Some people are just scared of macaroons because such French desserts are extremely sweet. Yes, they are sweet because then they can be a perfect match with the bitter dark coffee, which is a popular tea set for the French.

Macaroons are common in many cake shops, but the best in the town only happens to be in here, link ]">Le Salon De Thé de Joël Robuchon. Some time ago I already introduced you their excellent croissants, and I realize they also have the best macaroons in Hong Kong!

Interestingly, the mouthwatering macaroons are not the creation from a French chef but a young Japanese dessert chef Tadashi Nakamura 中村忠史. He was one of the great masters from the famous Patisserie Sadaharu Aoki and once stayed in the Robuchon restaurant in Roppongi. Here in Hong Kong, he is also the person-in-charge for all the excellent cakes and pastery. He explained that making macaroons wasn't easy because the blending of ingredients and the baking both required skillful controls, or else the macaroons would either explode or collapse. From the edge of a macaroon, you can see how good a macaroon is.

I bought sixteen macaroons, two for each flavour. There are mint, strawberry, chocolate, vanilla, toffee and lemon. They are smaller than what I usually see from other places, and each of them costs only HK$8.

I must say these are pure awesomeness. The macaroons was so soft inside and crispy on the outside. Since I can take very sweet food, I don't find them overly sweet. I especially like the vanilla one, which has some cream inside called ganache, making it taste just like ice-cream! Oh yes, I put them into the fridge before placing them onto the plate as instructed by the staff from the dessert shop, and the macaroons certainly taste even better in that way! I never know such a trick!

This little black-and-red dessert heaven is definitely a must-go place. Later I will come again and try their dessert tea menu!

There are many chocolate shops in Hong Kong, from the now-everywhere Godiva to the recent Agne's B Chocolate. However, not all of them impress me because I am not just looking for candies but fine chocolate. Yes, I am picky because I just love chocolate! Good chocolate is not just about good raw material, because special skills and much imagination from the chefs are the key to make excellent chocolate that makes people crave for more.

Some months ago I got some chocolate from link ]" target="_blank">Thomas Haas, and it was pretty good. The chocolate was very rich and the texture is smooth. I like the  tray design of the packaging, and the irregular cut on the chocolate adds an interesting visual effect to the candy.

Today I visited link ]" target="_blank">La Maison du Chocolat at Prince's Building, which is now a subsidiary of the largest international French food group Soparind Bongrain. I got myself my favourite chocolate, a bar of 74% cocoa.

This chocolate, coming from one of the finest Parisian chocolate brands in the world, is nothing but pure cacao delight. The chocolate is very rich and smooth, and just one bite is enough to bring you to Heaven.

They also have a extremely delicious ice-cream. I tried their Tonka Chocolate ice-cream, and that was an unforgettable dessert experience. It tasted like cold molten chocolate instead of chocolate-flavoured ice-cream! Doesn't that make you drool now?

My top one chocolate ice-cream is still the one from Jean Paul Hevin in Japan, but if I cannot fly to Japan to quench my thirst, this one from La Maison du Chocolat can do the job for now. If you are also a chocolate lover, you must visit this shop and try the world-class chocolate candies, truffles and their famous eclair!

This little restaurant does not sell only Japanese food. You can find different kinds of chicken parts here, from typical chicken teriyaki to  rare chicken tenderloin, to chicken tail, to chicken neck and heart. Yes, you may not even know what they are or how they would taste, but they are all in the menu. The chickens are no cheap ones from Chinese. Some come from Yamaguchi, Japan and some are the famous blue-foot chicken from France. With all these excellent ingredients and great chickens, this menu is surely an aristocratic one.

Cladded with light wood panels and decorated with wooden screens, the restaurant is divided into several small pockets, perfect for a more private dining session. We started our meal with some tofu appetizer and one glass of fruit wine, which got our taste buds ready for the coming gustatory delights.

Most of the people in Hong Kong are scared of this dish, chicken skin, and deep-fried food is definitely a no-no. They are afraid of getting too much fat but most of them are overweight already. Anyway, this dish is a combination of both ends of evil, the deep-fried chicken skin. It turned out to be less oily than I expected, and was a perfect snack for wines.

M favourite skewers arrived, and the first one was the chicken breast. The meat was not tough at all, and was surprisingly juicy. Then the chicken wing skewer also came, which was good.

In such a chicken shop, you should never miss the famous chicken with egg on rice. It was not a big bowl but tasted wonderful. The egg was not thoroughly cooked and actually blended well into the rice, making the whole bowl smell so good!

While chicken was the main course in this meal, we also ordered some fish. The grilled sanma (秋刀魚) was not bad, while the sushi was very fresh too. Again, like I said before, uni is the key to check how good the sushi or sashimi is. Surprisingly in this chicken specialist place, all the sashimi and sushi were all fresh and delicious.

The smoked eel and egg sushi didn't really impress me, but luckily they were merely the supporting players here.

The whole meal was comfortable and relaxing, and the quality was indeed above average. The price tags that came with the food may not be appealing to casual diners, but if you are looking for a cozy place with some light and tasty Japanese dishes, come and try, let alone the fact that they have so many chicken delicacies that you can't find in other restaurants. If you like Japanese wine, they also have quite some choices for you too. Definitely a place to be revisited in the future!

It was a special night as it was my mum's birthday and also Mother's Day. Yes, it was already a week after Mother's Day but my sister just flew to Australia, and my mum didn't mind at all to postpone the celebration.

So we had our double happiness at this wonderful restaurant. Located at Lee Garden, Lawry's the Prime Rib is so famous in the town because of their excellent beef, and their signature silver "meat" cart. This restaurant only came to Hong Kong in 2006, but already received a lot of positive feedback, and it seems its other dishes are just as good as its ribs.

The place is very elegant and I love their booth seatings a lot. It is huge and everyone can sit comfortably in these booths. Since the booth is big, you don't feel like being listened closely by the guy in the next booth. The high-backed chairs in burgundy velvets and dark wood formed this comfortable Old-English style environment, alerting the taste buds to the coming gustatory delight. The main feature of this restaurant is actually their beef cart, a silver UFO-like cart in which you can find different ribs and sauces ready for your order.

Okay we will come to that later. Let's take a look at our starter...some bread first. Bread is very important because I learnt that if the bread was good, the whole meal usually could not be any worse, because if the chefs care about the typical starters, they will take very good care of your main courses.

I didn't expect Lawry's to do good in seafood as the name just says "the Prime Rib", but this shrimp cocktail was very good. The shrimp was big and fresh, a wonderful beginning of a great meal. Then, a glass of sangria came with the crabmeat appetizer.

We ordered some BBQ creamed corns too, which was delicious and was a perfect companion to the main course.

And here you go the prime rib!

The beef was so tender and soft, and even the fatty part was tasty. The tendeloin edge was also chewy. What amazed me most was the cut, which was so precise to make it  a uniformly sliced 10oz piece of meat. The beef also came with a Yorkshire pudding, which was like an eggy popover. It was done with some beef sauce, making it a beautiful and consistent companion of the rib.

The other main course we ordered was the spring chicken. It was okay but of course couldn't steal the spotlight from the prime rib.

We ordered another side dish too, which was the BBQ-style mushrooms.

After all the main courses, the dessert came. It was our mum's birthday and the restaurant gave us a complimentary birthday cake. It was a small blueberry cake but it was creamy and jummy. We actually liked the small size of this because our stomach could not hold any more food.

The second dessert was a hot chocolate brownie cake with ice-cream on top. The two contrasting sensation was really special, and went well with each other. If you insist on eating the cake and ice-cream separately, you will miss out that interesting feeling in your mouth. The chocolate is very rich, which completely captured me this chocolate lover.

