Champagne and Dimsum

The Champagne-Dimsum gig at Ho Lee Fook seems like a deal too good to be true - one Sunday every month Chef ArChan and her dimsum specialist sous Winson introduced a brunch menu full of dimsum items and other dishes with unlimited refills, plus one bottle of champagne per person from their wine list. Yes, that's one full-sized 750ml bottle that each could pop open and share at the table. 

Shanghai Shanghai

It kinda sucks when our entire weekend getaway was washed out by the continuous rainstorm, but if there’s any comfort from all that, at least this time we stayed in a lovely hotel and got more time to spend inside our room with possibly one of the best view in the city. It’s been years, over a decade even, since we travelled to Shanghai, so we decided to pop by during the July 1 long weekend.

The Stars Not To Be

A chance encounter in Tokyo a few months ago led to a meetup in Hong Kong with my Dutch friends M and J over lunch at Tang Court of The Langham Hong Kong. They were on a trip to travel around Asia for some nice restaurants and wines which brought them to Hong Kong and Macau this week as their first stop.

Lunch for 8 at The 8

Burning off some calories with a quick walk of the historical district of Macau got me in the right mood (and appetite) for lunch at the Eight as part of our weekend getaway at the Grand Lisboa Hotel. We knew full well the lunch was going to be awesome given the caliber of the restaurant (with the Michelin 3 stars and all), the chef and the fact that we dined at the invitation of the hotel PR team, and somehow they still delivered beyond our heightened expectation.

Saturday Morning Dimsum

I have been to Tin Lung Heen at The Ritz Carlton Hong Kong a few times previously but this was only my first time going there for a weekend brunch with dimsum dishes when I visited a couple of weeks ago. Just like other hotel Chinese restaurants in town, during the day they offer a combination of dimsum items and other a la carte choices on their menu, and with even more variety during weekends. After all, having dimsum is one of the local favorite past-time.

Macau Dimsum Part 2: Golden Flower

Of the many restaurants on my to-try list, Golden Flower has always been the elusive one for whatever reasons. But we worked around our itinerary a little bit this time to make sure we stopped by for lunch at the restaurant this time we were in town for the weekend.

Macau Dimsum Part 1: Pearl Dragon

Given their target clientele, there's no lack of high-end Chinese restaurants in many of the new Macau casino/hotel complexes. This time right after we arrived and settled in our hotel room, we headed straight out to Studio City nearby for a dimsum lunch at the relatively new Pearl Dragon Restaurant.

Chiuchow Dimsum Lunch

Not until I arrived at the door of Chiu Tang, the new Chiuchow restaurant in Central, for a Saturday lunch tasting did I realize Island Tang has shut for good and Chiu Tang actually took up its place. From my distant memory I think Island Tang was quite decent, so the closure was a surprise to me, but then I have heard good things about the original Chiu Tang branch in Wanchai and I was curious how this new branch will fare with a more central location.

Saturday Yumcha: Lai Heen

With us staying right next door under the same roof (at the JW Marriott), it made sense that we went to check out Lai Heen, the Chinese restaurant at Ritz-Carlton, which was just awarded the first Michelin star recently. We even dragged along our friend E, who relocated to Macau a couple months ago for her new job, to join us after going on a quick morning food crawl together in Coloane.

One Star Wonton

It's been a long long while since I last visited Ho Hung Kee, definitely not after they moved out from their old shop on the street level into a large shopping mall a couple blocks away.

We weren't all that surprised when we arrived at the restaurant during lunch hour on Saturday we saw quite a crowd waiting outside for a table, with a majority being out-of-towners. In retrospect we should have come earlier or use the new system to let us pick up a ticket ahead of time through an iPhone app. Anyway, turned out it's only a quick 15, 20 minute wait before we were seated at one of the booths on the side of the restaurant. The interior and set up was a clear upgrade from their old shop, with more modern décor, more space, bigger capacity and more comfortable chairs with kitchen now hidden at the back instead of near to the shop-front, yet it's still on the casual side like a typical local chachaanteng.

Quick Thought on Duddell's

A couple friends and I were in Duddell's last week at lunch to try out some of their food. It's housed right above the classy Shanghai Tang flagship store on Duddell Street in Central. I personally loved the decorations of this 2-storey restaurant, with spacious dining area (I prefer the quieter second level where we were seated), dedicated space for art programs and exhibitions, a well-stocked bar and garden terrace for outdoor dining and just chill out. That's usual for a restaurant, especially a Chinese one in Hong Kong. It still got quite crowded and noisy during lunch time, but at least it's not packed as other places.