Speakeasy in the Alley

"Do you serve any food?" It's probably a bit rude to walk in to the bar and immediately ask for food, but then we were desperately hungry (and thirsty too, but in this order) after the concert late evening so we got to have our priority straightened out first. 

Shoku at The Pulse

Lately there seemed to be quite some buzzes from this new shopping/dining premise called The Pulse at Repulse Bay, featuring a few new and interesting restaurants, many of which received excellent reviews. A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to try one of them, a Japanese restaurant called Shoku, at a dinner organized by their PR team.

Steak and Cocktail Night

Last week I was treated to a steak dinner with cocktail pairings at Morton's at Sheraton in TST. I know, steakhouses sounded like something of an item only in yester-year, where my parents' generation would go for a big celebration of some sort, but to me, there is still this special charm about dining in a classic, American-style steakhouse, completed with clubby decor, leather booths, slow, jazzy music in the background, generous portion of food, and gracious service.

Artsy Brunch at Bibo

We somehow missed our big group meet-up at the relatively new restaurant Bibo a couple months ago, so we decided to make it up by checking it out on our own on the very last day of January.

Ho Lee Fook-ing Good

I didn't come with particularly high expectations when I walked down the stairs to Ho Lee Fook, the new, stylish Chinese restaruant in the basement location at the foot of Soho. I thought it's going to be another one of those "Chinese" restaurants serving dishes that you more likely find in Chinatowns around the world, catering to out-of-towners' tastebuds. Nostalgic it might be dealing with the likes of moo-shu pork and general tso's chicken in the funny-looking takeaway box, I am not sure whether this is the part of the memory I want to re-live by.

Anyway, I am here to meet up a bunch of friends - we set up this impromptu dinner gathering after tons of whatsapp messages talking anything from food, restaurants, more food, and other funky random things that I won't even dare quote here. Somewhere in between those conversations someone mentioned this new restaurant, and dozens of exchanges later, we managed to set up the date and time for trying the place together.

Fly me to the (Mira) Moon

Last Tuesday night I was at Supergiant, the casual tapas bar at the new boutique hotel Mira Moon in Wanchai. Well I vaguely remembered there's some mentioning of the opening of this design hotel late last year, but I didn't realize there's also a full-service restaurant on-premise as well until the hotel PR team mentioned this one day and asked whether I would be interested in trying some of the dishes there.

The restaurant (and the hotel) is located somewhere in between Wanchai and Causeway Bay at a street corner on the unremarkable Jaffe Road. I was somewhat confused by the name which I didn't quite relate to being a tapas bar, but I was told that it's named after an astronomical term of a super bright star, hence consistent with the overall design theme of the hotel, which was inspired by the moon and the Chinese folklore surrounding it. Now that made a little bit more sense to me.

Drinks at M Bar

Thursday is the new Friday? Well we can only dream that may happen one day when we all don't have to work after Thursdays, but nonetheless, I was out late last Thursday evening for an excellent time at M Bar on top of Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong, to try out some of the drinks created by the visiting bartender Giancarlo Mancino. It did almost feel like a Friday evening.