The meal was wonderful, and we had a great time. The excellent food under such amazing and comfortable ambience makes us an unforgettable dining experience. Some people may not like meat or just beef, but I am sure they will enjoy it with other items on the menu in this elegant restaurant. I can't wait to come back again and if you haven't tried it yet, you should do so now!

Recently a small white shop resides at the busy Granville Road, and inside you can find nearly nothing but Swiss rolls and macaroons. There are some cookies and you can order coffee too, but the rolls are what you are coming for.

This shop, named Roll, is opened by a young chef, Amy. She studied cookery in Canada and worked in one of the famous western restaurants in Central after graduation. When she thought she had enough experience, she started her own shop with her sister.

The rolls here are no typical rolls, because Amy picks expensive but good raw materials for the delicious cakes: flour from Japan, cream from France, sugar from Korea. Each procedure of making the rolls is carefully controlled, as Amy said that if each step, from mixing eggs and flour to baking, was not serious, the sponginess would be lost and the cake would just fail.

You can find over 10 flavours here, but we tried the basic one to see if this is really extraordinary like others said in magazines and blogs. After the first bite of this vanilla roll, I was completely shocked and this roll is nothing but a taste of heaven! The cake layer was so soft and spongy, while the cream is so fresh and milky! The whole slice of roll was not overwhelmingly sweet, and instead it will only make you crave for another one! We also tried the coffee roll and again it was very well done, though I was not that into the fruit in the cake, which doesn't match the coffee flavour.

The slice was truly amazing, but if you find the price tag a little intimidating, the mini-slice is a good "tasting" bite before you agree with us and spend 0 for a long roll to satisfy all your taste buds. Usually you can only find excellent desserts from hotel bakery or restaurants, but Roll is definitely an exception. Definitely my another sweet favourite besides Awfully Chocolate!

Yeah, another shop to sell tonkatsu. It is not hard to understand why, as when certain restaurants become unexpectedly popular, they will copy the shop out, including menu, interior design, and even the way to name their shop by introducing Japanese romaji. However, they don't seem to be able to copy the quality of other shops.

HIP Katsu at Harbour City claims that they do nice tonkatsu in their menu, but we don't think so. Like Tonkichi, we had a bowl of sesame for preparing the special sauce for the cutlet, but the smell of sesame revealed that it was not good quality Japanese sesame. I don't know if it is me or what, the sesame was not like that in Tonkichi (the famous and excellent tonkatsu shop in the town) which can be easily ground into powder. Low quality, really.

I hate to say this, but it looks like many shops have such weird conception that having such tools or special sauces would make your menu or your food more "professional", or high-class. That is so wrong. If your food is no good, no sauce can revive its poor taste. Now, let's see how good the pork is, and see if the sauce is to enhance the meat or to cover up the mess.

The tonkatsu came, and it looked fine. However, the pork was a little tough and dry while most of it was tendon and fat. The crunchy coating didn't stick to the meat at all, and completely fell off when you picked one slice up with your chopsticks. I heard from others that this restaurant served warm cutlets instead of hot ones, but mine was fine. It was not sizzling hot but it was certainly just done from the kitchen. Still that could not help the low score of this piece of meat.

My friend ordered another thing, the tempura set with rice. The tempura looked okay but again, was not of high quality. The batter was a little bit too thick while the shrimps and vegetable inside were just so-so.

Being average was nothing bad, but if you had such a high price tag, people expect much more. The shop is located in a shopping mall which is now frequently occupied by a lot of Chinese shoppers from mainland, and perhaps this is the reason: they are the people who just have too much money to spend, and this restaurant just wants to make the most out of them. Anyway, if you are a picky eater, or if you are looking for some good Japanese food, leave this place and visit other restaurants. HIP has so much room to improve, but from the services and the skills of the chefs, I don't think they are willing to go further. They thought they were selling excellent food and services but actually they are not.

I would pay more for much better food, and those fancy Japanese bowls and so-called traditional sauces won't help to score more from me if the food is crappy. No one likes to spend on disappointment, and this restaurant has expensive one.

Yakiniku, or barbecued meat (焼き肉), is one of the best and famous dishes in Japanese. Each diner has his/her own dishes of bite-size raw meat, and grill them on the hot grilling pan installed in the table. Yakiniku is originated from horumonyaki, meaning a dish of grilled offal, invented by Korean immigrants in the Kansai area after the Second World War.

Today we come to Morihachi Yakiniku, which is expanding its branches quickly recently and opening their fourth shop in Wanchai. Here we were in the Tsim Sha Tsui shop again, and about to try their Wagyu meat.

Wow, just looking at that made me drool. The Premium A4 Japanese Wagyu Ribeye was marbled evenly with meat and fat in 1:1 ratio, a beautiful characteristic of A4 beef. You should not though grill this kind of beef for too long or else it would be turned into tough and dry meat. Every bite into this grilled Wagyu beef was like a taste of heaven. It really melted in your mouth!

We then had our favourite dish, the Premium Gyu Tongue with Rock Salt, basically it is block sliced ox tongue.

We also added a plate of Kurobuta (pork from black pig) with Rock Salt.

The meat was very tender but since we needed to cook it thoroughly, it ended up a little dry. However, the smell of pork was strong and the meat went very well with their special tekiyaki sauce.

Here came the two dishes that we must order every time we ate here. They were the Chicken Gizzard Slices and Chicken Wing with Balsamic Vinegar Sauce. Both tasted extremely good, especially the chicken wings. The smell of vinegar and charcoal formed an unusual but interesting aroma that stimulated your appetite.

I wouldn't say this was a complete dinner if I had no rice, guess I am still a Chinese and I need such carbohydrates to keep me alive. We therefore ordered this chef's recommendation, Tobiko Foie-gras Bibinba in Stone Bowl, which contains foie gras and mushrooms.

This is what it looked like after mixing. The rice was good but I am not sure if foie gras was a good idea because the spicy sauce actually overwhelmed the taste of other ingredients. While the mushrooms were good and formed an interesting contrast in textures with the "rice crisps" at the bottom, the foie gras didn't stand out at all. Nevertheless, the overall dish tasted good.

We added a little vegetable to the raw food list, which was the corns!

To make this, you have to place all the quartered corns into this aluminium bowl with a big piece of butter in it. Then you grill the whole thing. After the butter melts and spreads all over the corns, it is done.

The meal was not cheap, but the quality of food was above average. The menu they have is very interesting because on the first page, it actually teaches you how to use different sauces, how to cook, and how to eat your beef with lettuce. If you want to have some drinks, they also have a big range of Japanese beer and alcoholic drinks, including my favourite fruit wines. If you come, it will be better if you can get more friends so that you can try  more different kinds of food. Also, you never know which one is the best because you have to add your little grilling skills in it too!

Recently more and more dessert shops introduced the famous Taiwan layered shaved ice, but of course, not all of them are good. However, my latest visit to Five Sweet Generation (五代同糖) ( map ) was a pleasant one because they had some really wonderful shaved ice, and even more, they got new concepts too.

We ordered the renowned Mango-Pomelo Sago Layered Ice (楊枝甘露綿綿冰), and this icy tower was not small at all.

The whole dish looked so yummy but one just couldn't rush and devour the whole thing immediately because it was still ice and it was very cold!

What is good about this is that it was not too sweet to make you drink one whole bottle of water after finishing it. Some places simply make everything overly sweet that you are more like torturing yourself than enjoying it. I thought the mango would not be good since I had some bad experience before at other places with sour mango, but here the mango was nothing but sweet and fresh, and the slightly sour pomelo balanced the sweetness off. Everything formed a nicely balanced delicacy.

