Finale "Matine" Brunch

We finished our summer Macau trip with brunch at Mesa at Grand Lisboa Palace in Cotai. I didn’t have a chance to visit the restaurant when I stayed at the hotel earlier this year, but this time I couldn’t resist checking out their Sunday “Matine” menu with generous spread of classic Portuguese brunch dishes. 

Rainy Crossover

Severe weather the night before didn’t stop us from coming to Ando for a special lunch tasting featuring guest chef LG Han from Singapore’s Labyrinth. It’s not hard to see the striking similarities between the two restaurants and the two chefs behind, both on a mission to re-invent the cuisines of their respective home countries with a new take. 

Friends Meet-up

Not planning for anything in particular, but I ended up meeting with a few friends from Hong Kong during my week in Shanghai. 

Boss' Supper Place

We were looking for a place for late supper after concert in Guangzhou and I remembered a place called "Tao Gie Mie Zhou" 頭家夜粥 (pronunciation in Chiuchow dialect) that a few friends were raving about recently, so we decided to pay an impromptu visit. 

Fortune Meal

I wanted just one proper fine-dining meal in Shanghai but it's a challenge finding a place that can accommodate party of one. Fu 1015 on Yu Yuan Lu is one of those few that serves Tasting Menu in individual portion so I asked hotel concierge to help me book for one of the evenings. 

The One to Visit

Turned out the best meal I had during the Shanghai trip is the only I didn't plan in advance. I was looking for something easy and local on my first evening and saw the review about Ren He Guan so I decided to give it a try. Hotel concierge told me the place could get quite crowded at night and recommended me to check out their new branch just 2 block away - still as crowded but at least I could wait in my room until the table was ready and just hopped over. 

Urban Oasis and the rest of Shanghai

Work brought me to Shanghai in September so I spent a week at The PuLi, one of the earlier "urban oasis" style properties opened in this city back in 2009. The city has changed quite a bit since my last visit in late 2019 and I was eager to see and experience this dynamic city in the post-COVID times. 

Day Time Auor

I was happy to witness quite an evolution with Chef Edward Voon’s cooking at his restaurant Auor since its opening a year ago. This is my third time already (this time being an invited tasting) and seems like his menu is getting more and more elaborate, and began to develop his and this restaurant’s unique style. 

Crab Encore

I considered this an extension to my earlier Shanghai trip when I headed over to The Murray before the National Day long weekend to check out the collaboration menu with the chef team from Shanghai's legendary Lao Ji Shi 老吉士 restaurant. 

Guangzhou: High Speed Rail, Concert, MO, Michelin Cantonese and More

Worth the $100 billion in construction cost or not, the High Speed Rail did minimize much hassle for travelling from Hong Kong to nearby Chinese cities. Recently we spent a weekend in Guangzhou recently with our train ride taking slightly less than 2 hours from the city center of Hong Kong to the city center of Guangzhou (in the past a similar trip would have been twice as long with more stops in between)

Seroja

Before my trip to Singapore I asked a few friends what would be THE restaurant to visit if I got only one night free to eat - and they all pointed me to Seroja, the new restaurant which got its first Michelin star (plus a Green star) this summer.