Canto x Chiuchow

I was a Ming Court Wanchai a couple of weeks for the special collaboration event featuring the dishes created by their Chef Tsang Chiu King and guest chef Cheung Yat Fung from Beijing's Michelin 3-starred Chao Shang Chao Restaurant. 

Zest x Mizumi

There’s a sense of déjà vu when I dropped by Zest for a special lunch hosted by Chef Konishi with guest chef Hironori Maeda from Mizumi in Wynn Macau back in early June. I just came back from a week-long holiday in Kyoto and Osaka, but with this meal I felt like I was back in Japan once again. 

Feuille x Lasai

I am not surprised when the name Feuille often came up whenever the question about the best recent restaurant opening in town popped up. They seem to go under the radar when they opened in Spring 2023, but since then they did attract quite a following for its straight-forward, vegetable-focused French cuisine in a casual setting. 

Dinner for Dinner

Good that our friend P has made a booking to dine at Mandarin Grill for the Dinner by Heston pop-up event before it's all sold out and asked us to come along. Chef Heston Blumenthal didn't come this time for the 4-day event, but their executive chef Deiniol Pritchard was around to introduce a few classic dishes from the restaurant located inside the legendary Mandarin Oriental London. 

Crab Encore

I considered this an extension to my earlier Shanghai trip when I headed over to The Murray before the National Day long weekend to check out the collaboration menu with the chef team from Shanghai's legendary Lao Ji Shi 老吉士 restaurant. 

Latin American Crossover

I am thankful that Chef Agustin and the team opened the door for a few of us on a Sunday afternoon for a special lunch with guest chef Manu Buffara. There’s no lack of high-caliber chefs passing through town for crossover gig but this one caught my eye as Chef Manu has just been voted the Latin America’s Best Female Chef by the World’s 50 Best team, and I wasn’t sure if I will ever make it to her restaurant in Curitiba Brazil, some 18000 km away from home. 

Meal in Shenzhen

It did seem a bit over the top when I made a quick trip to Shenzhen in a Sunday afternoon to try out some food by Chef Ricardo Chaneton (of Mono), but then I was curious about this special menu in collaboration with Chef Miles Pundsack-Poe of Ensue Shenzhen only available during this one-night event. And it’s also my first trip to Mainland China in more than 3 years. 

More Good, More Food

We love the idea when chefs Agustin, Ricardo and Matt joined force to do a one-night dinner event to raise fund for More Good. We came to know about this organization with the mission of helping the needy in Hong Kong by preparing nutritious meal-boxes from its kitchen venue in Chaiwan, and we have been helping out as volunteers once a month to help with food preparation and packing. So we are more than happy to lend our support in any way we could, and even better, got a “free meal” out of it. 

Marco x Lorenzo

It's barely 3 months since Rosita officially opened but they already hosted a number of special dinner events at this new space specializing in homestyle Latin American dishes. Their latest one paired Chef Marco with Lorenzo Antinori, one of the most popular mixologists in town for a special menu with cocktail pairings.

Unagi Part 2: Uza x Tatler Dining Kitchen

I have enjoyed quite a few pop-up dinners at the lovely Tatler Dining Kitchen lately, and I got to say the latest installment was the one I anticipated the most with our friend A taking over for a 2-week engagement with his new dining concept Uza and a tasting menu combining Unagi (freshwater eel) and Izakaya (Japanese pub) cuisines (hence the name)

The Last Supper

When we planned for this meal a few weeks ago little did we know it turned out to be our last dinner at a restaurant for a while. Our friend Suveg told us about this pop-up Bombay East Indian dinner series hosted by his wife Samaira – we immediately signed up for a table, partly because I wanted to support a aspiring new chef and partly because I am curious what “Bombay East Indian” cuisine is about. 

Four hands and a few more wines

Last month was the first time I returned to Tosca at The Ritz Carlton Hong Kong since Chef Angelo Agliano took over at the kitchen. They have even changed the name to Tosca di Angelo for the new era. We were there on the final night of the special collaboration dinner series featuring guest chef Antonia Klugmann from Friuli–Venezia Giulia.

Creative Four-Hands Effort

With almost every fine-dining restaurants in town offering some kind of special collaboration dinner events on a regular basis these days, I got pickier in choosing which one to go. But the one at Arbor recently just fits all the criteria, so I made the booking the first day I got the news about the event featuring guest chef Yusuke Takada of La Cime.

Event Preview

I was gutted for not being able to attend the T.Dining Off-Menu event in mid-November because of other engagements, but glad I was given a sneak preview in an afternoon recently with a few participating chefs showing us some of the dishes that would be presented at the actual event. T.Dining has been great in bringing together some of the best culinary talents in town for one-of-a-kind collaboration events for the past few years (such as this and this), and this may be their most ambitious one yet, featuring over a dozen chefs not only from Hong Kong but some flying in later this month, all paired up to create a number of unique dishes only available at this event to be held at The Peak Galleria.

Marathon Meal

I was recently eating at Aurora at Altira Macau when their chef Helder Amaral joined hands with Chef Eric Raty of Arbor from Hong Kong to present a four-hands menu as part of the Michelin Guide promotional series. I had a hard time trying to draw a connection between the two chefs and their cooking style, but since I have enjoyed Chef Eric’s food previously at both his starred restaurant and at events where he’s a guest chef, and this did give me an opportunity to visit a new restaurant, I went along and made a short trip over.

Russian Four Hands

In my opinion, the best type of guest chef menu is one featuring somebody from a restaurant that I have never tried and often at a place difficult or tricky to go otherwise, either that be somewhere impossible to book, or impossible to reach. Guess this time for me, it’s a bit of all which is why I was particularly eager to try. I am talking about the restaurant Selfie in Moscow, and its chef Anatoly Kazakov, who was recently in town to do a series of four-hands menu with Chef Maxime Gilbert of Ecriture on top of the H Queen Building in Central.

Two-Third of a Four-Hands Menu

While I was pretty tied up the entire week to go to the special 4-hands dinner featuring Chef Vicky Cheng of VEA and Chef Julien Royer of Odette happening in late February, I was lucky that Vicky asked me to come along for a preview at his restaurant the day before the actual event. 

Two in a Row

I haven’t made my way back to Tate Dining Room for years, and not since chef-owner Vicky Lau moved her restaurant to the current location on Hollywood Road in 2016. But when I finally did, I went not once but twice in the same week earlier this month.

Five stars (and counting) plus the First Growth

Just a glance at the menu put on the table one would know this is going to be an extraordinary night of wining and dining. On one side was 8 courses of dishes including items like beef tartare with oyster and caviar, or double-boiled sea whelk soup with walnut and conpoy. Then on the other side was the flight of wines, including a few different vintages by one of the best known names spanning over 4 decades. And all of these were put together by two amazing chefs and a prominent local wine merchant featuring one of the most well-known wine estates.

Eating Spree Continued...

My 3-day "non-stop eating spree" continued with a trip to Caprice for a special menu featuring two pairs of twins chefs - Jacques and Laurent Pourcel of Le Jardin des Sens in Montpellier and Chefs Mathias and Thomas Sühring of their namesake restaurant in Bangkok. We have been saying that it’s been a long while since we went for dinner at Caprice, and this unique collaboration menu gave us the perfect excuse to do so, on the second (and last) evening that it’s offered in early October.