Pop-up Weekend Part 2 - Eat Ethio

I am glad we finally got a chance to eat at my friend Helina’s supper club, Eat Ethio, when V rounded up 10 of us for the table on one Saturday evening in early December. Normally run only once a month, during December she, along with her husband Scott, decided to switch things up on high gear and stayed open for 2 weeks straight, just in time for the Christmas season.

Pop-up Weekend Part 1: Sook x Fly by Jing

I began the "weekend of speakeasy" with a short hop to my friend Mina's kitchen studio in Chaiwan for a one-night only "Sichuan Seoul Food" dinner, a collaboration between her and Jenny from Shanghai.

I had the chance to enjoy Mina's fabulous cooking a few times at one of her pop-up dinner events in the past year - even got my hands-on experience at her kitchen studio Sook when she hosted a kimchi making class a few months ago. And I have been following the writer-turned-chef Jenny's culinary business ventures in social media, from the starting of her online site Jing Theory to the founding of Baoism restaurant in China, and now with her second dining concept of Fly by Jing, inspired by the cooking of her hometown Chengdu in Sichuan Province.

Fifty Shades of Spices - Feng Wei Ju

We went for an early dinner in Macau before taking the evening ferry home to conclude our whirlwind weekend getaway. I have heard good words on Feng Wei Ju, the Sichuan restaurant at Starworld Hotel from our friends, plus they were one of those places that opened early for dinner service, so we decided to check it out.

Dessert Masterclass

We have been nudging Chef Nicolas of Caprice to teach us how to make some of his amazing desserts, and we were super excited that he spared one Saturday morning last month doing just that at his kitchen for a few of us. Though the lunch service wouldn’t start until a few hours away, the kitchen at Caprice was already getting busy, with much of the preparation well underway.

Last of Pottinger, Perhaps

We were a bit sad when we heard about the pending "closure" of the "Pottinger private kitchen", a place we had the opportunity to visit a few times over the past years, and came out every time being wow-ed by the classic Cantonese cooking at this cozy venue. And we were glad that our friends RC and P managed to round us up and played host to a big-table dinner at this place one evening in December for yet another feast - who knows, this could end up be our last meal here.

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.

Meeting Curtis in Macau

We joined the troupe of friends in becoming huge fans of Chef Curtis Duffy ever since we watched the documentary film about him and his Chicago restaurant, Grace, which shot to worldwide fame since opening in 2012. We can't help but felt touched by his life story and fascinated by his cooking, now considered one of the best of our times.

Sunday Yumcha: Zi Yat Heen

Sunday afternoon we made our way to Four Seasons Macao for lunch at their Chinese restaurant Zi Yat Heen. We have been here once many many years ago when we stayed at the hotel over Chinese New Year holidays and we were curious to try the place again, this time courtesy of their PR team who made the arrangement.

Unusual Thanksgiving Dinner

We celebrated this year’s Thanksgiving at an unusual venue of a Japanese-style Izakaya. I have been to Okra in Sai Ying Pun headed by New Orleans chef Max when it first opened earlier this year and loved some of the dishes there, and over Thanksgiving they were doing a special menu for “Friends and Families” to celebrate “Thank Immigrants Day”, as he called it.

Back to the Familiar Ground - Caprice in the Winter

I caught a breather of freedom tried to overcome the misery of losing CYY to the great land of Tokyo temporarily for the weekend with a trip to Caprice's dining room with friends S and J. I had a great time at a brand-new restaurant the night before, but was just as happy to be back at the familiar ground, excited for the dishes that was to come.

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.

Butcher in Residence

We dropped by On Dining one Friday evening when Parisian butcher Hugo Desnoyer was in town to present a few special dishes at the restaurant, using the meat produced by his shop, of course. I managed to get out of office fairly early, so 30 minutes before our reservation time, I was already there, having a pre-dinner drink at the bar upstairs to catch a breather from a hectic work week. Soon I was joined by other friends as we moved to our table downstairs.