One may wonder if the ice all melted when you only went halfway of it. Interesting enough this one didn't melt in the normal speed like ice melting, allowing you to keep the whole structure of ice until your last bite.

It was a really good sweet post-dinner treat, and I am surprised that the five young kids who started this shop did not know anything about desserts before starting this new business. I hope they can keep it up and invent more delicious dishes in the coming days, and I am certain to come back and check on them!

After visiting Japan twice and trying a lot of ramen there, I have lost nearly all my faith in any Japanese ramen in Hong Kong because nothing here is comparable to that in Japan. Really, none of the shops in Hong Kong can bring back the same taste I had in Japan, but of course, you may think this is too harsh as it is just impossible to transfer the exact flavour of ramen from Japan, since it is the wonderful ingredient in Japan that makes the excellent ramen.

With that in mind, ramen in Hong Kong is just Japanese-like. However, it looks like there are more and more picky food finders like me in the town, and recently several interesting ramen shops arrived in attempt to bring true Japanese ramen to the city. One of them comes from Hokkaido and is located in iSquare, called link ]">Ramen Santouka, which has some really delicious ramen I must say. Tonight we visited MIST, which is originated from Omotesandō Hill in Japan and just came to Hong Kong for two months.

MIST was started by Japanese French-trained chef Yasuji Morizumi, who won the award in 2002 for his "no-boundary ramen". The shop does not have any typical deco like the others. Instead, It is very modern with rock surface walls, satin chairs and aluminium counter. If you don't read, you won't figure out that it is a Japanese ramen restaurant.

Each table has a drawer housing a full set of neatly organized utensils, among which you can also find a note explaining the history and making of their special ramen. There are five types of ramen, and none of them is cheaper than 100 bucks. Yes, nothing is cheap here and so be prepared.

My ramen came and it looked a little small. However, the smell of miso soup is extremely strong with a thick layer of oil on the top. That is a great bowl of ramen should look like. According Morizumi, the edge of this bowl has the same thickness of the ramen, forming this interesting but secretive harmony in the entire dish. The shape of this bowl edge is also designed to bring out the aroma easily, though I am not sure if that is really true.

The excellent noodle is made with three kinds of flour from Nagano, Tohoku and Hokkaido (信州，東北及北海道). Morizumi explained that only by combining the three great types of flour can you then create such excellent noodle with the thickness, chewiness and smoothness just right.

Each of the ingredient comes from Japan, for instance, the pork is from Kagoshima 鹿兒島. Oh my god, this slice of roasted pork 叉燒 was extremely wonderful! The portion of meat and fat was one to one, and it melted in my mouth! That's really the best I have ever tried!

The egg was good too, but I guess the excellent noodle and pork already stole all the spotlights.

We added one more dish for the dinner, which is the oven-baked Japanese mushroom. This was so fresh because I could just smell the strong mushroom before it was just placed on my table. The best is that it was not dry at all. The water inside the plant was kept mysteriously even after the baking process.

This noodle place is really different from other places, but what sets it apart from others is not just the unusual modern interior design, but also its food quality. Everything is so carefully designed, from the salt used in the food to the utensil used for holding the food, to the thickness of noodle. I appreciate Morizumi's great effort in perfecting each aspect of the meal, and that gives me more confidence than enough to visit his shop again in the future. The food here is not just something to be consumed, but also a beautiful piece of art that you will appreciate, and that marks a place in your memory. That's truly wonderful food.

I was so tempted to revisit the excellent bakery of Joël Robuchon, and I did. I bought my girlfriend too a croissant while I tried the chocolate Danish. It was so good! I also bought this interesting set of biscuit, the coco tuiles. I just learnt this new word, tuile, which means "tile" in French. As you can already guess right, it means very thin biscuits.

The thin cookies are good, with this really strong smell of butter. Some ladies would be so scared of that, but I am not bothered at all. It is so delicate that it can shatter into many pieces if you don't pay attention. The coconut flavour is very strong too. From the appearance you cannot see anything that looks like coconut thing, but the tiny coconut slices are actually embedded inside the thin tuiles. That's amazing.

This $50 tuiles made my day. This is exactly what a sweet snack should be.

Ming Court at Langham Place Hotel in Mongkok received two stars from the Michelin judges, and they got it twice as in 2008 and 2009. While some people find the Michelin guide misleading or inaccurate, the two stars here in Ming Court are very well deserved.

I was here for the first time two years ago and it was a good lunch. This time I came for dinner. The restaurant was nicely decorated but the design was a little too typical like other Chinese restaurant, and it was split into two parts with one circular space for small groups or couples, and one big space which looked like a pre-function area in front of a ballroom.

The food came quickly after we took the orders. The first dish was the Deep-fried Crispy Chicken (朗豪炸子雞), and it looked really good.

And it tasted good too. Those fried lotus root slices were surprisingly tasty like potato chips, and the meat was juicy with the skin deep-fried to an amazingly crispy layer. The chicken needed no additional sauce or salt because it already got all the good flavours. It is one of the best chickens I have even had.

The following dish came with a little taste of fruit. It was Fried Pork Loin with Orange and Honey Sauce (香蜜橙花炸豬柳).

The meat was soft with crispy outer layer, but it was the orange sauce that amazed me. It is not easy to make good orange sauce because sometimes it is too sour, sometimes it is too thick like ketchup. This one was however quite well done and sweet. At least they didn't use sour oranges to make this.

This is Sliced Spotted Garoupa served two ways - Stir-fried with premium mushrooms and Deep-fried with sweet and sour sauce (兩儀星斑球). As the name already suggests, this dish has two parts, and the deep-fried part was so excellent that I was just stunned. It looked like the typical Sweet and Sour Pork Chop (咕嚕肉, something that the westerners like so much and I have no idea why), but when you bite through the crispy skin, it was this beautiful white and smooth garoupa meat!  The two different textures combine to form this interesting sensation in the mouth. I thought the strange sauce would overwhelm the taste of the fish, but it turned out to be an excellent match. Amazing!

This is the Braised Bean Curd Stuffed with Minced Fish, served in a Casserole (濃湯魚滑釀豆腐煲). The tofu is the key here, which is so smooth that you will break it if you don't handle it with much are. I wonder if it was Japanese tofu because so far to me only Japanese can make such smooth and silky tofu.

The next dish was a Chef's Recommendation, the Deep-fried Lamp Slices in Maltose with Crispy Walnuts.

This one was a little bit too heavy for me. The maltose made the whole dish too sweet to eat, and it overwhelmed the meat completely. However, the walnuts were very well done. It was so crispy with some smoky smell, perfect as a snack with beers.

And then it was dessert time. We ordered this ordinary Chinese dessert, Glutinious Rice Dumplings with Black Sesame Paste and Crushed Peanuts (擂沙湯圓).

Not bad not bad, but I guess it was not hot enough. If they could make the paste melting, it would be perfect.

But then, this is the real dessert, one of the signature dishes in Ming Court. Here it comes, the Shark Fin Crystal Extravagance (翅晶凝).

It was presented in this box of dry ice, but the dry ice was purely a visual thing. Look closer, and you can see the shark fins on the top of each crystal blocks.

I have never tried anything like this before, using shark fins fordessert. The top layer was some jelly with shark fins, while the bottom yellow layer is mango jelly. Most importantly, it tasted great. Shark fins actually taste nothing, and so it was the mango that gives the flavour, while the shark fins added the amazing texture to the jelly. This "Hong Kong’s First and Most Famous Shark Fin Dessert" was both surprising and delicious.

This dinner is very much enjoyable, and I am completely blown away by the refined and redefined Chinese cuisine. The chefs have definitely taken Chinese food to another high level. If you love Chinese food, and if you want to know how Chinese food can be remade to form another astonishing dimension, come and visit this place.

