Tenmasa, Macau - Tempura All The Way

Sitting at the tempura counter at Tenmasa, Macau

This is why I shouldn't (and tend not to) take junkets* - this meal was from my Macau trip to which the City of Dreams very kindly invited me back in July May (that is how awful I am).

Tenmasa serves a range of Japanese cuisines but its main focus is tempura, and appropriately, we were seated at the tempura counter.

Shinji by Kanesaka, Macau (and what it feels like to have an anti-foodist husband)

Sushi counter at Shinji by Kanesaka, Macau

I was invited on a junket* by City of Dreams Macau to try out some of their signature restaurants. I'll be writing about all of them in due course, but out of the list I was offered, I was most excited about Shinji by Kanesaka, a sushi restaurant with two Michelin stars at its original branch in Ginza**.

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.

Shinya Shokudo - Food Manga Du Jour

Shinya Shokudo book 1, via official website

Sweeping the Asian food manga (comic) circles in the past year or so is Shinya Shokudo (深夜食堂 or Shinya Shokudou, and seemingly called Midnight Dining in English), a Japanese comic about a late night diner in the notorious nightlife district of Kabukicho, Tokyo. I'm not a comic obsessive, but since Les Gouttes de Dieu, this is the second food or wine-related comic I've been stuck into. In fact, it's the second comics series I've gotten stuck into in at least 5 years, full stop.

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.

Hachibei, yummy yaki - Fukuoka, Kyushu

Yakitori! Lots of smoke, but no mirrors

For work, we did an interview with Chef Matt of Yardbird, dubbed "Hong Kong's 'it' restaurant" (well...), and one of my questions was, "What are some of your favourite places to eat in Tokyo?" to which he replied that he actually thought food in Fukuoka was better. This was a few days before I was about to set off to Fukuoka - Helloooooo Lady Luck - so I asked my boss to kindly find out where exactly his fave restaurants in Fukuoka were. Of course, Matt's super busy, but he did manage one name - Hachibei. (And no, I don't think those questions appeared in the Q&A in the end.)

Hakata Kurogane - Late night chicken wings at Hakata Station, Fukuoka, Kyushu

Chicken wings!

We arrived in Fukuoka in the evening and it took us a while to find our hotel (despite it being right next to Hakata Station), so by the time we did and put our bags down we were pretty tired. Without any plans, we wandered around the area as it seemed quite lively still. If all else failed we could have still gone to the myriad Lawsons, Family Marts and 7-Elevens - Japanese convenience stores are amazing; an onigiri from any one of those would have been better than one at the largest Japanese restaurant in any medium-sized Australian town. Seriously.

Eat to Support Japan - Sushi Fuku-suke

Sake and sashimi. Two things people in Hong Kong have suddenly become afraid of after the unfortunate events of Tohoku. The least we can do is help by continuing to consume safe Japanese produce. A blanket "no" is just dumb. I can't believe one of Hong Kong's most 'prominent' food show hosts, Ah So (So-sze Wong 蘇施黃), blatently wrote in her column in popular local magazine Eat & Travel Weekly that people shouldn't eat Japanese seafood at all, because it's just "too dangerous". What utterly irresponsible behaviour.

So I was more than grateful when some knowledgable foodies found out about Sushi Fuku-suke in Causeway Bay, whose owner/chef is from Sendai (and who, as we sadly discovered later, had lost his brother in the disaster), and counted me in for this exquisite and meaningful (on top of the usual curious and gluttonous) night of eating and drinking.

e_ting's Hong Kong list

I'm now keeping this list updated on the e_ting in Hong Kong page - check there!

If you've ever called/emailed/tweeted me about where to eat in Hong Kong, here's more or less the list you would've seen. I've copied and pasted it here, with a little more detail added. I'll try to update as often as possible/relevant. Note that I've tried to keep my notes short to keep it an easy to read 'list', but if you want more details, just ask. Links will take you to addresses either in Openrice, one of my previous posts, or to my Facebook photos (usually with notes of some sort). (And I haven't had time to link everything, so please do a search on Openrice).

As this list is intended for visitors, most places are easy to get to, though not all are on an average visitor's trail. One day I will split them up into "easy/not so easy to get to", but until then...

To reiterate: this is a work in progress. Am I an idiot for having left something out? Tell me - comment away!