It's all about the money - Whisk

Tomato, strawberry and mozzarella salad

Rent and/or the stock market explain a lot of things in Hong Kong. Like how perfectly good restaurants close down (not over 80% full every night, for instance, hence not enough to cover rent); the advent of private kitchens (stock market crash of 1997, high rents); why we eat out so much (expensive housing, small kitchens that aren't conducive to entertaining or lots of cooking, unless you're dedicated).

So I'm guessing, for a hotel restaurant like Whisk, they have some sort of projected profit goal thingy they have to achieve. And not being exactly the busiest restaurant in town, they'd be desperate for two main things: 1) attract more people, 2) lower (food) costs. With a $218 set meal, Mon-Sat, for 3 courses plus coffee/tea and petit fours, I gotta say they're trying very hard to do 1). But then, how about 2)? How low can those food costs go? To me, it seems like they've lowered it a bit too much. Tasteless beef, cheap balsamic glaze - I'd rather $218 for two courses and better ingredients - I only have one stomach, after all. One thing they don't have to change is the chef. He's turning out great stuff from what crappy things his budget allows. Either that, or he needs to source really local, but I don't think hotel management can accept that kind of operation...

Pasta basta - Al Molo

Just a quick scribble and a bad photo of last night's impromptu dinner at Al Molo, a Dining Concepts restaurant with Michael White's (of Marea NYC fame) name all over it.

The agnolotti was the only dish that ticked all the boxes, but the plate had been sitting in the warmer for too long and my sauce ended up forming a nice skin on the plate. Mm-mm! Who wouldn't like some skin on their sauce! Our tagliatelle was limp, overcooked (fresh pasta requires an eagle eye that kitchen seemed to lack last night) with a bolognese that was this standard only blander (a grating of parmiggiano helped). Tomato sauce in the other pasta (I think it was a spaghetti) hardly tasted of tomato, despite being very, very red.

Oinkfest! Kimberley Chinese Restaurant

The view from behind

I'd been wanting to go Kimberley for quite a while, thanks to the delicious accounts on Diary of a Growing Boy and stumbling upon intriguing photos on Openrice - I mean, who can resist a copper-toned piglet stuffed with glutinous rice, rolled up into a gleaming, skinny cylinder? Gluttonous as I am, there was still no way I could finish that on my own. So when the #fatty crew came to Hong Kong (@eatnik, @cloudcontrol), it was the perfect opportunity to round up a bunch of piggy pals, new and old (@par_lor, @wasabi_inferno, @snarkattack, @alexlobov, @coffeemeow and more) for a pigfest.

Hot coals, hot pots - Tai Fung Lau

I have a thing for tradition and old-school. Recently I've been trying to visit more classic dining establishments in Hong Kong - the kind that in-the-know families have been going to for decades, but would never even consider if you asked them for a recommendation. It seems weird, but of my favourite sources to ask is one of my aunts who works in the film industry. By no means is she the oldest of my aunts (in fact, she's probably on the young side), but possibly because she's always on the lookout for innovative places to film, and is a bit of a foodie (runs in the family), she knows a lot of tucked away nooks and crannies.

Over egg-cited

Gai daan zai, aka egg waffles, egg puffs, egg rolls, or 雞蛋仔 were a huge part of my childhood. When we first moved back to Hong Kong from Melbourne, I was nine years old, and very stubborn (I still am - as in stubborn, not nine). I insisted that I was better off in Australia and had major issues repatriating to Hong Kong. I would rebel, in my own little way (I was always timid out of home) by acting up at school - bursting out crying in the middle of class, aggravating teachers and classmates for no particular reason, missing the school bus (i.e. things that traditional Asian parents would take notice of). I hated my parents for dragging me back.

The Monsieur himself - Alain Ducasse at SPOON

Had the opportunity to go to one of the two Alain Ducasse dinners at SPOON in Hong Kong recently - it was definitely an experience. Here are some horrendous attempts at capturing the dishes (judging by the tiny number of posts I've managed recently, you may have been able to guess that I've not really had the time to read the instruction guide for my new camera...)

    

Top L-R: marinated sea bass with aquitaine caviar and a lemon sauce; asparagus and leek; sole with morel sauce; lamb with spring vegetables; re-interprested vacherin - meringue, mango and passionfruit sauce.
Bottom: Beautifully tempered chocolate with raspberries.