Even that you can find nearly all kinds of cuisine in Hong Kong, Chinese food is still the majority. Of course, there are many kinds of Chinese food characterized by their origins, with Guangzhou cuisine being the most popular since Hong Kong is in Guangzhou.

The second place would no doubt be Shanghai dishes, but good Shanghai restaurants are not common. Ye Shanghai is one of the excellent places with both great food and comfortable environment. I especially like their  booth seatings which are cozy and private.

We started our meal with some alcohol, but no this is not a drink. This is the Marinated Pigeon in Chinese Yellow Wine (花雕醉鴿).

The dish was followed by the Slices Pork in Garlic Soy Sauce (蒜泥白肉).

Usually I am not a fan of this dish because it is quite chilly and I can't take that. However, this one was done with sweet soy sauce (instead of the salty one) and all the chilly thing was only placed in the center. People who cannot stand chilly thing would still be able to enjoy the pork in this way.

The Seafood Soup came before we finished the two starters, and it looked so delicious!

That crab was obviously one Shanghai hairy crab (大閘蟹), and inside you could also find fish and shrimps. The soup tasted so good and you could tell what ingredients the soup contained. All the essences of the seafood flowed within the bowl, superb!

After that, the meat came, which was the WuXi Pork Chop (無錫排骨). The meat was very soft and the sauce was good, but it lacked a little surprise. I guess I was just expecting too much, perhaps.

The vegetable and the famous Shanghai Dumpling followed.

The covering of the dumplings could actually be done better. The thickness was right, but it looked like it was a little too wet. I guess the steamer was too powerful, or this dish was overcooked a little bit. Still, the whole thing was good and over the passing mark.

Then we had this beautiful dessert as the finale, and maybe you can guess what that is?

It was Black Sesame Creme Brulee with Yellow Chinese Wine Ice-cream! This is a perfect mix between Chinese and western cuisines. The creme brulee was excellent, crispy on the top and all smooth underneath. The ice-cream was such an interesting sweetie. It looked like normal ice-cream, but the taste was exactly the Chinese wine used in the first dish! It was not like Bailey's ice-cream, since it was really Chinese wine, and therefore the flavour was...so hard to describe! It really tasted like a kind of traditional Chinese dessert!

When we left, we saw this chocolate counter at the entrance. It was another funny fusion: tea chocolate. These chocolate bars and candies actually had tea flavours blended inside, and just that intrigued me. Let me try that next time and report how surprising that chocolate would be.

We revisited the ramen shop Misocool again this weekend, and this time it was not in Quarry Bay but in the new shopping mall K11. This Misocool branch shop is much bigger and has a more open design. It sounds like the tonkatsu trend has spread quickly in Hong Kong and Misocool also includes it now in their menu. Maybe they have it for a long time already and I missed it before. Anyway, today I was here to test their pork cutlet.

We ordered a Tonkatsu and Egg Rice Bowl, and it looked quite nice. However, the first thing that disappointed me was the onion. It was still raw and immediately prevented me from enjoying the bowl. I had no choice but to pick the onion from the rice.

At least the pork was fine. It was crispy and surprisingly not oily at all. I like the thickness of this, which was thinner than those from Tonkichi or Bairin but more suitable for this size of bowl. The egg part was great too but if it was not fully cooked with the egg yolk soaking into the rice, it would be even more delicious.

We added one more side dish, the Pan-fried Scallops. It was pretty nice too.

The most excellent part was actually the dessert the Hokkaido Yogurt! Unfortunately I didn't have a photo here. It was made with Hokkaido milk and was very light and refreshing. It was smooth like ice-cream but not thick at all, perfect for a little finale for the meal. If you pass by, do grab a cup of yogurt from this shop. You won't be disappointed.

Anyone who knows Central well will know the name Joël Robuchon. His black-and-red L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon is located on the 4/F of the Landmark in Central, and their food is superb. I have been there once to try their set lunch, and I must say that is one of the best French food I have ever had. Some of the self-acclaimed French restaurants let me down because of their strange tastes after weird and fancily meticulous preparation, or perhaps the food was just not my cup of tea. I understand that their small portions are their cuisine characteristics, but for a person like me who needs to be full in order to feel happy, French food is never something at the top of my list.

However, the lunch I had in Robuchon amazed me, and it made me so full and contented when I went back to the office. I would certainly expect the same experience from their bakery, a place I went only once when it was still under renovation before the opening.

This weekend I decided to treat myself better, and I finally went to this renowned shop, Le Salon de Thé de Joël Robuchon. I heard that their croissants were exceptional, and that would be my breakfast today. I bought one and went back to the office, and as usual, I was the first one again to be back in the office in my team.

The croissant was smaller than I expected, and also cheaper than I expected. It looked fine and delicate, and later I realized that it was actually extremely delicate. I tried to tear it off into half first instead of being rude and devouring the whole piece of bread, but it just collapsed like a piece of glass shattered on my desk!

That actually revealed how fine this croissant was. The buttery pastry was done in extraordinarily thin layers, so thin that they would break when you touched them. After finally opening up the bread, I was so surprised that it was extremely soft inside. The smell of fine bread just popped out and I couldn't help but started to finish the first half of it.

And I hate it when a croissant was too "stuffed" instead. Hey I am not eating  a peice of bread but pastry! Many of the bakery make this kind of bread, so hard, so stuffedg, no layers and no good taste and smell. And I guess that is why I never fall in love with any kind of bread in Hong Kong (alright except some Japanese ones). However, this croissant completely moved me and it was so delicious that I was hoping that I could get one more. The texture was awesome, crispy on the outside and buttery and soft inside. Each bite was like a taste of heaven!

I am never a bread lover (I know most girls are), but this wonderful pastry simply changed my mind and I will definitely visit this bakery again. They have other outstanding pastry too like the Danish pastry and bagels, and I can't wait to try them all out later. If you love breads, or if you want to have something to change your mind on bread, this is the only choice in the town.

There are many people asking me if I was spoilt, because it seems like I often visit expensive restaurants and try high-class food. That completely baffles me. First, I really don't visit expensive restaurant that often, and second, I don't need good food all over the table to call it a fabulous meal.

To me, a good dinner does not need to have all good food over the table. There should a good balance between average food and very good food, just as roses alone without any leaves won't be beautiful at all. Therefore, just normal dinner with a little excitement is more than enough for me, and so how can I be spoilt?

Tonight, I added dessert to my great dinner at home. The little box was from Mochi Cream, and it was not cheap. As the name says it all, it was a box of mochi, but interesting enough, despite the minimalistic package and branding style, this was not from Japan but from a local Hong Kong shop. Apparently I would not guess it to be as good as the real Japanese mochi, but attracted by the beautiful colors, I decided to try once.

Each mochi was contained by a little paper bag (more like a slot), because otherwise the flavour of each mochi would be all mixed up.

I tried five different flavours this time, and they include chocolate, matcha (green tea), coffee, peach and mango. I wanted to try sakura but it was all sold out. (I miss the sakura stuff in Japan!)

This made-in-Hong Kong dessert surprised me with its quality. This was not the first local mochi I tried in my life, and those I tried before usually disappointed me with their poorly made coating. Indeed, the outer skin layer is not easy to make and it is the key to a delicious mochi. It cannot be too thick, nor can it be too thin to kill the chewy texture. This one from Mochi Cream is just right, and I swear if there is no filling inside but just the skin is yummy enough to make you try a second mochi.

The matcha one tasted very good, while the chocolate one was indeed a signature flavour from this shop. The coffee mochi was okay, but the most impressive one was the peach flavour. Much of the peach-flavour food smells too artificial, but this peach smell was so natural. It was not very overwhelming at all, making this so light and perfect after dinner. I also tried the mango mochi and it was good too, with the mango being fresh inside. Then somehow I believe in what the shopkeeper said to me, "Everything here was made only several days ago and every day we have to get some new mochi directly from the factory. We throw away any mochi older than a week."

