Crossing Shenzhen

As you may or may not know, the vibrant city of Shenzhen ("vibrant" is a very polite way of saying loud, crowded, with not much regard for the law by 99% of its inhabitants) is a short train ride away from Hong Kong. I go quite often, not to join my fellow womenfolk to buy replica handbags, but to eat.

Shenzhen is a peculiar place, thirty years ago it was just another scruffy village, but now, it's been crowned a "Special Economic Zone" which basically means it's been flooded with all kinds of business and has a bubbling, gushing economy, fueled as much by multinationals as sketchy massage parlours.

Wages here are much higher, so restaurants have been able to attract excellent chefs from all over the country, meaning you can pretty much find very decent food from any province in China.

This weekend, we tried a place serving Chao Zhou (or Chiu Chow) food. Chao Zhou is in Southern China, close to a river (Pearl River?) so there's lots of seafood (or shall I say, river-food?). They're famous for their cold/room-temp tapas-like dishes that we call 打冷 (da2 leng3) in Chinese, such as cold crab. As with most Chao Zhou restaurants, they had a counter up front to display/serve these small dishes, as well as 'samples' of hot pot dishes. They also have a small menu for staples (e.g. rice, noodles) and vegetables.

As you can see, presentation isn't exactly their forte.

Stir fried gai larn (aka Chinese broccolli) with salt-preserved fish. The vegies were more thinly sliced than usual, allowing the stalks to cook at around the same time as the leaves. So crisp you can feel the fierceness of the wok (in Chinese it's called 鍋氣).

Lamb hot pot with dried herbs. Lamb and these medicinal herbs are supposed to have a warming effect on the body, hence perfect for winter. Dishes like these make me wonder what kind of lamb they use - because these little morcels get simmered and simmered and simmered and yet remain tender and juicy all the way.

The much less appetizing interiors

The next morning, we went and had yum cha at the notorious Dan Gui Xuan in Lo Wu Commercial Centre (huge, shabby mall, replicas galore). It's almost impossible to get a seat here without waiting and hassling the servicepeople for at least half an hour. The food is pretty good - not excellent, but it's the best bet by far if you've got a shopping day planned in this maze of a mall. Service is sloppy, but their taro (purple) and egg yolk & custard buns (white) can probably help calm you down when the tea just fails to arrive hot.

   

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

Manga Wine and Muslim Food - Xinjiang Yisilan Fanzhuang

Fans of the comic Les Gouttes de Dieu / Kami no Shizuku (神の水滴 / 神之水滴): Do you recognise this wine? It's talked about in the 8th book

And I had it! Wahaha! I think it's probably the least expensive wine in the whole series. I'm no wine expert (I don't think I'd even count as an amateur) but I think it'd be safe to say that Lou Lan isn't a very interesting wine, but at least it's not foul, like some overpriced Great Walls out there. They didn't specify which grape varieties they used, opting instead for a generic 'dry red wine' title, like many Chinese reds.

I went on a five-day trip to Beijing recently, and this place where I found the Lou Lan was our first dinner stop. The food of every province (or at least almost every) is represented in Beijing, being the capital of China, particularly cuisines from the north-eastern parts of the country, i.e. neighbours of Beijing. Food in this part of the country is often heavier in salt, herbs, oils and fats due to colder, longer winters and generally harsher conditions. Subtlety and finesse is more of a southern thing - Northerners, stereotypically, are more down-to-earth, rough n' ready kinds of people who need to consume more because of the climate and their labour-intensive work, whereas Southerners, especially those along the coast, are known to be good businesspeople and live on more arable lands, hence they tend to be more picky about food and the finer things in life.

Back to this first restaurant. It serves food from Xinjiang province (or maybe it's a Special Economic Zone? I'm not too sure) and is right behind the Xinjiang Hotel and next to official Xinjiang office in Beijing, hence often frequented by officials. We were assured that we were getting authentic food.

Lamb is the main attraction here, as it is the most commonly consumed meat in Xinjiang. Also, as many Xinjiang people are Muslim, pork isn't regularly served. We had ribs, soup, and probably a stir-fry kind of thing, but I've forgotten and forgot to take photos of it - so it must have been pretty good.

L-R: Sheep's milk yogurt; a snap of our brightly-coloured room; naan-like bread (unfortunately served at room-temp), lamb soup with carrots and herbs, absolutely fabulous roasted lamb ribs with finely-diced bell peppers.