The courses were set, so basically there was no choice (other than to choose the rare/done-ness of your lamb, for which medium rare was suggested anyway). Which was not a problem at all. After all, as long as the food was good, we weren't going to make any fuss. Each course could also be accompanied by a different glass of wine, but if we did that, we'd be drunk and very very broke. So we has a nice bottle of 2002 Chateauneuf-du-Pape Domaine de la Janasse instead.

Service and the irritable noise of the restaurant made the meal slightly less enjoyable as it should have been; neither of which should have been a problem at internationally-renowned dining establishments like this one, especially when located in a hotel.

Nonetheless, the meal was great, and it's not often that you get to see Monsieur Ducasse himself roaming around the service area.

On an additional note, I hear that SPOON now offers a hip-pocket friendly early dinner (around $500 per head), as well as a comparably priced lunch. So if you missed out on Ducasse or wish to be reminded of the good times you had when he was in Hong Kong, you can still get your fix doing much less harm to your personal P&L.

SPOON (Hong Kong)
Intercontinental Hotel
18 Salisbury Road
Tsim Sha Tsui
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2721 1211

Three on the Bunch

A new place worth mentioning:

Cheap, chill and perfect post-shopping hangout. Perfect for tired feet and tired cards. If the mood takes you, downstairs are a cat cafe (Chococat Café), and a manga store.

       

Chicken Caesar - not bad, but if fake crunchy bacon bits annoy you avoid it. Ingredients are fresh, although I didn't expect 'grilled chicken' to be panfried chicken. Oh well. Didn't taste too bad.

Take it as contemporary soy-sauce western in a comfortably decked out space with decent views of Kowloon.

(This photo courtesy of up4food.com)

Three on the Bunch
5/F Parmanand House
51-52 Haiphong Road (corner Lock Road)
Tsim Sha Tsui
Hong Kong
Tel: 2739 3982

I can't believe it's not summer! - 798 unit & co

Hau Fook Street has always been a bit of a refuge for hungry shoppers on this side of the Victoria Harbour, since eateries along Canton Road can be pricey and/or unreliable, and a bit far from us 'hip' people (look, it's a euphemism, okay? No need to spell out that we can't afford a new Bottega every weekend...) who shop at Rise, and in and around Granville Road.

Then again, Hau Fook can be a bit boring, dominated by cheap and cheerful Canto outlets, with the dessert shop that everyone knows (I forgot the English name) as its only salvation.

Introducing 798 unit & co. - a new(ish) NY bistro type place in the heart of Hau Fook Street, right next to the groovy design/homewares store Homeless. According to my friend, 798 is in fact the Hong Kong outpost of a restaurant by the same name in NY. Anyone been (to the NY one)?

Located on the first floor, the dining room is quite spacious, especially by HK standards, featuring a stainless steel open kitchen at the entrance, where cakes are also displayed. There is an almost nautical feel with the round windows lining the side (painted black) of the space that looks out to HF Street, and mirrors on the back wall where several white banquettes are also located. Tables and chairs are simple solid wood that squeal and grumble like a kid and a grandpa rolled in one (though both would be quite unhappy making those noises) when moved upon the black and white tiled floor. Tables are sans tablecloth and with paper napery, but good basic silverware (as you would expect at any decent cafe, not to mention restaurant in say, Melbourne). Lighting is a little in sufficient for me, but then again maybe I'm just not enough of a romantic. One last comment before getting onto the food - the aircon is bloody freezing.

I've been here two times now, and my impression of the food, unlike the quality of food itself, has been quite consistent - not exactly up to scratch... sometimes.

The first time I went, I had a fennel risotto with some sort of fish, which was fine. I remember being glad that the risotto was actually cooked to the correct texture (though it was nothing amazing). It was the fact that fennel was on the menu that caught my eye. Ask someone at some so-called 'western' restaurants and they wouldn't have a clue what it is. That was the night I had a glass of wine off their winelist. I couldn't resist at $38 a glass (yes that is HKD), but just let me say, price can never determine quality, but can be suggestive of it nonetheless.

On my most recent visit the service was unattentive to say the least. Do they understand that the same course for people on the same table have to be served at the same time??? Just because I ordered roast chicken doesn't mean my friend's (mediocre) Thai-inspired risotto had to sit under the freezing aircon-created conditions for a full 10 mins (at least) before my dish arrived. errr, sir, ever heard of planning? Or even an apology?!