I am not really sure about the price as each mochi costs nearly the same as the smallest value meal in McDonald's, but after knowing the quality of this traditional Japanese dessert, I must say that it is worth a try. However, tonight my main course in the dessert part was not these mochi, but my favourite, custard puff!!!!

That made my day!

Right before Christmas I went to this nice Japanese place with my friend, and yes this is quite late but I finally got time to write it up.

Sushi Dokoro Matsudo is located on the 8th floor of an office tower, which is the same place where you can find the famous tonkatsu shop Tonkichi. More and more people come to this tower to look for good food but for now you won't be seeing any queues. The day we came here was the night before Christmas Eve and it was already 1930, but the shop was pretty empty with less than 10 people. It is indeed a quiet place for some wonderful Japanese food.

This restaurant gets most of the food directly from Japan, and with more than 20 kinds of Japanese wines, it is not surprising to see quite some Japanese customers here.

Even more, if you come here early in the evening, you can enjoy their sushi buffet set. For $298 a person, you can eat as much as you want, choosing from more than 30 types of sushi, together with tempura and dessert which comes with the set. Amazing!

This time we didn't do buffet since we didn't really want to stuff ourselves. Finally we settled down with one sushi set to share, adding some side dishes to complete the whole course. When we were still reading the menu, the starter was already on the table. Don't miss this very first dish of the mushroom starter. It costs HK$25! Holy! Thank God I finished off the whole thing.

The sashimi came first, and it was very fresh. We were lucky because they just had a half-price discount on this big sashimi sets. It was of medium size and already got quite some different kinds for you to have a taste of everything.

The fish sashimi was very fresh like just cut from the fish. There was no awful smell that was signature from the refrigerator. Some people did not like the fat in the sashimi but for me, that is the key thing to show how good that the sashimi is. Here, the amount of fat is just right, not too much to make you throw up and just enough to add some soft texture to the slices.

The uni (sea urchin) was remarkably good, because for many times the uni you get from other Japanese restaurants has that unpleasant fishy smell. That is the reason why I seldom have it in Hong Kong except when I am in Japan especially in Tsikiji. This time the little bowl of uni surprised me. It was just sweet and...sweet! So delicious, and the ikura creates a funny yet enjoyable mixture of tastes with the uni, since the former is salty while the latter is sweet. Wonderful.

The other non-fish sashimi was all good, and I must say that the sashimi set was a really awesome bargain. Right after finishing off the whole plate in 15 minutes, we started the hot dishes. First it was the ox tongue skewers.

To me it had a bit too much black pepper on it, overwhelming the flavour of the meat. Still it was nicely prepared and grilled to the right point. Sometimes you can get really dry skewers due to overcooking, and you can see it is not easy to do quality skewers because the chef has to constantly keep an eye on it.

Another big hot dish came, the big scallops served in butter sauce! They were HUGE!

The final dish came and it was Fried Rice with Shrimp Eggs.

This fried rice was amazingly delicious, because it looked like typical fried rice with some asparagus slices but turned out to be an extremely tasty light course in the meal! As you may know, Japanese rice is round and sticky, and it is not easy to make fried rice with it. Adding oil may help but you will need quite a lot of oil, and most importantly no one will find shiny rice appealing and delicious. This fried rice however isn't oily at all, and the combination of asparagus and shrimp eggs is very interesting. The dish is light and refreshing, but not too light that bores your taste buds. The shrimp eggs act like salt in here but tastes more than just saltiness. This is extremely well done, and is a perfect finale for this pre-Christmas dinner.

The quality of food no doubt confirms my next visit to this place, and with the quiet and relaxing ambience, this is a perfect restaurant for anyone who wants to get away from the busy city life and has some undisturbed private time for fine Japanese dining experience.

One of the best restaurants has come from Japan to Hong Kong, and it specializes in pork cutlet. This kind of food was introduced in Japan during the Meiji Period, and now it has its own style, with even better texture and quality. In Japan, pork cutlet is called tonkatsu.

The new arrival is Ginza Bairin and as the name suggests, it is from Ginza, Japan. It's quite famous in that area, and considered one of the best in pork cutlets. This time it comes to Hong Kong and we are to see if the same good taste also comes.

Unfortunately, I have not been to the Ginza one, and so I can only compare it with another cutlet place which has been established in Hong Kong for quite some time and has its own fame in this city, called Tonkichi. With its main branch set up in Causeway, you can always see a queue outside the door, and with the food gourmet Choi Lan recommending the restaurant some time ago, its booking is all full for reservation till 6 months later.

Let's start with Ginza Bairin.

This place was designed with all wood pattern and light color scheme, and was probably trying to bring back the feel of its Ginza branch. It was comfortable but I am not a fan of all those little curtains which separate the restaurant into different zones. However, they do add a little privacy to each table.

I ordered the typical tonkatsu set, which is perhaps the easiest way to know if it is really that good.

The pork was from the big black pig (黑豚) and was pretty well done. I found the texture a little rough, but the smell of pork was strong and actually quite attractive. The outer fried breaded layer was not oily, and complementing the meat inside well.

However, there was some fat in the pork and I believe it is intentional. The chef cuts each slice of meat with a little fat on one edge, where the meat is the softest with the strongest pork smell. Some people may find that unattractive, while I don't really have a problem with it since the fat area was not very big, as shown in the picture above.

One major component of the tonkatsu set is the shredded cabbage. The cabbage here was fresh but not sweet enough, and thank God the delicious plum sauce helped to bring back the good taste of the vegetable.

Then we jumped to Tonkichi. What is different here is the first dish, which is not a dish really but a bowl of sesame.

You need to pestle it into powder and add the special pork sauce. This is extremely tasty to go with the tonkatsu. Before the main course we added a little bit more, the deep-fried soft-shell crab.

Not oily at all, this crab was cooked just right. The outside was crispy with the inner being so soft and juicy. Sometimes I needed to add lemon sauce to ease the oily feeling if the crab was cooked too long, but this time I didn't need to add anything. The cutlet then followed.

Here the pork was a little thinner, but the texture much softer than the Bairin to me. While the smell of pork was a bit weaker, I found this more delicious because the thickness was just right and better to handle. The outer was also crispy and I believe both restaurants used similar breadcrumbs for the breading.

The part that made this set stand out more is the shredded cabbage. It was fresh AND very sweet, and that added an unique touch to the whole dish. Deep-fried food can be heavy if eaten too much, but with the sweet vegetable, the meal will be more well balanced and more enjoyable.

And it is amazing that even when the cutlet is just a little bit better in Tonkichi, the main reason for the win is the side dish vegetable. The wonderful tonkatsu set ended with a dish of sliced water melon, adding one more reason for our higher score on this restaurant.

It is quite obvious that the best pork cutlet from Ginza Bairin has not arrived yet from Japan, but one has to note that the win does not just come from the good tonkatsu. Good complements are always the part that qualify the meal as a complete one. That actually makes me learn something. If you need to perfect something, always look at the big picture first instead of just dwelling into details. Both the big picture and the small details count for something good. That is why a good seat, good lighting or even good service always counts for the success of a restaurant. Now I understand why someone told me this, "If you want to know how good the food is, check how the waiter serves your food first."

I finally have time to compile this list of good restaurants I went to during my trip to Japan in late October. What I have here is only good food, and while they may not be the best (since I don't know everything and there must be better stuff around), I would say that they are places worth visiting. This time I will just keep it short and quick, and include links and information for your easy reference. Enjoy!

