Two Years Later

Chef Leonard reminded me that we haven't been back to his restaurant Cultivate since their opening week - well, guilty as charged. We enjoyed our dinner last time but somehow we just procrastinated on making a return visit. Until a few weeks ago. 

Dinner at an Art Exhibition

The neighborhood of Quarry Bay is hardly a foodie destination but recently we were there at two separate occasions within the same week for quite some interesting dining experience. Just a few days after the spectacular Great Farm Feast dinner held at a makeshift dining room on a footbridge, this time, it’s a special dinner held as part of the Beyond Fashion exhibition at the Artistree space in Taikoo Place.

Two-Third of a Four-Hands Menu

While I was pretty tied up the entire week to go to the special 4-hands dinner featuring Chef Vicky Cheng of VEA and Chef Julien Royer of Odette happening in late February, I was lucky that Vicky asked me to come along for a preview at his restaurant the day before the actual event. 

New Style, New Location

I paid a visit to MIC Kitchen at their new location some time ago. The restaurant, which has been awarded Michelin star for many years (until the last edition), has quietly moved from their original location in the middle of nowhere in Kwun Tong to the heart of Central. There’s a sense of déjà vu as I stepped out of the elevator to the top floor of a commercial building on Stanley Street as I realized they took over the former space of Liberty Private Works, even inherited most of their set-up and décor with the same open kitchen and the surrounding counter seats.

The Most Exciting Restaurant Opening

There are every reason to be excited about the opening of Aulis at the turn of the year. Chef Simon Rogan is considered one of the greatest British chef of our time, and with a few Michelin-starred restaurants under his belt, has decided to open a couple new restaurants in Hong Kong as his first overseas venture, with Aulis opening in January quickly followed by a more casual eatery Roganic the next month.

HAKU x Gallery VASK

It’s great to see so many familiar faces gathered upon Haku after Chinese New Year for a special tasting of the collaboration menu with the visiting chef Chele Gonzalez of Manila’s Gallery VASK. I have not been to Gallery VASK before but heard good things about Chef Gonzalez’s creative cooking in Spanish style but with a Filipino twist, so I was quite eager to check out the dishes he created specifically for this 2-day-only event alongside with Chef Agustin Balbi of Haku.

Artistic Tasting Menu

I feel like trekking to a whole new world when we stopped by Sai Wan/Shek Tong Tsui on the west side one evening before Christmas. The aging community filled with rows of decades-old "Tong Lau" (run-down tenement buildings) was gentrified to be an up-and-coming, hipster neighborhood with high-end apartment buildings, cafes, bars and restaurants, including COBO House which was our destination this time.

A Friday Dinner Challenge

Hosting a dinner at home on Friday evening is always a bit of a challenge, given both of us have a day time job. That plus we were out most of the evenings this week - that means I had even lesser time to shop for ingredients and prepare some of the food in advance, hence I needed to be much more careful with planning and executing, trying to make use of ingredients readily available at home than those obscure items that were a bit tricky to find, for example, and try to start even earlier for some of the dishes to spread out the prep time.