20 best dishes of 2017 - Hong Kong

One of the best things I ate in Hong Kong in 2017

It's that time of year again when I scroll through my Google photos and am reminded of the ridiculous amounts of food I eat, and how fortunate I am to call it my job. I did a lot of travel this year, including pretty epic trips to Chicago and San Sebastián, and there are still a few new restaurants I've been wanting to go to but haven't. This isn't a list of new places, although I have tried to stop myself from falling back on the classics (Seventh Son's suckling pig and The Chairman's steamed crab still haven't been beat though). Here's my list of 2017's best bites in Hong Kong in alphabetical order:

What happened when I quit coffee

Strong latte (ie. what we call double shot lattes in Melbourne) at White Mojo in Balwyn, suburban Melbourne

I'm a caffeine addict. I had known this for some time. When I say this, people think I drank a lot of coffee. I didn't. I consistently had one a day, two max. The problem was the duration - I'd done this for about 15 years.

I first detected a problem when I would wake up in the middle of the night, usually in the early hours of Monday morning, after a weekend of not drinking coffee.

Where to find proper coffee around Brisbane's Bayside (southside) suburbs

I'm always looking for a good coffee in the Bayside suburbs or Redlands - you'd want a good coffee with this view, right?

When I'm in Brisbane, which has been about a month a year in the past few years, I tend to hang out in the bayside suburbs, as we have family in the area, and I love the chilled out, waterside village feel here. Admittedly, it isn't an area regular tourists would necessarily visit, but because I don't see too much written about the area, I thought I'd add my two cents. As a bit of background, my general stomping grounds range from around Wakerley to Cleveland. Do note that all of them tend to close by lunchtime - early bird gets the coffee! (Queenslanders all seem to be morning people). If you know any more good ones, comment away - I would love to check them out, and I'm sure that with time, there'll be more good cafes - the atmosphere in this area is kind of perfect for chilled weekend brunching and places to refuel after those early morning runs.

The Clever Dripper Is Exactly That. Clever.

The Clever Dripper is an awesome way to make a consistent cup of coffee at home

A lot of people make coffee at home, and as much as I drink it, I have to admit I didn't start brewing at home until a few years ago. Back in Melbourne, it was a no-brainer - I could go out and get a good cup almost wherever. In Hong Kong, somehow I managed by trekking out to different places to find decent coffee. That all changed when "third wave" hit Hong Kong and it became much easier to buy relatively cheap equipment to brew at home, and have access to locally roasted beans, or beans flown in regularly. (Previously, if you wanted to make coffee at home, it was either you buy a home espresso machine (which generally suck unless, well, you spend so much you might as well get a commercial one) and buy stale beans from the supermarket, or get a pod machine, neither of which appealed to me. (Re: pods - reliance on a single brand and company is just too dodgy for my taste, not to mention the environmental impact* of pods...).

As usual, I have a written an intro that's way too long before saying what I really want to say - I think I have found my coffee-at-home utopia. It's the Clever Dripper.

At home, I just want a decent cup that won't be much trouble nor take much skill. Sure, I've learned to do pourovers, but I'll never be as skilled and as well-trained as the baristas who make 50 a day. But I like the clean, expressive flavours that pourovers provide (I like espressos (okay, espressi, whatever, I need a bloody style guide for myself) but I kind of see them as a different drink - I guess an analogy might be juice vs nectar or something).

While away from home this past winter, I brought the current "standard" travel coffee kit with me - Aeropress and Porlex grinder. They're easy to pack and numerous Instagram flatlays have made it look so sexy. I'm not a huge Aeropress fan because of the grit, but I can live with it. But then on the same trip, I moved around a bit and sometimes only packed an overnight bag that wouldn't fit my coffee gear. I arrived at my sister-in-law's house and found something that most households have - a French press. Now, I'd never used a French press before because it'd had such bad, er, press, but I needed coffee so I asked Google god, and it gave me this. (In short: coarse grind, longer brew time, agitation.)

It's an amazing method for the flavours etc. but still, there was the problem of grit. When I got home, I even thought about using a French press then pouring it through a V60 - then I thought - wait a minute, didn't someone invent that already? Yep. It's the Clever Dripper. You get all the cupping-like soaking of the "new" French press method to which I linked above, and none of the grit because it has a paper filter*, thanks to the simple valve at the bottom of the dripper. GENIUUUUUUS.

*Although what would be more genius is if someone could invent a filter as good as paper, but was reusable. I've tried all sorts of metal disks, the ABLE cone etc. but none are as good as paper grit-wise. I'm sorry, world. Please, science, invent something and save me from my daily sinning.