1st November - Tokyo Korakuen 東京 後楽園
 尾道ラーメン麺一筋東口店
 東京都千代田区三崎町２丁目１−１６[ Google Map ] [ Official Site ]

It is not a high-class ramen shop, but it still has a name of its own. The noodle is definitely good, and the dumplings are nice too. For those who love spicy stuff should try their famous red ramen. It is going to burn your tongue, perfect for cold winter time.

2nd November - Tokyo Omotesando 東京表参道
とんかつ まい泉
東京渋谷区神宮前４丁目−８−５[ Google Map ] [ Official Site ]

Probably one of the best deep-fried pork cutlet shops in Japan. They have all kinds of pork for you to choose, from the typical but most delicious deep-fried pork set to rice with pork cutlet and egg on top, to pork cutlet sandwiches. The cutlet is crispy on the outside but not oily at all. With refillable rice and salad, you can be sure that you won't be able to move after the meal. A must-try for everyone, because once you try, you won't like other pork cutlets anymore.

牛タン
道玄坂センタービル Basement

I don't know the exact name for this, but this chain restaurant is specialized in beef tongue food. Their beef tongue has two sizes, thick and thin, and be sure to try the thick one. It is not expensive, but very tasty. If you need a quick but high-quality lunch, this can be your choice.

4th November - Tokyo Tsukiji
大和壽司 [ Google Map ]

There are many sushi shops in the Tsukiji Market, and everything inside is fresh and delicious. You may choose those with insanely long queues, but I think any one can do. This shop is popular but not always blocked by a huge crowd outside, and the shop is split into two rooms. Be sure to get uni (sea urchin) sushi and toro (tuna) sushi. No fishy taste but only sweet and slightly salty taste of the ocean. You won't regret it.

4th November - Tokyo Shinjuku
和幸 (新宿ミロード店)
東京都新宿区西新宿1-1-3小田急新宿ミロード8F [ Google Map ] [ Official Site ]

This chain restaurant is not extremely prestigious, and compared to Mai Sen, this is only 75/100 at most. However, the pork cutlet is still quite well done and the new pork cutlet from large black pigs is soft and very delicious. There are many branches and the one we went to is at the top floor of a department store, which is quite big and comfortable.

7th November - Tokyo Shinjuku
博多天神 (歌舞伎町一番街通り店)
新宿区歌舞伎町1-23-12 [ Google Map ]

There are many good ramen shops in Japan, and which one is good depends on your own taste. This one is famous because of their nearly white soup, which is prepared continuously for more than 40 hours. They said they never turned off the soup boiler and so you can be sure all the essence and taste are well kept in the soup. You can refill your bowl with their noodles for free if you want more, making this place the best value ramen shop in the center of Tokyo.

7th November - Tokyo Ikebukuro
麺創房無敵家
東京都豊島区南池袋1-17-1崎本ビル1F [ Google Map ] [ Official Site ]

Yes, it sounds like many ramen shops are already very good in Japan, but after trying this one, you will know what is the best. This place is considered as one of the rare 9-star holder in the country (10 is the full score), and their noodle, I must say, is exceptional. You can smell the egg flavour from the noodle of the person next to you, isn't that a bit crazy? Yes, it is. A must-go place for anyone who loves ramen, and no worry, there is always a queue outside their shops, so just line up and enjoy it.

7th November - Tokyo Shibuya
鳥良 手羽先唐揚専門店
東京都渋谷区道玄坂2-29-8道玄坂センタービル6F [ Google Map ] [ Official Site ]

One of the famous places in Japan which specializes in chicken wings. This is not just typical chicken wings like you can eat from your own kitchen, but BBQ skewer type. I tried and I must say I never had such good wings before. They have more than just wings, like what I showed here in the photos (yeah, we ate a lot!!!) From left to right: 1) starter, which is assorted mushroom slices; 2) dark sugar apple vinegar drink; 3) smooth tofu: extremely delicious tofu that you cannot taste the tofu but soy beans! That means it is so raw and so natural, and smooth like silk!); 4) chicken wings, the key of the whole meal; 5) chicken cartilage skewers; 6) chicken ramen; 7) chicken kidney skewers (not sliced up but whole ones); 8) chicken rice bowl with egg. Reservation is preferred or else you will need to wait for at least 2 hours for dinner.

8th November - Tokyo Shinjuku
MUJI Cafe [ Google Map ] [ Official Site ]

We tried this cafe on the last day of our trip, and they have the most declious light meals I have ever had. This MUJI place is decorated in their own style, no doubt, and all the food advocates a healthy and light lifestyle. What we had includes red rice with Japanese curry, assorted food lunch set and one caramel cappuccino. If you had too much calory in your trip, try this place to balace off your diet a little bit. If you want to bring some of their food home, no problem, just visit their shop above the cafe, and you will see all the food and drinks packaged nicely in minimistic design. Then you can replicate the food yourself and enjoy the same taste at your own place.

That's all for now. Stay tuned for the next blog on desserts and cakes!

Last year when Michelin unleashed its stars on the selected Hong Kong restuarants, much controversy prevailed in the town criticizing the fact that most of the awarded places were either western restaurants or expensive hotel places. Of course, not many people can spend a lot on one dish, but the truth is that Hong Kong is filled with so many international cuisines and seriously, some small and traditional shops do much better food.

Lung King Heen is located at Four Seasons, and it was the only restaurant awarded three stars in the Michelin food guide in 2009, and it still keeps the three stars for 2010 (while the other of the two three-star awards is Caprice, which is the French restaurant in Four Seasons). There is no doubt that this is an expensive Chinese restaurant, but I read reviews that the food is good too. I am testing it myself today.

The place was really beautiful, and all the details were taken with good care. The menu, the little flower pot and even the teapot were specially designed.

We started the lunch, or yumcha in precise terms, with this dimsum, steamed rice rolls. But instead of the typical beef or roasted pork or shrimp filling, this one had lobster meat inside.

I would not say that this was good just because it used some high-class ingredients, but this was quite nice. The roll was not thick but very chewy, and the lobster was nicely prepared too. However, I still prefer the original beef or roasted pork rice rolls because those are paste-like meat or very thin slices, and that actually fits better inside the roll. The lobster here are big chops and when you eat it, it moves inside the roll and finally falls apart.

Then it was the Tarts with Salmon and Cheese. Yeah, it was a strange dish.

It was clearly a fusion type of food, and if it was not my friend, I would not pick this one. The tarts were just so-so, probably because the salmon and cheese just didn't go well with the tart outer. After that one typical dim sum came, the shui mai.

There couldn't be any surprise from this dish I guess, and yes it was typical but at least it was well done and had real shrimps inside. There are many other restaurants only using pork and shrimp paste to make shui mai, but original shui mai actually has real and whole shrimps inside, and is always the best.

This looked very ordinary too, but turned out to be a little sweet surprise. This was the Mini Pineapple Buns with Roasted Pork Filling. The top was crispy and there were quite some filling inside instead of big empty space. Tasty.

This is the Shrimp Dumplings. I love the wrapper which was so thin as you can see from the photo. You may not know but the wrapper is actually the part that decides whether the dumpling is good or not. It should not be too thick and it should be translucent. It is thin but should not break easily, and should be chewy too.

The Vegetarian Buns came, which was pretty ordinary.

The most special dim sum came last, and it was the Baked Whole Abalone Puffs with Diced Chicken.

The "abalone" tasted really good and it was a real abalone on top! I don't know whether it was only illusion to say it was good, because everyone would agree that anything with things like abalone or shark fins would become high-class delicious food. In any case, just talking about the texture and taste, this puff was very well done. Nothing was overcooked and each ingredient did not overwhelm each other in the taste.

