Burgundy and Beef

This particular dinner hosted by a local wine merchant caught my attention because of their choice of bottles. While many wine-themed dinner focuses on certain vineyard or winemakers, this one featured bottles of Burgundy wines with a nice, “entry-level” selection from different winemakers and through this we could get a glimpse of various styles and characteristics in various recent vintages. And it was hosted in one of the top steakhouse in town, one that was bestowed a Michelin star for a few years already and one we didn’t visit often, so that gave us extra incentive to sign up and go. 

Polmard Beef Dinner

There's no surprise beef was the main theme of the menu at my recent dinner at Ami with Alexandre Polmard flying in from France and be the co-host with Chef Nicolas Boutin. 

The 6th-generation butcher Polmard is synonymous to top-quality beef with their unique approach of raising the cattle and treating the meat. At this 2-day event we were able to sample quite a few of their meat products prepared in a number of ways by the great kitchen team at Ami.

Tongue to Tail

Right after we finished our dinner at Kisho we made a booking to eat at Ushidoki right next door under the same restaurant group a few weeks later. While Kisho specializes in chicken cuisine, Ushidoki focuses on beef. Both restaurants have similar setting where everyone was seated at the counter around the open kitchen, but Ushidoki was slightly smaller in size with only a dozen or so seats and everyone got a better view of the kitchen (they also have 2 private rooms at the back). 

Hida Beef Craze

As we traveled through the mountainous area of Gifu Prefecture, one thing we couldn’t miss was the sight of restaurants serving the famous Hida-gyu, the local beef breed from the black haired cattle known for its taste and excellent meat texture and also one of the most coveted wagyu types.

Another Sunday; Another Brunch

Our friends at church organized yet another brunch outing after Sunday service recently, this time to Gough’s on Gough on a weekend when our friend F was working in the FOH of the restaurant. I was at the restaurant when Chef Cary Docherty just came on board about 6 months ago and loved my dinner there, and as I keep hearing good things about his cooking and the restaurant’s new menu, I thought it would be great to check out their signature Sunday brunch, featuring some British classics.

A New Casual Shabu Shabu Joint

The entrance of the new Shabu Shabu Shiki restaurant did somewhat resembles those that one may find inside commercial buildings in Ginza Tokyo, with just a small sign at the door and a long corridor leading into a cozy dining room at the back. The former space of La Bombance (a restaurant that I loved but sadly closed a few months ago) right in the middle of Causeway Bay has become a pop-up venue for this new shabu shabu restaurant by the same group, which my friend (and dinner host) D was describing (quite accurately) as a casual and reasonably priced restaurant using top-notch Japanese ingredients.

Decadent Beef Hotpot

A bunch of us ventured out to Tsuen Wan on a random weeknight for some decadent beef hotpot at a speakeasy style restaurant inside an industrial building. The place went by the name of "Prime Team"  (傲嚐) and it could be a bit hard to get to, even when we decided to drive and park, but at the end, I am sure everyone at the dinner thought it’s well worth the hassle.

Birthday Meal at a Steakhouse

After a few evenings of feasting in the past weeks in the month of birthday celebration, I decided to go for something simple on the actual day, and dinner at Porterhouse in Lan Kwai Fong seems to fit that criteria. They were running a new promotional menu called so I thought this is the perfect excuse to go check it out.

Juicy Meat Feast

Just to prove a point that omnivore diet is still pretty much in style and being the front and center of our current food trend, the all-you-can-eat beef feast at Rhoda on a Wednesday night was filled to capacity the moment tickets went on sale a few weeks ago (gone within days after details of the event was posted, we were told). De la Valley is a new meat purveyor in town trying to bring in artisan steaks from various producers in South America directly to restaurants and retail customers so they collaborated with Chef Nate Green’s Rhoda for this special, one-night-only menu to introduce many of their meats.

Beef Donburi at the Market

On my last day in Kyoto, I spent time at Nishiki Market in the morning for some grocery shopping and to replenish my kitchen cabinet. The place was crowded as usual – with more tourists than locals these days – and after getting what I needed (some vegetables, rice and a few kitchen gadgets), I had lunch at a small restaurant nearby inside a narrow alley just a couple of blocks away.

