Four Pizzas, One Wine

On her brief return to Hong Kong, my friend V organized a few get-together meals around town and I managed to join her and some others over dinner at Kytaly, the “new-ish” pizza joint at Wyndham that many has said made the best pizza in Hong Kong.

Pre-Holiday Surprise Feast

We intentionally didn’t make a fuss of telling Chef Dan Calvert in advance that we were coming to his restaurant a few weeks back (meant to be a surprise), but glad to see him and his team working hard in the kitchen as we walked into Belon at Soho just right before Christmas and for the first time since the place was awarded one Michelin star (and a well-deserved one). Our friend V was in town briefly and she made the booking to meet up with some of our other friends for some good food and wines.

Not just another dimsum lunch

I didn’t come to Lung King Heen for meals as often as I would like to, simply because there were way too many good Chinese restaurants around town than I had time to eat. But they do consistently delivered excellent dishes from a few times I was here over the years, including this one weekend afternoon recently when I met up with some foodie friends, joining them for their "quarterly meet-up" at the restaurant.

The Pit-iful Smokehouse

Last week, I went for dinner with a very high expectation at a private barbecue kitchen inside an industrial building quite literally in the middle of nowhere on the island side as our group's pre-christmas celebration. Some friends of mine loved the turkey they made at a pop-up event during the thanksgiving weekend, and from the pictures on their Facebook page everything looked good and proper. Maybe after all these years Hong Kong finally got a legit "artisanal smokehouse" as the place claimed to be, or so I thought. Well sadly from what I have tried on that night I reckon it was quite a far-fetched statement, and it's more like another living proof that just by putting "artisanal" in your logo doesn't mean you are necessarily any good or know what you are doing.

Family Style Issan Dinner

 

Chachawan may no longer be the newest Thai restaurant in the hippiest neighorhood in town these days, having open more than a year ago right on Hollywood Road, but it's still buzzing as ever, even on a random Monday evening that I managed to pop by for dinner with some friends who wanted to say goodbye to Chef Adam Clift on his last day there before he moves on for the next gig.

With the seven of us going as a group, we went for quite a number of different dishes, all served in family style - just came up a little short of "sweeping" the whole menu. The portion of the dishes was decent, good enough for going around with everyone getting a fair share of food. Most of the dishes were spicy but not unbearably so, and I do love the bold flavors - a good kick of spiciness and acidity which brightened up the dishes served. Chachawan was known to serve the authentic Thai dishes from the northern region, known as Issan cuisine, best known for the liberal use of spices, especially chili.

Thanksgiving Turkey a la Peking Duck

We haven't really celebrated thanksgiving for the past few years, but this year, when we saw the special promotion at Mott 32 for their special roast turkey during the thanksgiving week, we thought we would give it a try and have our belated celebration at lunch on the Sunday after thanksgiving.

As we walked down the dark staircase of the restaurant right in the middle of the central business district at the basement of Standard Chartered Building, I was actually surprised that the place was so crowded in a Sunday afternoon. Yes, I know the place was packed with people on weekdays and evenings, being one of those high-end Chinese restaurants many people talked about, but I never expected so many people in this part of town during weekends.

Oops I did it again - Massimo Bottura Dinner Encore

The feeling of serendipity of sorts hit when I saw the press release 2 months ago about Chef Massimo Bottura being the guest chef at Shangri-la Singapore in late October, on the very weekend we happened to be in town to watch a tennis tournament. I couldn't quite believe such a stroke of luck hitting us twice - only a few months ago another coincidence led me to an unforgettable meal at another pop-up dinner hosted by Chef Massimo in Milan.

The October event was part of the Shangri-la hotel chain's "International Festival of Gastronomy" campaign, featuring 8 different chefs of Michelin-starred restaurants each offer a special menu at five of the hotel properties around the globe. Despite the initial sticker shock - let's just say it's not something we would normally be willing to pay for one meal - we confirmed the reservation as soon as it became available, as I figured an encore for a great meal without having to fly half the world is an opportunity too hard to miss.

Dinner with a bunch of oldies

The idea of a special themed BYO dinner just came towards the end of our last BYO gathering at the end of August. This time it's been decided that the theme was going to be "Wines before 1990", and someone in our group came up of the idea of hosting the dinner at an equally old-ish restaurant The China Club. (Technically speaking the club was only opened in 1991 but the building itself - the Old Bank of China Building - certainly went way back, so that counts!)