The dessert was a complimentary item, and it turned out to be a little disappointing. The two kinds of desserts were small sachima and coconut cakes. They were both tasty but not special at all, more like just up to typical standard.

The second dish of dessert was a complete letdown, because it was Sweet Osmanthus Cakes (or Guihua Cake), but the flower flavour was not strong at all. It tasted more like mango jelly, and even the colors suggested that. It was really poor to me, as I don't think such Chinese dessert could go wrong in such a prestigious Chinese restaurant.

In general, the food is above average, but is not extremely good and memorable like Michelin would say about it. The service is the key to its success. When I just walked in, several waiters came and served me, putting our bags and coats into place. They were more than happy to explain each item in the menu for you, and if you wanted to change a dish after ordering, the staff wouldn't complain at all. I believe that is the major reason why it was awarded three stars in the Michelin guide, and why it can keep it for two years.

If you wanted some extraordinary Chinese food, you might find some here in the menu but don't expect everything to be good. There are other places I would recommend you instead. if you want unbeatable service and beautifully decorated modern place on a relaxing weekend day, then this is a good choice. You know what I mean.

It has been some time to update my blog and yes, work is killing me while I am preparing for my exam too. I just have so much to do! Well, I have been to some cool places and I only stop writing about them because of my work. Now I got a little time and so here we go.

Inaniwa udon is one of the most high-class udon in Japan, and it is different from the typical udon you may see in supermarkets or restaurants. Inaniwa udon is thin noodle and a little translucent (not completely translucent but a little more than the typical thick udon). It can be served both hot and cold, and when it is served cold, the sauce becomes very important because while it has to be good flavour, it cannot be too overwhelming to cover up the wheat smell of the udon.

We went to this restaurant which was recently opened in Elements. Even the name suggests that it is a place for good Inaniwa udon. This time we tried both the hot and cold udon and also some of the popular Japanese snacks, and perhaps we could go straight to the food. The first dish was Cold Duck Breast Slices.

I couldn't guess how good this dish was. It looked so ordinary to me, like only slices of meat with soy sauce, but I was wrong. It turned out to be very delicious. It was very light, both the meat and sauce. I never like mustard and so I skipped it and only ate the slices with the spring onion on the top. Surprisingly they actually went well with each other!

The thrill didn't last long though. The tempura came and it was really ordinary.

At least it was not very oily, and thank God the shrimps were big and very fresh, or else I would just leave the whole thing aside. It didn't surprise me at all except the size.

The octopus cake soon arrived, which turned out to be another delicious dish instead of another letdown. There were tiny slices of octopus inside instead of pulverized octopus meat, and it didn't have the disturbing fishy smell, very well done I must say!

And remember to have it with the ginger in the dish.

The dishes were served quite fast, and when we just went halfway on the small starters, the udon came in. First it was my sister's BBQ smoked eel on Inaniwa udon in soup.

Just the look of it made people drool. The eel was fat and good, but I wasn't sure if it went well with soup udon as I thought it was best with rice. Anyway, my sister didn't stop eating once she started, and I guess that was a sign of approval. Then, the cold udon with American Angus beef and salad arrived.

It looked very much like a western dish, like a bowl of salad. I though expected that because that was what the menu said! Perhaps you can already guess right about the taste of this one, and it is only so-so. Of course, not all fusion stuff can be done properly and well besides inspiring others.

And beware, there was a huge block of wasabi on the top, and you may miss it as it hides in the green vegetable. If you accidentally mix everything so well, you're done.

Then, the best of the meal was here. It was the signature cold Inaniwa udon served with three sauces. The middle one is actually the key of the whole set, which is hot Iwate duck sauce.

And it was extremely delicious! It didn't have toppings or meat or vegetable on it, but it allowed you to enjoy the true and pure taste of the udon. You don't pour the sauce into the noodle, but instead, you pick a little udon and dip it into the sauce and eat it.

The sauce was prepared from duck meat from Iwate, Japan. The meat was fried and then allowed to cool for several hours before being cooked into sauce. You could smell the wonderful duck meat from the sauce and it went so well with the udon.

The udon was superb too. It was not thick like the typical udon, and perhaps even thinner than the typical ramen. The texture was very special, like it was very brittle but also very chewy once in your mouth. The noodle was shiny and translucent, and just that appearance you could guess this was high-quality food. It amazes me to realize that all Inaniwa udon is prepared with hands instead of machine-made, and you can imagine the great effort and skills of the chefs.

This was a very good dinner and I would definitely come back again later. There are some other dishes like the famous teriyaki and egg blocks, but still the udon is the main reason for my revisit. I actually knew about Inaniwa udon already during my trip to Japan in late October, and when I was in Akita, I bought some Inaniwa udon already. This was what it was like, all made in Japan, haha:

And I prepared a quick meal with it one day, with some tasty scallops from Japan too:

That made my day, really.

The three-day holiday finally started on Saturday, and it was like the most anticipated event this month for me. C'mon, a long holiday! I can't stay in the office like forever and I seriously think that is a like a torture for anyone in the world.

Maybe I don't like my job. Actually, it is the personnel thing.

Anyway, on Saturday my girlfriend and I were wandering in Harbour City, and were thinking about where to have lunch. She suddenly recalled a restaurant at the end of this linear mall, and we headed towards that to see what was there.

Bubbles Bar at Marco Polo Prince Hotel is an interesting restaurant with its one side open to the shopping mall. It was not very big, but the overall environment was surprisingly elegant and relaxing even when there are quite some people passing by the restaurant entrance. We chose a table right open to the mall, we ordered two lunch sets from the short menu.

The food came after a rather long wait, but it looked like the wait was worth it. The Chowder soup with fish was unbelievably good, because I never expected this common type of soup to be this tasty. It was not too thick, and there were quite some fish and vegetable inside too instead of just flour and cream. I must say I love this soup very much, seriously.

My main course was a simple tortellini with poached egg on top, while my lady had roasted pork ribs with blackberry sauce.

The tortellini looked very creamy and thick, but it was not that heavy actually. The poached egg was a little surprise because it was actually very light even with the yolk, and created a wonderful balance with the creamy pasta. The roasted pork was not bad, but a little less creative and special. Still, it was well done. The spotlight was the pork but don't miss the vegetable: very fresh!

The dessert was parfait with black truffle and vanilla cream. On the side was a pistachio macaroon.

This was a very light dessert and the whole thing was filled with the smell of black truffle. Macaroons to me are very sweet cookies that can only go with bitter coffee, and I did hesitate when I saw this on the dish. It turned out to be incredibly light and not overwhelmingly sweet, and went so well with the parfait! I was so surprised by this dessert, which was an excellent finale for the lunch set.

I must say this lunch was remarkable well done and seriously I never expected such food quality in this tiny restaurant. This is definitely a must-visit place if you are looking for a quiet, comfortable and slow meal. The menu is not long but filled with high-quality food, and the sets are not expensive at all. I would definitely come back!

Burgers are everywhere in Hong Kong. When many of the chain fast-food restaurants are prevailing, people only know burgers from, say, McDonald's. Recently some others came to this city to promote "better burgers" or more US-style burgers, and they include Triple O's and the recently back Burger King. However, the best burgers happen to be in some small shops. One of them is Shake'em Buns.

The small shop is located in Ship Street, right at the street level of J Senses. The shop was renovated like a cowboy age dining place, with wooden chairs and cowboy fonts. I love the board writing "beer is the only reason to wake me up in the afternoon." The menu is very funny too, with all the names of burgers converted into strange terms like "Gang Bang" and "Tokyo Drip". Usually this place is filled with people during weekday lunch time, and thank God today is Saturday, and my friend and I easily got a table by the door side.

