About 3 years ago, when "organic" hit our local wet markets, my mom bought some choi sum for about 1.5x the price of normal choi sum, and stir-fried it for us for dinner one night, without telling us it was organic. As we dug our chopsticks into the jade green mountain of veg, I still remember dad and I saying almost simultaneously, "hey this choi sum is good, where did you get it?". In the dark days prior to this moment, we had sadly gotten used to the taste (or lack thereof) of a proper choi sum. This one was a sweet, fresh, juicy (oh yes) awakening for our palates.

Since then, when people say, "all that organic and healthy stuff is bland", that's the example I quote. I do believe that organically farmed vegetables have great potential to be hyper-tasty.

Viva Espana!

Hollywood Rd/Wyndham Street trawlers will know that the 'nothing special' Mink bar has been turned into a tapas place. As far as I know, it's still under the same (Aussie) owners and I must admit, I'm quite liking Mink #2. Its actual name is Tapeo, and it's doing a great job as one of the SAR's first tapas places. The food is good, mostly cooked to order and you can perch on the bar that surrounds the open kitchen, watching it all happen.

Tapas is probably a 'has-been' trend in most of the western world, and as the number of places claiming to serve these small plates increased, the quality has tended to go the opposite way. Before you knew it, even the village pub was serving last night's leftovers on saucers and calling them tapas - hence my cynicism when Tapeo first opened in HK. "Tapas is so over," I told my boss when he told me about it, but the promise (or possibility) of chorizo is always hard to resist, and I wasn't disappointed.

We had fried squid, chopped duck liver with egg (sunny side up, so the yolk gets all runny... mm...), various cold cuts and a frittata/omlette thing with roasted bell peppers. The last was probably the most disappointing - didn't really taste of anything, texture was mushy and boring, but everything else was very well done, particularly the liver with egg that had a perfectly golden/deep orange yolk and cooked to be runny, but slightly thick - excellent with bread.

It's easy to get overly excited and over-order, as the dishes aren't actually that little (perhaps the size of 2 saucers), so take a deep breath and order slowly, as it does add up. Or, bring a few more friends so you can try everything :)

Tapeo
15-19 Hollywood Rd
Central
+852 3171 1989

What Happened to Chez Patrick?

Monsieur Patrick was great, got famous, hired and trained chefs, opened a second outlet, and food became mediocre. No...... come back monsieur!!! Stop socialising and get back in the kitchen! (Not that we don't like seeing you, but since we leave late anyway, we can wait till service is finished to speak with you...)

Speaking of service, allow me to divert your attention to the servers. Actually, try your best not to pay attention to the servers when you're there. We were a party of only six and yet they never, ever got our dishes right. Hello, ever heard of a memory, or even some note paper? And you they not pour our wine from tremendous heights? This isn't Indian milk tea, you don't need to pour from afar and create an infinite number of bubbles in my glass. I could go on. But I must remind myself that I'm not in a western country. Servers here were not brought up under western cultural influences. They don't think it's a problem, for instance, that they plonk things on the table and slide it across to you, or suggest a dish to you (which you end up ordering) and then serve it to the person across the table, or bring an amuse-bouche and not explain what it is to you before rushing away... *sigh* Eating out well is so bloody expensive in this city that they should really stop thinking about hogging hefty profit margins from us and start thinking about investing some of that margin into t-r-a-i-n-i-n-g.

Anyway. I still like Chez Pat, but it's no longer what it was...

For more photos and comments, click on a photo or here

Chez Patrick
26 Peel Street (near intersection of Gage St)
Central
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2541 1401

Localization of the palate (as well as my brain) - Three coffees

Work is driving me nuts, but fortunately in this world, there are restaurants and their trusty accomplice, food, that provide either a source of relaxation (when the eatery and company are good) or of release (when it's bad and I can rant on and on and on about it).

As usual, I've been having lots of coffee, but I've been trying to make each cuppa more worthwhile than merely feeding my addiction by having them in different places. None warrant a return trip (except KK merely because of its proximity to work...!)

Sad but true (L-R): A HK$40 mediocre latte from Sit n Read Cafe; passable caffe latte from Caffé Habitu, the self-proclaimed expert in coffee; an unexpectedly decent coffee from KK while I sat until I wanted to re-enter the fluro-glow jailhouse that they try to call an office.

Sit n Read Café
3/F 506 Lockhart Road
Causeway Bay
Hong Kong

Caffé Habitu (multiple locations)
G/F Hutchison House
Central
Hong Kong

Krispy Kreme (multiple locations)
B/F Times Square
Causeway Bay
Hong Kong

Wyndham Week - Finds, Frog Face Fish, Dragon-i

Not much time to write about each of these, so just a brief summary. I happened to visit three places on the same stretch of Wyndham Street a week (or was it two?) ago. All were decent.

Finds isn't new, and it's success in the competitive LKF/Soho area has its décor, drinks and, believe it or not, food, to thank. The food is best described as Scandinavian and is reasonably priced for the district. Mains are about HKD250 and it's located in the swanky Hotel LKF, which also houses the hip Azure that I mentioned earlier.

Frog Face Fish is a newcomer to the Wyndham scene serving seafood/fish. Prices are slightly less than Finds, making it even more hip-pocket friendly given that they serve marine life. The menu is quite small, and some items weren't available (why? season? newly opened?), although they did have some specials. Somehow I think the lack of menu items were to force people to get the specials. Cheeky.

