A flop at Tim's Kitchen

We came to new branch of Tim's Kitchen at The Elements shopping mall in West Kowloon for our family reunion dinner in celebration of the Chinese New Year. It's just four of us so we were looking for something decent and convenient for everyone, and this place seems to fit the bill.

A long post on Rozan

Our friend D suggested that we splurged a little bit to check out Rozan (鮨魯山), a high-end Japanese restaurant in Wanchai's Morrison Hill neighborhood, and so we picked one random, cold January evening when all of us were in town. The restaurant is part of the trio of fine-dining establishments owned by billionaire socialite Peter Lam, all located on the ground floor of an apartment building (the other two being Ginsai and Wagyu Takumi which serves seasonal washoku and Franco-Japanese fusion cuisine respectively).

First thing that caught my mind as I walked through the discreet entrance on the side street was how spacious the place is for a restaurant that serves to a maximum of 12 and the minimalist decor made it looked even bigger than it already is. In the center of the brightly-lit dining area is a simple L-shaped hinoki counter carved from a 600 year-old tree, plus a small table at the back. Behind the counter was an ample work area for head chef Masataka "Masa" Fujisawa and his assistant.

Tabibito - A decent new restaurant (that we managed to get a table)

A few of us from AG turned up at Tabibito on Friday, on the "official" opening night when they offered the full menu for the first time. The timing was actually unintentional - we thought the place has opened for a while but apparently it was just their soft opening with a limited set menu. The restaurant called itself a Japanese-style tapas/Okazu place, and took up the spot of the former "Corner Kitchen" at the far end of Po Hing Fong, a blind alley further up from Hollywood Road. This was used to be a quiet neighborhood but quite a few interesting cafes and restaurants has to open up in the area recently, turning this into a up-and-coming hip hang-out spot.

Cooking at home - Meatless Carbonara

I picked up some pea shoots at the farmer's market last weekend. Pea shoot, or dou miao (豆苗) in Chinese, is a common cold weather vegetables regularly found in local market this part of the world. It's leafy with soft and tender stalks, with a distinct flavor (fresh but not grassy) which didn't require a lot of extra seasonings, and hence very versatile to cook - in Chinese cuisine, you can sauteed with or without garlic, boiled in superior broth, most of the time on its own but worked equally well with dried scallops, meat or seafood. Think of it as peas but in vegetable form. During hairy crab season (usually from September to November every year), there's nothing better than a dish of sauteed pea shoot topped with hairy crab meat and roes.

Cooking at Home - New Year Eve Dinner

A few friends came over for dinner on new year eve - it has become kind of our tradition to have a get-together on this day every year and this time I decided to go a little more elaborate on the menu, especially when my friend j told us he's bringing his prized champagne to share with us.