Boundary Espresso, Melbourne - Up North

Turkish Breakfast at Boundary Espresso

As a member of a stereotypical Asian family in Australia, we never ventured far from our home in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Preston, where Boundary Espresso is, was to me just a name on the road sign on the way to the airport.

Working on a project in Melbourne for the past two months has allowed me to be reacquainted with my city, especially the northern suburbs, which my relatives would have told me was a "danger zone" (plus other marginally racist comments people say behind closed doors that I won't repeat here). In short, as a little girl in Melbourne, we basically never ventured north of Fitzroy.

11 favourite drinks of 2012

Scapa 16 years at The Macallan Whisky Bar & Lounge, The Galaxy Macau

As you can tell from the new "e_ting drinks" section on the blog, drinks have become an increasingly important part of my diet. This sounds crazy, because, everyone needs fluids, right? But around age 15, when I first started getting acne, I suddenly became obsessed with the idea of detoxification. Back then, we didn't have juice cleanses and the like (even if there were, they weren't easily accesible to teenage me) and the best and easiest way I knew was to drink gallons and gallons of water. For many years, probably half my schoolbag's weight came from my bottle of boiled, filtered, room temperature water.

As I grew up, I just kept on that path - first thing I do in the morning, even before coffee, is very warm water. When I went out, it would just be warm water, or warm tea, then maybe a glass of wine with a meal. I came to realise, however, that it was normal for people drink a whole range of things that were beyond my usual repetoire - juices, soft drinks, cocktails - and plus, my curious self drove me further down the paths of my mainstays coffee and wine, which saw me (and will still see me!) taking all sorts of lessons, classes, workshops and examinations.

A Guide to Coffee in Hong Kong - Where to Drink, Buy and Read about Coffee

Cafe Deadend's "Dirty Double"

Hong Kong is no longer the coffee desert I came back to 6 years ago. It has gotten to the stage where I can get a good to excellent beverage whichever district I might be in - well, almost - there are none near my home in Tseung Kwan O, which is why I've also decided to list where you can also buy coffee beans and equipment to brew at home.

(Edit Oct 2013: Just so you know, this was written in Dec 2012. Since then, good coffee places have continued to open. I guess I'll start a 'living' list one of these days, but for the time being, please keep in mind that this is now old).

Coffee in Hong Kong - Knockbox hand-drip class

Last weekend, I went to Knockbox Coffee Company, one of the newer third-wave coffee shops in Hong Kong for their hand-drip (aka pour-over) workshop. You may remember that I went to another newish coffee shop, Rabbithole, to attend their coffee class not too long ago too. The Rabbithole class I attended was more of an overview of methods (they do a hand-drip class too), and I started to get curious about the different philosophies and theories baristas had about making coffee. (Plus, there was a lot of feedback and debate, on that blog post and off, about the different methods and the rationale behind them).

Coffee in Hong Kong - Class at Rabbithole Coffee

Siphoned coffee at Rabbithole

Rabbithole has been one of my favourite coffee shops of late, and I've been dropping by as often as time allows since they opened. One day, I took two of my geekiest (and probably therefore, closest) friends and we tried one bean made three ways, just to see what it'd be like. (You see what I mean by geeky?) As we were watching the staff at Rabbithole make our coffees, we discovered flyers in the shop for coffee classes. Originally I was only interested in the hand drip class (since that's how I make my coffee at home and am desperate to improve my skills) but Mike, the owner, aka "The Java Junkie" per Time Out Hong Kong's description told us that the introductory class would see us playing with all his shiny machines and trying out different methods. We were sold.

The Daily Grind - my entry-level Bodum and Hario coffee grinders

When I started freelancing in December last year, one of the first issues I had to resolve was coffee. You see, I'm an addict (the doctor actually told me that), and there was a Nespresso machine in my old office, so it was never a problem. Weekend coffees at home were random - I have a Bialetti stovetop maker, filters for drip/pour-over, and even the lazy Japanese single-serve pour-overs from UCC (don't laugh, they aren't half bad, and have saved my sanity many a time, especially on travels to Mainland China).

 

Coffee in Hong Kong - 18 Grams

It's official. It's been medically proven that I'm addicted to caffeine. I can get migraine-like headaches if I don't get enough of it per day.

Taichung - Caffeine Fix at Orsir

The Taiwanese are passionate about their caffeine - there are tea shops every three steps, and coffee shops probably on every second street corner, some of which are sadly Starbucks, but there are treasures like Orsir amid the blah.

Coffee in Hong Kong - Soft Aroma wafts on

A while ago I posted the sad news that Soft Aroma in Causeway Bay, one of the few places one can get a proper coffee, had closed. The good news is, they've re-opened in Sheung Wan. I've been a couple of times now and while the cafe is smaller, it has a cool little teeny outdoor seating area (more like a deep windowsill) and their coffee is still good. Food is a bit lacking though (my tiramisu was rubbery, and bland), and bad ventilation means cooking smells from the kitchen mercilessly attack the seating area (smelling amatriciana when you should be smelling beans is a bit disconcerting). Nonetheless I'm glad they hadn't gone under. It's always nice to know that there's a market for proper coffee.