Crossover at Yardbird



We were at Yardbird just this past weekend in one of their rare Sunday afternoon openings to try out an one-day-only special menu prepared by chef/owner Matt and the visiting Korean-American chef Corey Lee.

One Cheesy Evening at On Dining Kitchen

After a few messages being exchanged in one of the gourmet meetup group I was in, we managed to get a table at On Dining Kitchen and Lounge last Monday, with one and only one thing in our minds - Cheese!

White Truffles Dinner at Umami Concepts

We brought back a medium-sized white truffles (about 100g) from Alba and a few days after we came back to Hong Kong, organized a small gathering with the AG meetup group at Umami Concepts, a private kitchen studio on Bonham Road and a brainchild of the Canadian chef Nolan Ledarney.

Chef Edgar's One Night Event

When I accept my friend's invitation to a big group "secret supper party", I have no idea about what and where, but she assured me this is going to be epic with good food and great wine - guess that's all I needed to know to say yes. Just call that blind faith. Turned out - as I learned just in the morning of the event - it's the Spanish chef Edgar Sanuy Barahona (formerly of BCN) who was going to cook a spectacular tapas dinner for all 19 of us, at the Fofo Privat venue near Lan Kwai Fong.

Shane's Last Call at St Betty

My previous experiences at St Betty has been hit or miss - while I love their Sunday roast for a casual weekend day out, my dinner here on a few occasions were forgetable, both in terms of food and services. With the location and the team behind the place has every potential to reach for greatness but for whatever reasons it simply fell a bit short. But as words came out that head chef Shane Osborn - who first made his name at London's Michelin-starred Pied a Terre - is moving on, I think it's good to have another visit on his last day at work in this kitchen.

Secret Supper at Secret Ingredient

The brilliant minds behind the gourmet food delivery service Secret Ingredient has began hosting private dinners at their Noho home base since 2 months ago. Only one table for 6-8 persons is available every Wednesday and Saturday, and Head Chef Jesse Teh offer a fixed menu for sharing across the table, with menu items change regularly.

I recently went to check it out, eager to find out what more Jesse can do after my somewhat satisfactory experience with my Secret Ingredient delivery at home a few weeks ago. "Hiking" up to the quiet neighborhood of Tai Ping Shan Street in Noho from the MTR station was quite a challenge after a long day at work but I made it right on time. The venue has simply a long table right outside the open kitchen area - which I think might be a bit tight for 8 people as they have advertised could fit but it's just nice and cozy for the 6 of us this time - at least we didn't feel like we need to snuggle.

Red Friday - The Butchers Club

It's been an annoyingly rainy week but my Friday dinner was what I have been looking forward to. We had a group gathering at an industrial building in Aberdeen in the evening to try out The Butchers Club - a new, no-frill meat shop cum private kitchen. The guy behind the venture was the founder of Pacific Gourmet - first of its kind fine meat purveyor in Hong Kong and with The Butchers Club, he went one step further in specializing in dry aging - the tricky process of leaving the meat in specific temperature and humidity for a long period that brought out the natural flavors and tenderization of the meat. Well, a few restaurants in town have been offering dry-aged meat on the menu, so were some upscale meat shop which imported them in, but The Butchers Club was apparently the first to have its own aging facilities in such a large scale for its retail customers.

As close as it gets - Catalunya Hong Kong

A couple evenings ago I was at Catalunya with a group of fellow food lovers who called themselves the Amateur Gourmet. Catalunya is a new restaurant only opened in late March/early April, but has already become quite a talk of the town - being hailed as the candidate for new restaurant of the year by every local lifestyle magazines in circulation and all that - with the culinary team apparently coming from the kitchen of (the former) El Bulli. This is their second outpost in Asia - the other one being in Singapore on an "island" near One Fullerton with a full view of the Marina Bay Sands. Anyway, just as you thought its Hong Kong branch would be located in Central or at least a prime spot downtown, it's actually in a quiet neighborhood known as Morrison Hill somewhere in between Wanchai and Causeway Bay. It could be hard to find if you are not familiar with the area.