Xinjiang Yisilan Fanzhuang
新疆伊斯蘭飯莊
海淀区三里河路7号新疆驻京办院内
7 San Li He Road
Kai Ding District
Beijing
China
Tel: +8610 8683 2666

New York - The Big Apple Pie, Tart and other baked goodies

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of New York? Sex and the City? The Statue of Liberty? No matter, wherever I go I'm thinking about fooooood.

I went on a little quest for bakeries, coffee and chocolate - since, firstly, I like baked goods, and secondly, it would allow me to try more places. I was short on time (2-3 days) and there were only a certain number of proper dining establishments I could visit. Pastries I can fit in between - breakfast, morning tea, afternoon tea, supper, you get the point.

So here's a quick overview of what I had on my whirlwind NYC bakery "tour":

Chocolate and Pear Tart from Once Upon a Tart

Can't say it was great - the chocolate was super heavy and the pear was a nice change - I just wish the top of the chocolate and/or the tart were crispy - then there'd be a good contrast to make the whole thing less, well, heavy. I also had a cranberry choc chip cookie (not pictured - I ate it too quickly haha and it wasn't so much of a looker). It was the white sugar crispy variety - I dunno, I like my cookies to be slightly chewy, especially these hugeass ones. These can totally be dwarfed by the heavenly cookies from Olive's (see last item). Plus, although I've learnt not to expect much in the way of service, esp in NYC, but things actually had gone quite well for me, until I came into this store...

Apple tart from Ceci Cela

This French bakery is perfectly located (shopping tea-break wise) at the conjunction of Soho, Nolita and Little Italy. All things flaky seem to be their forte - this apple tart is simple but great - the chunky, slightly charred baked apples have an excellent texture and the pastry is hard to fault. Also bought a financier that I laster had on the plane (it was too dark so I couldn't really take a photo) and it was very, very good. Perhaps it was the effect of heightened palatal and nasal senses (of not having light i.e. not being able to see what I was eating), but the almond meal in the financier shone through so well. Never had anything quite like it. Coffee was pretty decent too (if not a bit pricier than the city's average). Totally deserves all it's good comments I read on the net.

Old-fashioned Apple Pie from the Little Pie Company

I was waiting to go into the musical that I went and got student rush tickets for, so I took a little walk around the block. Right next to Esca (to which I later went for post-show dinner), this is a really low-key kinda place. No faff, no frills, just lots of pies and baked goods. Bought this "mini" apple pie (about 6 inches diameter at the rim), without really thinking about when I was going to eat it (how typical of me - I'm just a prolific food shopper). Ate it on the plane, eventually. Maybe I'd left it for too long and I should have put it in the oven, coz the pastry had gone a bit soggy and probably expanded with the moisture. So I ended up scoffing mouthfuls of soggy shortcrust before I could get to the apple. A decent pie, I suppose, but let's just say I wasn't crazy about it. The coat guy at Esca seemed to want to try it (I'd left the bag with him along with my coat) so I guess it's pretty famous...?

Olive's
Unfortunately I didn't have the patience to take photos of their uber scrumptious choc chip and double choc chip cookies. I just had to eat them right then. There were crumbs all over my mittens, scarf etc. but did I care? This kitchy, country-kitchen lookalike also seems to do a thriving trade in sandwiches (you can see them being made right behind the front counter). Their salads didn't look bad either. Next time, next time.

Once Upon a Tart
135 Sullivan St (between Prince and Houston)
Soho, NYC
Tel: +1 212.387.8869

Ceci Cela
55 Spring Street (between Lafayette and Mulberry)
Nolita, NYC
Tel: +1 212.274.9179


Little Pie Company
424 W 43rd St (near 9th Ave)
NYC
Tel: +1 212.736.4780

Olive's
120 Prince St (between Wooster and Greene)
SoHo, NYC
Tel: +1 212.941.0111

New York - Caffe Falai

I guess I'm starting to understand what people mean when they tell me I come from a place where there's a vibrant cafe culture. There aren't streets after streets of little cafes in New York or Boston - there are diners, ethnic eateries, restaurants and chains. If you want a coffee, you usually go to Starbucks. There are as many Starbucks (and Dunkin Donuts, in the case of Boston) as Pret a Mangers in London. Scary.

I need places that are open for breakfast in the morning, right through lunch and afternoon tea, probably even early dinner that serve good coffee, light meals and are nice to sit in in between Olympic shopping sprees. Actually seemed kinda hard in the States. Maybe I'm just not "in the know", but it was with great relief that I found Caffe Falai. It's exactly what I wanted, and they have their own bread (probably not baked on the premises but I know the owner has eateries/bakeries elsewhere, like Falai and Falai Panetteria, which I also visited the next day).

