Neighborhood Korean

I spent one Friday afternoon checking out yet another new restaurant in my office neighborhood with a friend/former colleague E who works right nearby. With The News Room quietly gone from the street corner near Quarry Bay’s Taikoo Place, in its place came Bib n Hops, the second outpost of this casual, street food style Korean restaurant concept backed by Chef Alvin Leung.

Festive Recipe Re-interpreted

Loh Bak Goh 蘿蔔糕, or as CYY calls it, “Robert Go”, is one of those festive dishes we eat during Chinese New Year. Made with shredded white radish (or turnip or daikon) plus a number of other ingredients in a rice flour-based batter and steamed in a deep dish, the dish symbolizes growth (with the word “goh” 糕 sounds like high, or 高 in Chinese). It's often called "Turnip Cake" in English or as Singaporean would say, "Carrot Cake" - but regardless of names, they are all referring to the same thing.

Neighborhood Shanghainese

Thought we would use the occasion of an early Chinese new year family reunion dinner to check out a new restaurant right in our hood. Jardin de Jade （蘇浙匯）at Cityplaza is the second branch of this nationwide chain of Shanghainese restaurant in Hong Kong, in addition to other one in Wanchai which got a Michelin star a few years back and has been keeping that rating since.

Mercato's Sunday Brunch

After a rather hectic Saturday running around, we got to spend our Sunday afternoon at a much leisurely pace, at Mercato by Jean Georges to check out their new weekend brunch menu. We loved the food here at our last outing to this restaurant right in the center of Lan Kwai Fong, so there’s every reason to believe this is going to be another great meal and a great afternoon.

Guest Chef at Nicholini's

I walked into a full house at Nicholini’s at The Conrad Hong Kong on a Monday evening, joining a group of food lovers for a special “four-hands” tasting dinner featuring guest chef Massimo Spigaroli (of Antica Corte Pallavicina restaurant) from the Emilia-Romagna region and Nicholini’s own chef Luca de Berardinis, of course. Our evening began at the lounge just outside the restaurant, where booths were set up for some pre-dinner snacks with canapes and wines passed around. Naturally, my attention turned into both booths manned by the chefs of the evening, Chef Massimo behind the charcuterie counter, and Chef Luca tending the cheese table featuring collection from their own Wine and Cheese Library.

The Neighborhood Gang

I delightfully joined the gang of foodie friends for dinner at Neighborhood just last week. Our friend R and P hauled back some Black Market Beef from Australia’s Rangers Valley ranch and of course, I was more than happy to be on the receiving end when they decided to share the joy with us at one of our favorite restaurants in town.

Ringing In the New Year

We rang in the new year of 2017 with several delicious meals in the first week, one of which was at this private kitchen venue far far away in the countryside village of Kam Tin on a Saturday evening. My friend A spotted this place, called Choy Choy’s Kitchen, being named one of the best private kitchens in town, so he started to organize a dinner to check the place out with the group of us and worked out the logistics details with chef-owner Grace Choy beforehand.

In Between Meals

I am not exaggerating when I said we have been eating non-stop whilst in Macau for a quick 36 hours. As soon as we got off the ferry and checked in to our hotel, we quickly met up with our friend E (of @e_for_eat) who’s settling in with her job in Macau for a morning mini food crawl.

Better late than never

The other night my friend D organized a small dinner gathering at Yee Tung Heen at The Excelsior in Causeway Bay. I didn't know why I have never been to the restaurant before after all these years of its existence, but I was eager to check it out after hearing all the great things about Chef Wong's cooking and seeing all the delicious food pictures constantly posted on D's Facebook wall as she's the regular here.

Okinawa x Yardbird

For two evenings in mid-December, pork, instead of chicken, became the major theme of Yardbird as they were running a special menu inspired by Okinawa cuisine. I left office on the dot to be at the restaurant, trying to beat the crowd and joined the group for an early drink/dinner at this ever-popular izakaya/yakitori joint in Sheung Wan.