Old Face, New Place

I admit I did find it a little surreal when I saw Chef Manav in his new chef outfit at a new restaurant. His departure from his last gig a few months back certainly took many by surprise, but his new restaurant, Leela, on the other side of the harbor, is promising and represents quite a change in culinary direction and style. 

New Faces

Other than the new faces, with chefs Gaurav Kuthari and Dhiraj Kumar now taking charge of the kitchen, nothing much has changed at Chaat when we went for dinner a few weeks back. The place was still crowded as ever – many dubbed this the hardest restaurant to get a table at this side of the harbor. 

Indian Dinner for Six

While I was kind of proud of myself being able to get a table booked at CHAAT a few months ago, this time I did get some help from Chef Manav for our family dinner for 6 people at the end of April which also doubled as an informal birthday celebration for our nephew N. And we also troubled Chef Manav for a few new dishes apart from what's normally available on their a la carte menu, and gosh, we got much more than what we asked for. 

Getting My Own

“I got the booking on my own!” is probably not something people would brag about but it’s my first time being able to secure a table in this ultra-popular restaurant CHAAT inside Rosewood through their website instead of tagging along someone’s booking or got invited to one of their dinner tastings as I did previously. People who tried to make a reservation there would understand the sense of achievement. 

Chaat It Out

It did take some twist of my friend G’s arm to get a last-minute booking at the ever popular Chaat at Rosewood Hong Kong in Tsimshatsui. And even with that what we got is a table booking at 3pm – certainly not a complaint but that made it another late lunch/early dinner for us on a Sunday afternoon. 

The Last Supper

When we planned for this meal a few weeks ago little did we know it turned out to be our last dinner at a restaurant for a while. Our friend Suveg told us about this pop-up Bombay East Indian dinner series hosted by his wife Samaira – we immediately signed up for a table, partly because I wanted to support a aspiring new chef and partly because I am curious what “Bombay East Indian” cuisine is about. 

Fine-Dining Indian

I am actually surprised that Chaat, the new fine-dining Indian restaurant at Rosewood Hong Kong, turned out to be quite a success with the waiting list for a table grew to 3-month long. Certainly a bright spot as local restaurant industry is still slowly recovering and I just didn't know locals have such an appetite for Indian cuisine. 

Indian at a Touristy Spot

We took a spin up to The Peak one evening recently - it's a spur of the moment thing and God knows since when was the last time we did that - and checked out a newish restaurant that serves "Anglo-Indian Cuisine" up there. Rajasthan Rifles is a sister restaurant of the lovely New Punjab Club on Wyndham under the same group and the supervision of the same chef - so that gave us some assurance of its quality despite its peculiar location of being in a touristy spot and the somewhat cliche setting of an "Anglo-Indian Mess Hall" with wait-staff dressing like Indian military officers in the colonial days.

Curry in Brum

"For the curry!" was the official line we had when people asked why we made a quick stopover in Birmingham before we headed back home after spending a week in London. While it's not entirely accurate, but we did want to check out the Indian restaurant scene while we were there, given the reputation of the town being the "Curry Capital of UK".

Indian in Macau

Golden Peacock fits the bill when we wanted to look for something different to try whilst spending the weekend in Macau recently. Indian cuisine is not something we normally go for in this town but the Michelin star that they have been keeping for a number of years did make me curious how their food would fare.

Punjabi Feast After 9

We loved our late night dining experience at the Black Sheep Black Series last time around at Belon, and so when the restaurant group did it again offering set menus at special price in all of their restaurants, we decided to check out New Punjab Club on Wyndham Street. It’s a restaurant we heard a lot of good words about but never got around to visit, so this promotion just worked out perfectly for us.

The Marquee Meal

By all accounts dining at Gaggan is the marquee event of our Bangkok weekend trip – to the extent the rest of our itinerary was planned around it. Barring a few Michelin stars (which was widely tipped to be forthcoming when the first Michelin Guide Bangkok releases later this year), Chef Gaggan Anand's namesake restaurant has all the accolades that other restauranteurs can only dream of - Asia's Best for 3 years in a row (2015-2017 and counting), number 7 on this year's World's Best Restaurant list, and being featured in the famous Chef's Table series by Netflix, just to name a few. So we were super excited to score a table at Gaggan with rather short notice and came to the restaurant with very high expectation.