Dragon-i is no stranger to the clubbers amongst us, but ever been there for a dim-sum lunch? The space is actually quite suited for a chill yum cha session, and while the food isn't excellent, it's decent, and you can eat your heart out at lunch for only HKD128 and enjoy an elevated view of the buzzing soon-to-be-all-restaurant street.

Finds
2/F LKF Tower
33 Wyndham St
Central
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2522 9318

Frog Face Fish
G/F 43-55 Wyndham St
Central
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2869 8535

Mak's Wonton Noodles

I raved about how good the wontons are at Mak's on Wing Kut Street before, so to be fair, I went to the other more well known Mak's on Wellington Street as well, and in short, I can now say with complete confidence that the wontons at the Wing Kut Street store are better.

The two stores, despite sharing the same name, are actually separately owned, although I believe that initially, they weren't.

The portions at Wellington St. are smaller but cost more than at Wing Kut St. ($25 vs. $21). The up side is that this store is easier to find and is brighter, though both are just as cozy. The wonton soup at Wing Kut is undoubtedly more pleasing, with its savoury, peppery flavour, and the wontons themselves seem to have better prawns and tastier pork.

I guess that's all I can say - at least I know where I'm going for wonton noodles from now on.

Mak's Noodle Ltd.
G/F, 77 Wellington Street
Central
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2854 3810

Carb-conscious on the search for a breadwinner - Le Velo, Tufei Pain Pain, Lime Organics

(Read: Anorexic gold-digger on the loose... not.)

I LURVE bread, and all manner of carbs for that matter. Who can resist a perfect, steaming bowl of Japanese rice, a plate of hand-made pasta, or an excellent loaf of sourdough? (All can be hideously expensive) I don't know about you, but I can't anyway. They call these things 'staples' for a reason, you know. If I had to go on the Atkins diet, I think I'd rather be obese. Besides, there are so many different diets out there. Maybe an all-carb diet would work too?

Anyhoo, this post isn't about dieting. (None of my posts will ever be about dieting or pro-dieting at least. Bomb me if I ever do it.) It's about my recent bread-hunt. It just so happens I found out that there are two reputedly good bakeries within walking distance of my office. Both names take inspiration from French, which is appropriate I suppose, since the French do indeed eat a lot of bread and thus make plenty of it, but by no means are they the only leading baking nation. Italy, Germany, India, China even, has their own bread-making history. I guess people in this city too often associate good food with French culture. The owners probably went to France and fell in love with the bread there. If they'd gone to Italy instead, I'm sure they would have loved the bread there too. One place is called Le Vélo (The Bicycle) and the second is called Tufei Painpain (tufei = burglar in Mandarin, pain = bread in French). Both are bakeries (i.e. bake on site) and have a café on the same premises.

Le Vélo's café of about 25 seats was absolutely packed when I wanted to go in (around 1330) - I came at this time on purpose, thinking that all the nearby office people would have left by then - so I took a stroll around the neighbourhood (very uninteresting - Le Vélo shares the street with old lightbox (advertising) manufacturers and plastics wholesalers - typical old Sheung Wan, of the non-tourist variety) and went back at 1400, by which time about half the customers had left. They offer set lunches other than sandwiches, but since I was there for the bread...

The sandwich options weren't very interesting - smoked salmon bagel, salami foccaccia, egg salad baguette (ew!) etc. I settled on a roast beef baguette. The set includes a starter of soup and a coffee/tea. All pretty standard. The layout of the café is pretty standard too. I wasn't expecting a place that screams "wonton noodle place". I'm exaggerating a little, but the cleanliness of the tables, floors and visible counter areas really have to be looked at. The soup comes with several slices of bread - I got one slice of baguette and two rye-looking ones with specks of candied orange peel worked into it. All were very chewy and slightly dry and stringy- I kept thinking they might have microwaved it because the outer surface of the slices seemed like they were beginning to dry. I even left a piece out for longer to see if it would harden. But it didn't, so the bread proves itself very chewy with abnormally strong strands of gluten. *ponders* The baguette that became my sandwich was much better. Although its exterior wasn't exactly crispy, it exuded a character more similar to a country-style loaf (campagnard) - doughy, dense, and bouncy without being tough. What I hate most about some baguettes is that you have to wrestle it to secure each bite. Coffee at the end wasn't too bad either, and their lattes are cheap in Hong Kong standards ($19 - stand-alone).

Tufei Painpain seems much less popular at lunchtime despite the fact that they also have lunch sets. IMO, there are two reasons. Firstly, it's way up on Caine Rd. in the highly residential mid-levels, up past the heart of SoHo. Secondly, it seems like it hardly ever opens. Their website says they're only open Wednesday through Saturday or something lazy like that. They must have picked that up in France... (j/k, no offense - artisans need their rest and time for creative thought haha)

No time for a sit down lunch today though (I'd spent too much time walking up the hill and buying coffee - a very good one, nonetheless - from Lime Organics on the way), so I bought a pain au levain and ate it on my walk back. It wins, hands down, as my pick for the bestEST bread in Hong Kong. For the time being, anyway. I know Lime Organics has bread every Saturday and there's a Chinese place called Gourmet Kitchen (I don't even know if it's still in existence...) that apparently houses an avid baker. But for now, I'm happy.

Le Vélo
9 Jervois St. **MOVED**
Sheung Wan
Hong Kong

Tufei Painpain
58 Caine Road **MOVED**
Mid-levels
Hong Kong
Open: Tues-Sun (so the website says...)

Lime Organics **CLOSED**
2 Elgin St
SoHo, Central
Hong Kong