Time Out Hong Kong - Special Food Issue!

Time Out Hong Kong Issue 103 - The special food issue

The Food Issue of Time Out Hong Kong comes out today. The theme is 20 People Changing the Way We Eat and Drink, featuring local organic farmers, restaurateurs, charities, and movers and shakers in wine, baking, coffee, retail and more.

It was awesome to see Mike Fung of Rabbithole Coffee, one of my favourite places to get a caffeine hit these days (read Charmaine's excellent write-up and Tom's great guide to the new wave of coffee bars in Hong Kong), as well as Jonathan So, who's bringing Hong Kong's first craft beer festival, Beertopia, to Hong Kong this weekend. I won't spill all the beans, go out and get a copy! I'm told it's available at 7-Eleven and English bookshops in Hong Kong (but not all 7-Elevens - those in districts with more English readers, I suppose). As of this moment, it's not online yet, but I'm pretty sure it will be soon.

Little old me is lucky enough to be inside, as The City's Best Food Blogger along with the hugely popular KC Koo, who blogs in Chinese. Needless to say, I feel totally out of my league. My new project, a super-fun farmers' market called Island East Markets gets its first proper mention in the media too! More on that later.

On the cover are Matt Abergel and Lindsay Jang from Yardbird, Bertha Lo-Hofford and Alex Hofford from the Hong Kong Shark Foundation, Eddie McDougall of The Flying Winemaker, Chan Siu-Lun of the Agriculture and Fisheries Department, and yes, that is me in the silver gown (and no, sadly it does not belong to me - thank you D!).

Thank you Time Out, and all of you who read my blog - you guys are the ones that make this sort of thing happen, and you're amazing.

(P.S. check out the reviews inside - Dorothy So reviews RyuGin, Charmaine Mok reviews Lupa, and I review Old Street Kobiteh.)

Time Out Dining Awards 2010

This year, there were 20 categories - Brunch, Burger, Cafe/Coffee shop, Cheap eats, Chinese, Curry, Date, Desserts & Sweets, Dim Sum, Japanese, Pizza, Southeast Asian, Splurge, Star Chef/Creativity, Steak, Vegetarian, View, Wine selection, Best new restaurant, Restaurant of the Year - each with a winner, an "almost famous" award and a peoples' choice.

I was lucky enough to be part of the panel of judges - so whaddya think of the list?

The Drawing Room reviewed by Time Out HK

Time Out Hong Kong are extremely efficient when it comes to reviewing new restaurants. I still remember looking at their Island Tang cover in dismay - the day the magazine came out the restaurant had only been officially opened for one day (or something like that). Though not quite as quick as I thought, but still pretty speedy, is their review of what is probably the hottest restaurant opening in town since Cepage - The Drawing Room, replacing Opia at JIA boutique hotel in Causeway Bay.

No real comments from me re their review, as I haven't been yet (will be going later this month - woot woot!), but as an exec summary, they gave it 4 out of 6 stars (same as what they gave Cepage), loved the decor and the reasonable wine mark-ups, but weren't wowed by any one dish, though all were above par and not disimilar to Aspasia's repetoire. Curiously Kay (the writer) calls Aspasia "one of Schuller's old stomping grounds" - I was under the impression that he was exec cheffing in both locations - perhaps they know otherwise?

Since the opening was announced, bookings filled at lightening speed, cluey bloggers got to it, and there was talk on Chowhound in no time. Someone (handle MWJTJ) has already reported having tried their trial menu and thought it was "really really good", and Siu Yeh has given it a 10/10!

The review is here and a previous blog post about it is here.