Caffe Falai is a recently opened small 20-seater-ish place (definitely small in American terms - everything seems bigger over there haha) on the border of SoHo and Nolita, perfectly located for shopping. It's bright and airy, in an all-white space with two large shopfront windows facing Lafayette St. The fittings are probably best described as modern day vintage. Think granny's furniture, mirrors, and her tiny tile bathroom floor, but all white. Nice.

It's about 14.30 when I step in, a bit beyond the usual lunch peak, but Falai is humming along nicely. Guess I wasn't the only person who was attracted by the news on Gridskipper or wherever. Seat spacing is Parisian - i.e. be slim or it's elbow to elbow. How pompous, just like me! Haha. Nah, not really, it's actually really chill, but classier than sister store Falai Panetteria down in the slightly dodgy LES.

They have two menus, one for breakfast (all day as all good cafes should - 0800 to 1700 - yay!) and one for snacks and lunch - simple pastas, panini etc. Prices are very friendly; you can definitely leave for under $10 if you aren't starved. I order something entitled "root vegetable" under the insalate section, expecting a cold salad, and a minestrone. The vegetables were actually served hot, and in shallow pool of clear broth and were fresh, sweet, and perfect beyond description. They were all baby veggies - dutch carrots, brussel sprouts, parsnip etc. and despite it being late winter, seemed like spring vegetables. Really never had anything quite like it. Hopefully they'll keep up with the fresh ingredients, because that's what makes the dish.

The minestrone was good too - more like a stew than a soup and was great with the crusty fennel seed bread. It came in a quaint soup dish, complete with a cover. Coffee was decent, typically less strong than what I'm used to, as with every American coffee I've had thus far, plus they use the infamously smooth but hard-to-extract-flavour Illy.

Perfect perfect perfect is all I can say. Excellent value, swift service, and exactly what I want from a cafe. Better than the best in Melbourne (bar the coffee). Now that's saying a lot.

Caffe Falai
265 Lafayette St (near corner of Prince)
Soho, NYC
Tel: +1 917.338.6207

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

Ce n'etait pas si bon - bonbon Cafe

A Cordon Bleu trained chef, very favourable reviews and cute décor have not, in this particular case, added up to a good dining experience.

The service people seem incapable of smiling - and that is the smallest of my complaints about them. Our bread was microwaved (for goodness sakes, bread loses its moisture and HARDENS as it cools if you heat it in the microwave), they gave us sherry glasses for our sparkling and some wine glasses were cloudy. Food was served before the previous course was finished (this is a tiny fourteen-seater, mind you), they referred to our post-meal coffee/tea as 餐飲 (a "meal drink" as in one you'd have with your happy meal at Mickey D's)... No, the service was not good. I should really be getting used to it in Hong Kong, but alas.

As for food, I could have been in any old restaurant - French, American, British, it wouldn't have made any difference. The most French thing on my plate of pan-fried pigeon was probably the sad-looking french beans, which were boring, but probably only because I'd had them at home for lunch earlier that day and seen them on the supermarket shelves looking all yellowy and unhealthy.

Apologies - the photos didn't turn out too well because of insufficient lighting, my reluctance to use the flash mode because I hate white light, and basically, a sh*tty camera.

Goat's cheese and hazelnut in filo

Okay, for an amateur cook like me, filo may be a little tricky to handle - sheets prone to ripping, keeping it all moist etc. But for a trained chef, it really shouldn't look like this - a piece of crumpled up paper from a five year-old throwing a tantrum. Tasted fine, but I'm a hazelnut freak. Put them on mouldy toast and I'll still eat it. Point made I think.

Sweet potato and apple soup

Looked and tasted more like apple puree for babies, but who said baby food was bad?

Pan-fried pigeon with foie gras

See what I mean by meat and three veg? And I think it really takes a photo to communicate how huge my prices of pigeon were. I think I've had duck that's smaller! Perhaps it was the knife, but I had a hard time sawing through it. To that end, I'd better get my teeth checked too. It was slightly undercooked, and scared my bird-flu conscious relatives away a little.

Creme brulée

Likely to be the only thing I can't complain about in the meal, which doesn't really say much. It was fine; the texture closer to the bottom was better than near the top - can anyone explain? Some sort of sedimentary effect?

To their defense, it was a public holiday, but on the same note, we did pay a hefty premium ($400/head as opposed to around $250). Percentage-wise, this is huge, and it's a big ask for a little café like this. I can't believe I gave up Commercial Radio's awards ceremony for this.

bonbon Cafe
G/F, Shop A2-A3
96 Electric Road (Enter form Tsing Fung Street)
Tin Hau
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2525 2523