Pho Expedition

“Customer for Pho? Please come in”

I didn’t discover this "secret" pho place by accident – though I wish I did or at least could get away by saying that (that would have been more dramatic, isn't it?) – but rather, an article at Saveur pointed me to this pho stall at an upstairs apartment inside a run-down building in Hanoi’s Old Quarter. I was able to find the place easily, thanks to the article with detailed directions and pictures of the street signs, and arrived at the right time too, between 3-7:30pm as that’s the only time the place was open for business.

Chaoshan Beef Hotpot

We thought about just stay in for dinner nearby for a completely lazy vacation but at the end decided to go out to eat in the city center of Shenzhen. I was curious about the ever-popular Chao-shan Beef Hotpot scene in town so we hopped on a taxi and head towards one specialist restaurant called Fu He Cheng. We may have well passed the season for winter hotpot with temperature now in mid-20s but the place was still packed when we arrived slightly after 8pm.

Something New from an Unknown Region

Question marks floated over my head when I reached the door of Root Restaurant, a long 15 minute walk to a quiet neighborhood in the eastern side of Yangon. I saw the online reviews of this relatively new restaurant (opened 6 months ago or so) which talked about its specialty of Wa cuisine from Wa ethnic group residing in the mountainous area in the northern side of the country neighboring China. Well I know absolutely nothing about Myanmar geography nor its ethnic composition nor culture, but I was eager to try something new, something that I have not heard of before, let alone trying, so I decided to take a shot. But then when I arrived and found the half-empty restaurant with only a handful customers, I started to wonder whether it’s a good idea.

Back to Nikushou

I made a return visit to Nikushou recently not long after my first just before Christmas. And this time another group of friends joined, and we again left the menu entirely to our friend Anthony who owns the place. We had a lot of seafood last time including a couple of seasonal crab dishes, but this time we focused on their out-of-this-world beef dishes.

Motsunabe for One

I have been craving for motsunabe since I planned for the Kyushu trip a few months ago. This Kyushu specialty hotpot with beef or pork tripes and intestines was the perfect comfort food in the cold winter, combining the rich and fatty offals with an equally rich and steaming broth served in the traditional nabe pot. We had a great one during our last outing to Fukuoka a couple of years ago, and I intended to do the same this time with the weather more suitable for this kind of food.

Steakhouse Makeover

There's a constant carousal of restaurants opening and closing in Lan Kwai Fong's California Tower - just a fact of life in this highly competitive area in terms of F&B business. But this time it's a case of new wine in an old bottle, with the steakhouse Porterhouse recently got a new owner with the new makeover. I haven't been to the old Porterhouse before so I can't tell how dramatic was the change when I went for dinner recently, but I was assured those are changes for the good, replacing everything from the chef to the concept to the menu and to the tableware ("basically everything except the interior", I was told)

Sukiyaki at the Counter

It’s my fault that I had to rush across the harbor to make my 6:30pm reservation at Sukiyaki Mori, but I was glad I made it right on time (okay, I was more like 15 minutes late) at the doorstep of this new restaurant at the junction of Elgin and Hollywood. I couldn’t recall any other restaurant specializes in sukiyaki in town, and being meat lovers as ourselves, we were eager to check it out.

Not The Usual Lounge

It's just unfair to put The Lounge at Four Seasons Hong Kong on the list among other hotel cafes. True they all serve the somewhat predictable menu trying to cater to a wide spectrum of customers, from proper breakfasts to sandwiches to salad and pasta, and of course the must-have "Asian Delights" section (whatever it's called in individual places) with dishes like wonton noodle soup and chicken rice. Plus the afternoon tea completed with the silver-plated tower with all the sweet and savory goodies. That's what this kind of restaurants are designed for in the first place.

Make-ahead Meat Dishes

From what the names suggest, pork rillettes and gyuniku shigureni sound like two dishes from entirely different worlds, but in reality they were surprisingly similar. Both were meat based and made use of only a small set of ingredients; both involved slow cooking to bring about the intense flavor, and both can be made ahead and served at room temperature (no reheating required!), which made them great candidates as part of a simple home-cooked meal.

Feb-ulous Kyoto: Omi Beef Lunch

Shiga Prefecture is famous for its Omi beef (近江牛). This premium breed, named after the ancient name of Shiga, is known as the top 3 wagyu breeds in Japan along with Matsusaka beef from Mie and Kobe beef from Hyogo. So of course we wouldn't want to miss the opportunity of getting a taste of the beef while spending our time in Shiga as part of our weekend getaway.