P.S. My fave at the moment is Fuel Espresso, Soft Aroma's is good, but lacks a little strength and character.

Soft Aroma
105 Wing Lok St
Sheung Wan
+852 2541 0666

For more good coffee in Hong Kong, see my posts on Fuel Espresso and Cafe Zambra.


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Coffee in Hong Kong - Wanchai

It's not often that I'm roaming around Wanchai on any given day, especially on a scorching, pre-typhoon summer's day, but I was last week because I had a couple of hours before a dinner in Causeway Bay and realised I had (miraculously) some spare time, so I flipped out my 'want to try list' (yes, I really do carry one with me all the time) and under 'Wanchai' found Zambra. Zambra is by no means new - I'd been to their very first branch in Central, on the corner of Wellington and On Lan Streets, but I wasn't so impressed - the blend that day was quite acidic and not, for lack of a better phrase, my style, and before I could make it back, it closed. From memory they seemed to have moved or opened in a quite a few places - none of which were in areas I frequent, hence the delayed visit.

Caffe Latte

The coffeeshop is on a busy, but unlikely corner in Wanchai - steps from putrid girly bars and nightlife that makes Lan Kwai Fong during the Rugby 7's look refined, but there are a lot of offices around here so I suspect that's the rationale for the bizarre location (it's not even close to the MTR). Funnily enough, there's also a Pacific Coffee right opposite. It's a 2-storey cafe, fairly spacious, but aesthetics and comfort were obviously not the first thing that came to mind when they did the boring, medium-tan wood interiors. Although a nicer environment in which to drink my coffee would have been nice, I'm really here for the brew - which was nothing like the stringent, dark liquid I had had years ago in their Central shop. I stupidly forgot to note what their bean/blend was that day, but this was very mild, yet not so mild that I couldn't taste the coffee. It had a distinctive, velvetly, chocolately texture and taste. Very interesting. Oftentimes even seasoned coffee drinkers attribute strength of flavour to quality, but this proved that that's not always true.

The milk was frothed perfectly and I got a little doggie drawn on too (sorry my photography really sucks, and I still haven't gotten myself a camera yet after my old one died while in the Cameron Highlands), though I was a little surprised that the girl who took my order immediately assumed I wanted skim milk (blasphemous in my books), though I don't blame her, given my pudginess...

Anyway, Zambra's coffee is really good, though the blend of the day makes a huge difference (thankfully, unlike Starbucks or Pacific, I don't know why they bother). Again, I would really like it if they had better seats, and if they were in more convenient location... (they have free WiFi too!)

Cafe Zambra
239 Jaffe Rd (cnr Stewart Rd)
Wanchai
Hong Kong
+852 2598 1322

For more good coffee, see a previous post about Fuel Espresso



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Coffee in Hong Kong - mall find

Just a quick one to say I finally tried Fuel Espresso in ifc. It's a Kiwi company (didn't know this when I went), and I can say it's pretty consistent with previous positive experiences with my fellow Australasian coffee geeks. Seating-wise it's bar-stools only, so not so much fr lingering as quick coffee breaks alla Italiano, but in an act of identity crisis there are handy power points for laptop users... Anyway, yay to more good/acceptable coffee in HK!


Fuel Espresso
Shop 3023, 3/F
(opp. back entrance of Lane Crawford, men's accessories dept., just off the escalators)
ifc mall
Central
Hong Kong

Coffee in Hong Kong - a sad day

Soft Aroma in Causeway Bay, one of the very few 'real coffee' places in this unfortunate town, has shuttered. It's a couple of doors away from the new and unremarkable Brunch Club - why has BC even survived? What is wrong with Hong Kongers?

The rent spike is definitely an issue for many businesses in Hong Kong, but I can't help but think that this marks the beginning of more coffee closures. When will Hong Kong wake up to the smell of freshly pulled espresso and stop spending their hard-earned cash on freaking Starfucks and Pussific Coffee?

I swear I'm losing faith in this city. Fast.

Coffee in Hong Kong - the neverending quest

Good coffee is hard to come by in the SAR (sorry *bucks just doesn't cut it for this ex-Melburnian), so whenever I hear or come across a place that offers the prospect of decent coffee, I'm there in a flash. I was in Mong Kok over the weekend - MK? Coffee? Hmm... I gave it a shot anyway, 'cause (I'm desperate and) I already love this place for its cool selection of magazines (French Archi Digest, Monocle, Jalouse etc.), so I thought maybe the gods of caffeine will pity this deprived soul.

