Cooking at home: Candied Kumquats

I found these beautiful kumquats in a farmers' market recently and thought they are perfect for my spring cooking projects. Kumquats are one of the few citrus fruits that you can eat as a whole, with their thin skins on. The slightly bitter zest combined with sweet, juicy flesh created this unique, complex tangy taste that are good on its own, or along side with other food, in savory dishes or desserts.

Tourist for an evening - Dinner at Cafe Deco

I have to admit - Cafe Deco is not the type of restaurant I had in mind normally for dinner on a random Monday night - if not with an invitation from their PR people to try out their new tasting menu. Don't get me wrong - I do quite like the restaurant from my last few visits - while their food didn't particularly stand out, it's decent, and like most other Hong Kongers, I had my fair share of opportunities to come to the restaurant especially when we had to entertain overseas friends or relatives who stopped by for a visit. After all, with a broad choice of menu from sandwiches to sushi, from grill meat to seafood, from Indian tandoori to Pad Thai, and the most spectacular view to show forth no matter what time of the day, it's always a safe choice to please everyone and to impress our out of town guests.

Eating in Kyoto: Unagiya Hirokawa

Unagiya Hirokawa is a restaurant close to Arashiyama JR station in the suburb of Kyoto, right across the street from the spectacular Tenryuji Temple - a UNESCO heritage site. As the name suggests, the restaurant is specialized in unagi - the grilled freshwater eel. You might find una-don (grilled eel with rice) often in Japanese restaurant around the world, but rarely would you find one specialized in this anywhere except in Japan.

Another sous vide dinner - at home

Just this past weekend we had 2 families over for dinner at our place. After hearing me mumbling about how good Sous Vide dishes can be, my friend A requested that I did one that evening, which I not only obliged but made 2 dishes out of my Sous Vide machine.

Cooking at home: Rum baba

Rum baba is sort of like a hybrid between a brioche and muffin. It's a small yeast cake soaked in rum syrup hence the name. It can be served either hot or at room temperature, and either with dried or fresh fruits, creme anglaise or chantilly, or in my opinion, it's just as good on its own. And my favorite part is that, it can be baked in advance. Prepare it a day ahead and just set aside. Soak it in warm syrup before it's served and it's almost as if it went straight out from the oven to the table.

New year lunch at Nadaman

For our first meal of 2013, we headed to Nadaman, the fine-dining Japanese restaurant at the Island Shangri-la hotel. With our good share of western food in celebration of Christmas, I just thought we should get a balance by trying out how the Japanese celebrate one of their most important festivals - the New Year.