Whimsical Bar at IFC Mall

Recently I was at Dear Lilly, a new restaurant/bar concept on the rooftop of the IFC Mall, and it did change my impression somewhat of restaurants under the Dining Concept group in general. I don’t know what this site was before, but with the setting like a glasshouse right in the top shopping mall with unobstructed view of the Hong Kong skyline, you already got half the winning formula to be the popular place for anything from leisure lunch to afternoon tea to happy hour drinks. They don’t take reservations, and by the time we arrived, there’s already quite a waiting line for people wanting a drink and a bite, and some were just happy to take a snap of the romantic interior on their mobile phone.

Restaurant Makeover

Earlier this month I came to check out the “new” restaurant Theo Mistral at Intercontinental Grand Stanford Hotel in TST East. I don’t remember when’s the last time I set foot in this hotel, nor what the original Mistral Restaurant looked like before the recent renovation and the introduction of Theo Randall as the new consultant chef (hence the name change), but I like the casual setting and open dining space with full view of the open kitchen on the side… just like what a contemporary trattoria should be like.

Exploring the Garment District

The neighborhood of Shum Shui Po could be different things to different people – to computer and electonics geeks, this is the place where they fetch the latest gadgets inside the legendary Golden Arcade, or at one of the outdoor stalls on the block of Ap Liu Street; there’s also a street dedicated to toys, dai pai dong/street food, Chinese dessert soups and many more. And on the other side of this old commercial/residential mixed neighborhood, there were a few blocks of shops for fabrics and all garment accessories – there were specialty shops for everything from buttons to ribbons to threads and needles and more, carrying down from the days when this is where all the garment factories were.

Springtime Kaiseki

There may be plenty of Japanese restaurants in town, a lot of them more than decent, but there aren't many that specialize in the formal kaiseki-ryori, let alone ones that did it right. I have heard Kashiwaya belong to this rare group of good kaiseki restaurants and recently I finally had a chance to visit this Michelin-starred establishment for the first time and check out some of their new seasonal dishes.

The Afternoon After

It just so happened that after drinking Petrus one evening, the next day I was at Restaurant Petrus the restaurant on Island Shangri-la for a lovely Sunday lunch with their PR team. With the foggy sky looming our city all morning, I was surprised it has cleared up significantly just as we arrived at the restaurant, making our window-side round table on the top floor of the hotel particularly comfortable with the perfect view of the city skyline. Plus it's always such a pleasure to dine at such an elegant and classic dining room.