They did not. Maybe they're punishing me for not praying more?

The cakes were fugly too, but I guess I'll give the gelati a try next time...


Lucky I have that primitive Vietnamese coffee dripper thingy at home and Nespresso at work (yes, that is how low I have stooped - actually, Nespresso pods aren't that bad all).

Slowly by Da Dolce
B2/F Langham Place
Mong Kok

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

Shhh....!

I've found coffee heaven in the eastern suburbs, but don't tell too many people 'cause this place isn't exactly big and the last thing i want to do (being the selfish caffeine addict that i am) is have to wait in line for 10 minutes for a coffee...

They roast on-site and you can buy a zillion different blends of coffee by weight to have at home, or just duck in for a take-out or a quick coffee (you won't be staying too long because they don't have food, apart from a few sweet things, and plus it gets so busy you'd feel awkward hogging a seat for too long anyway).

i had a long macchiato: strength - check. heady crema - check. textured milk - check. balanced aroma/taste - check.

i.e. the coffee is excellent. and i'm pretty conservative with word choice.

i suppose i needn't say more, except that we also tried out their vanilla slice and it's pretty damn good (although perhaps they just buy it off someone??) - just don't put sugar in your coffee 'cause it's sweet enough .

if you live in the eastern suburbs (of metro melbourne), you'll love me for telling you about this place.

caffe romeo
319 doncaster road
north balwyn vic 3104
australia
open: mon-fri 8am-6pm, sat 8am-5pm

[click here to see what others had to say about it]

The Taming of the Brew

Friends and family of caffeine addicts beware. Letting your coffee lover near Icoco is like releasing a five year-old in a toy store.

First, they’ll stand staring wide-eyed at the shelves, transfixed by the sight of espresso cups, shiny stainless steel milk frothing jugs and bags of coffee beans roasted on site. Then, they’ll see the scintillating silver espresso machine and the coffee menu on the wall behind the counter, and they’ll tug you gingerly by the sleeve with a smirk on their face that tells you that they want to take all this home. To really get them jigging, whisper to your five year-old that if they ask the lovely ladies behind the counter politely, they might be able to get a glimpse of the almighty roaster out the back. While they’re jumping up and down like a veritable preschooler, sit yourself down on one of the humble black tables and have a read of the coffee menu on the wall. It’ll tell you a single shot of espresso is made with 7-8 grams of ground coffee that is extracted for 25 seconds to give you 25 millilitres of their heavenly brew, and that your latte has a double shot of espresso (40 millilitres of extraction from 14-15 grams of coffee in 30 seconds) in a large glass with textured milk. No wonder it’s called a coffee ‘menu’. By now, even the occasional coffee drinker should be excited.

Only a coffee aficionado confident in their baristas would be bold enough to write in such detail without being labelled pretentious, so I decided have a go at their macchiato (“single shot in a traditional espresso cup with a ‘touch’ of textured milk” though I ordered a long macchiato, so I imagine it would have had a double shot). The coffee came, as promised, with no more than a dash of milk – purists would protest that milk is utter blasphemy, so by all means have yourself an espresso or a long black, because the coffee here is so heartbreakingly good, you won’t taste an ounce of unwanted bitterness; it just rolls around on your tongue like velvet with a fullness and complexity of taste akin to a good cognac.

To go with your coffee, there are several cakes, which are rumoured to be as great as the coffee, on which I unfortunately had to give up in place of a proper lunch, which wasn’t bad either. They have a range of panini and some specials, such as homemade pizza, soup and a healthy roasted vegetable lasagne. The Moroccan lamb panini came toasted with slightly spicy lamb mince, roasted eggplant, squash and baby spinach. An interesting and pleasing combination that breaks away from the café staples of roast veg and bococcini, roast beef and the like. If you happen to walk in wanting breakfast, they also have the usual suspects such as scrambled eggs on toast.

Coffee has often been reserved for adults, but for real kids (i.e. not the one begging you to buy the coffee machine), there are storybooks and puzzles, as well as a children’s menu, so mum and dad can enjoy their food and coffee in relative peace. Alternatively, soak in the sun on the pavement tables (if you’re lucky enough to see the sun in the gloomy Melbourne winter).

The star here is undoubtedly the coffee. The baristas are incredibly friendly, skilful and knowledgeable, and the coffees they make are sure to have even the most doubtful and unadventurous drinker excited.

Their beans are also being distributed in other cafés under the 'Woven' brand.

Average spending: AUD$5-15 p.p.

Icoco café and foodstore
143 Victoria Ave
Albert Park VIC 3207
Australia
Tel: +613 9690 7638
Open: Daily 8am-5pm