My roast chicken was fine - huge portion - about four to five pieces of honey-glazed roast chicken spruced up with paprika or something. A little too sweet for my liking, but the baby spinach (salad) underneath helped. For dessert we had banoffee pie (they spelt it 'banoffi' - more on menu proofreading should-haves later) which was very nice. The cream on the pie seems to have been chilled for a while and by the time we ate it, was marshmallowy, which suited me fine, although my friend said it was quite different from what she had on her last visit. We also had a lime pannacotta that was way sour - I only liked it because I'm the kind of person that basically drinks vinegar from a soup spoon with my xiao long bao and drowns my viet broken rice in nuoc cham.

They've changed the presentation of the menu since I last visited; added Chinese translations (not that that affects me as such) and updated some of their offerings, which is what all good restaurants should do. But apart from the 'Banoffi' incident, we noticed a pasta dish claiming to feature summer vegetables. I know winter isn't really wintry in this part of the world, but it certainly ain't summer any more by anyone's standards. Unless of course, they were using imported vegies from Down Under or the Kiwis, which I doubt. I can smell a hint of pretentiousness in the air...

The main thing to give them credit for is for their Hau Fook Street-friendly prices. Pastas go for about HK$60-90 for more than acceptable portions, and there has definitely been thought put into the food, just not enough care on the part of management - both within and beyond the kitchen. The wine list is horrific, but I guess they're just trying to keep within (customers') budget and good enough for most of the target market. But I mean, anyone in the right mind would not have wine in HK that costs $28 a glass, $140 by the bottle (pompous comment by me that night: "I usually have wines by the glass at the price of that bottle"). Okay enough said.

798 unit & co.
1/F 9 Hau Fook Street
Tsim Sha Tsui
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 23660234

Best Burgers in Town? - Main St. Deli

The festive season's come again and for some reason I'm getting hungrier and allowing myself to eat more. Yay for oversize clothes this season! Popped down to Main St. Deli at the Langham Hotel in TST for dinner - I'd been to their 'high-end' restaurant The Bostonian before and wasn't too impressed, so I wasn't really expecting much.

I think it was a Wednesday night - mid-week, nonetheless - but they were full. The waiter at the door asked to have my name to put on the waiting list and said it might be a half-hour wait because there were three to four other names on the list. (Possibly because of the trade fair on right now?) Really weird, because every time I walk past this place is near empty. Anyhow, seeing I had to wait for my aunt, I grabbed a copy of HK Mag and sat down. So my aunt (who suggested we come here and is pretty much a regular) arrives and is equally stunned that the place is full. She proceeds to hassle the girl (in a nice way - perhaps they recognised her), at which point a table leaves, and we get offered that table. So much for a waiting list haha...

The decor is, as the name suggests, very down-to-earth, although still quite American. Think Dan Ryan's with more lights plus a bit if art deco. The four-seater banquettes would be the best seats, but unless we wanted to be back on the lobby seats, a normal dining table it was.

The food - burgers, sandwiches, salads and grilled meats pretty much says it all; portions are at least 1.5 times of what is usually offered, i.e. very American. My aunt tells me that the Monster Burger is the best - a pretty 'standard' sort of beef burger with pickles, tomatoes etc. The burger varieties are pretty standard and if I remember correctly there's a vego one too. We order the most expensive one on the menu (one of the things you can do when dining out with aunties and uncles kekeke...), a wagyu burger with foie gras. Thank goodness we're 'supposed' to gain weight around Christmas. The wagyu, according to the manager there, is graded M7 - if that means Marble Score 7, then it's pretty damn good (max is 12, anything above 9 is great). In Australia, only really bad cuts and bad grades of wagyu are ground into mince for burger patties, and I've had a pretty bad one before at Urban Burger.

The foie gras is actually a foie gras terrine (which is usually cheaper and should have been indicated on the menu but wasn't), and although encased within the wagyu patty, makes no effort to stay inside it once you bite into the burger - it just comes oozing out. All very messy as the juices, oils and sauces start dripping and soaking the so-so bun, but at the same time extremely indulgent.

Along with a generously sized grilled chicken salad and a huge slice of NY cheesecake (both very decent), I felt like I didn't need to eat for the next three days (but of course I did and had custard buns for breakfast the next morning...)

I'd probably go back on a cold drizzly day when everything else seems to have failed me, because I know their burgers won't. Although I think I'll stay away from the foie gras (terrine) for a while.

I'm a little inspired for a burger hunt now. I've heard good things about the one at the Lobby Lounge of the Intercon...

Main St. Deli
Langham Hotel
8 Peking Road
Tsim Sha Tsui
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2375 1133