Robuchon's backyard, Hong Kong

Amuse bouche - duck consomme jelly (gelee, I soup-pose?!) at the front

Le Jardin de Joel Robuchon is the formal dining room behind the iconic raspberry-red bar tables of L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon. The menus are essentially the same; I think L'Atelier offers a smaller set dinner and smaller set lunch on top of what Le Jardin offers.

Slow Down - Teakha, Hong Kong

Masala tea and roselle scone

Since I last counted, no less than three major international publications have written about Sheung Wan's Tai Ping Shan Street as the city's coolest enclave. And it is, dotted with art galleries, studios, cafes and independent boutiques among air-conditioning repair shops and tiny temples. It just makes me wish I bought an apartment here four years ago when I started wandering the area at lunchtime. (Mom, are you reading this? Remember you said no?!)

Strip House - More than Steak, Hong Kong

Porterhouse for two

My review for Harlan's steakhouse came out in Time Out. The photos I'm putting up are actually from two meals. The first one I had there was for the review, and the second was an invitation from the big man himself. One thing to note that, like I said in my old blog post of the now-closed Tuscany by H, Harlan is the man (or should we say da man!) when it comes to consistency. When I went in for the review, I'm 100% sure he didn't notice me (he walked right past me a number of times) and needless to say I didn't make myself known. I noted my experience and then went back for the invited dinner the next week, and we had a few of the same dishes - guess what - they were exactly the same.

Wynn Macau - Cafe Encore, the Stay and the Spa

The Suite life at Wynn Macau's Encore Tower

In this final post on the couple of days I spent at Wynn Macau (to see why I was there, head here), I'm covering our ace room, breakfast at Cafe Encore, and for the first time on this blog, a spa, because it was truly lovely (no, I'm not just saying that).

This was our room, which was in Encore Tower, the newer wing at Wynn where all rooms are suites. All the rooms are facing Taipa, so you get an open view, and there are villas that are by invitation only - I guess I'll never be enough of a high-roller to know!

Spring in Beijing - Itinerary

One of my best-est friends, let's call her W, has finally moved back to Asia. One of her last stops before Hong Kong was Beijing, and she was there for a conference in Beida (Peking University), so we decided to go and crash at her hotel. That's the story. Here's just a quick itinerary of what we did - it's partially for myself, so I don't forget. I'll be writing up some of the more interesting meals soon. Over six days, we had 2 Peking ducks, two mala meals, a lot of coffee and a fair bit of drinking, with some Yunnanese thrown into the mix. We were trying to avoid Sanlitun but gave in on our last day...

Stars for peanuts - Wing Lei, Wynn Macau

Wing Lei

We got to Macau at around lunchtime, and our first meal was here, at Wing Lei. (The second meal was dinner at Golden Flower, which I posted just before. Please see that post for an intro to why this trip was made). Wing Lei is the romanised pronunciation of Wynn's Cantonese name, and fittingly, it serves Cantonese food. If you're the star-chasing kind, you might also like to note that Wing Lei has 2 Michelin stars in the 2012 guide.

United Tastes of China - Golden Flower, Wynn Macau

Tea with tall "smelling" cup

I was lucky enough to have been invited* to Wynn Macau to try out a few of their restaurants, and agreed after I was assured that the chefs would be kept in the dark about my visits, and that I reserve the right to my opinion. I also had to go for work anyway, for which I needed to interview a chef at Golden Flower (coming later) and that happened after I ate there. I don't know about you, but I think it worked out quite well - work and play, easily combined - that's why I went freelance, folks! (I highly recommend it, haha).

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution Day - Hong Kong is in on it!

This Saturday, May 19th!

Have you heard Jamie Oliver's TED Prize speech from back in 2010? This was soon after he finished "Food Revolution", his TV series in the United States, where he went to a town named Huntington in West Virginia, apparently the town with most people classified as "obese" in the US.

If you don't have 20 minutes to watch the whole thing, don't worry, I'm going to highlight a few key things for you, but please see those bits at least.

At the beginning of this video (around 02:22) he shows some stats - everyone reads so much and is so freaked out about homicide, but that's the last thing on the list that's killing people. The first few are largely preventable through diet - heart disease, diabetes, stroke.