Quickly we settled down with our bun choices, and got ready to "shake" them. My "Ivana Vanilla" came first, and it is actually coconut vanilla milkshake with some pineapple inside. Yummy.

"Debbie Does Dallas" was a typical burger with beef and bacon inside. It just looked so juicy!

And my "Hawaii Surfer Girl" arrived on the table. As you can guess right, this is a Hawaii burger, with a slice of pineapple inside, so good!

My friend was completely over his burger and couldn't help but ordered another one for a second organsm. He got a "Tokyo Drip" which had mushrooms inside.

These burgers were exceptionally good. The beef is very thick and juicy, unlike those you got from McDonald's which were just dry and thin. The burgers had a big layer of veggie, and I think that's very important for a tasty burger. Why? Because the meat may not be very juicy, and the bun must be dry, and adding them up will make a burger hard to swallow. The vegetable inside would balance the texture well and also add a fresh layer between the meat and sauces.

Another thing is that each special burger only has one or two features, instead of adding many new "surprises" inside. For example, the Tokyo Drip only has mushrooms as extra, while Hawaii has pineapple. That's it. Some places stuff burgers with many types of things to make them "special" and "amazing", and that just fails. You won't be able to taste anything in the end!

There is no doubt for me to rate this pace as the top burger room in the town. Only here can you enjoy burgers in a fine way, not like stuffing yourself with burgers in 10 minutes at McDonald's. Different, very different. It may not be easy to imagine any "fine" fast food, but try it here at Shake'em Buns. You will change your mind.

When you see something for many times, or visit a place for many times, you will very likely take it for granted. You simply won't appreciate them anymore.

Kiku is located in the basement of Landmark, Central, and quite some people in my office go there for lunch or dinner. Many of them would say that Kiku is good, but actually, it is a place more than good. Here you will find some of the best sushi and smoked eel in the town.

Today, I came back in search for some Japanese delicacies, and actually, I just needed their extremely good smoked eel. My friend's lunch came first, and it was a grilled beef lunch set which also included four slices of sashimi.

It looked really nice. The beef here was quite good too, but mine would be even better. My set was all about this big bottle gourd container.

And yeah, that's it! There were actually three layers and I will reveal them one by one. The top was the sashimi starter, four slices of fresh sashimi (haha, yes, the same as the beef lunch set one )...

Then the second layer is another starter dish, but hot. It included two fish cake slices and a slice of corn. The corn looked dry but turned out to be quite watery and sweet inside. Really interesting texture I must say. Excuse me for the bad shot...

And finally the bottom layer was the main course, the smoked eel!

The smoked eel was delicious! It was so thick, and very fatty too. That was just rich! The BBQ sauce went so well with the fish, and it was particularly good because the fish was meaty. Sometimes you may have skinny eel and no matter how good the sauce is, it just fails because you can't feel anything in the mouth. Another thing is that the grill was very well done. If it was overcooked, the eel inside would be very dry. This one was just right, a little crispy outside with the burnt smell, while the inside was juicy and soft. That's what I call good smoked eel!

Sometimes when we eat something too frequently, we tend to lose the basic appreciation to things and take things for granted. So it is a good idea to stop that, and have a taste of excellent food after some time, and learn how to slowly taste the details of the food. Only in that way can you pick up the magic taste and enjoy the food again.

Caprice is one of the seven restaurants in Hong Kong to receive two prestigious Michelin stars. Actually, before the Michelin award, I have been dreaming of visiting this beautiful French restaurant at Four Seasons led by Chef Vincent Thierry who comes from the Four Seasons in Paris. Today I am so excited to finally try out their ultra-fine delicacy.

The place is beautifully designed, and of course the view is awesome as it is right next to the Central pier. Over the harbour you can see the West Kowloon side, though it is still a piece of undeveloped land (I hope they can really do some nice architecture there). I love all the details in the restaurants, from the little chair for your bags to the tidy marks on the utensils. All of them are very carefully designed and set up.

Right at the moment when we sat down, we got the menus and the little starter bread.

And the bread came too, which was very crispy on the outside and soft inside. It was served warm too.

They had complimentary wine for any lunch set these days, but both of us got some fresh juice instead because we didn't feel like alcoholic today. Mine was a mango juice.

And I love that salt dish (instead of a little salt bottle). Everything looks so beautiful that you just love to be in this place even for only a little meal.

The appetizers came quickly after we finished the bread. I got the Alaskan king crab salad with vegetable macédoine in tarragon sauce, while my lady got a Charolais beef Carpaccio served with ratatouille with arugula leaves and Parmesan cheese. Just plain awesome food!

And the main courses followed. She got herself a simple but tasteful grouper fillet on citrus emulsion with watermelon and honeydew melon, while mine was Australian lamb rack with green asparagus and quinoa in nut brown jus.

I have never tried quinoa (藜麥) before but I found that it had really interesting texture, and made a good companion with the lamb. The menu said it was a nut-brown jus, but turned out it was pumpkin purée. Both dishes were very well done. The lamb was so good that even its fatty part, which I usually throw away, was delicious.

We didn't plan to have the dessert at the beginning but since we were here, we decided to have a try especially after seeing their pretty dessert cart! The cart came and there were six kinds of dessert for us to choose. Each of us was allowed to choose three out of six and that means we could try all of them in the end. And we did, haha!

That was my lady's choice, which were a small jar of chocolate cream, strawberry macaroon and poached pear Napoleon with cream. Mine included a passion fruit tart, a brownie with caramel mousse on top, and a Speculos biscuit with lemon and chocolate custard on top.

The coffee was served as the finale of this great meal. There shouldn't be any surprises but I found one: the milk for the coffee was warm! I have never been to a place where the milk for coffee was warmed up for serving. I appreciate that so much because they took care of such a tiny detail. If the milk is not warm or hot, your coffee will be cooled when you pour the milk into it.

Even the sugar cup was very pretty. The sugar blocks inside were like rocks, really, rocks.

This is of course very fine dining experience, but the price is not exorbitantly expensive. The food in general was very good and beautifully crafted, but the dessert is still a bit behind that in Mandarin Oriental. It is not easy to find good French food that fits the taste of Hong Kong people, because some of them will need a little fusion from Chinese cuisine in order to enjoy the food completely. This restaurant does not offer any fusion food but all the dishes are light and refreshing while maintaining their original flavours and special textures, and so I believe everyone will find the food here enjoyable.

I must agree with the two stars awarded to this restaurant by Michelin, and I would definitely recommend Caprice to anyone who wants to enjoy innovative contemporary French food in comfortable ambiance with superb views over the harbour. I am sure you would love it.

Gyn Jin is the place you should go to if you are looking for some unlimited beef as your lunch or dinner. After paying HK$70, you can eat as much beef as you want in an hour. If you don't think you can finish them within the given time, just pay HK$30 more and you can finish your meal in 90 minutes.

The beef I talked about here is not steak, but hot pot style. Hot pot is one of the popular eating cultures in Hong Kong, and in the past, when the weather was just a bit cold like in autumn, people would love to go and have hot pot. Now, you don't need to wait for the cool weather as air conditioning sets up the perfect environment for hot pots at any time.

After sitting down, the timer started and the waiter immediately set up a big hot pot with typical soup inside.

Each table would have one dish of beef and pork each, and of course the beef (first image down there) was the leading role in this meal. The second image is pork.

And cooking in action...

Since the beef and pork were already sliced into very thin pieces, you can just dip your beef into the soup for 10 seconds and it is ready. Beef actually does not need to be completely cooked (as you know, steak can be rare or medium), but pork must be cooked thoroughly to kill any parasites inside.

The beef was not bad, and the texture of the beef was okay too. Since this was a buffet set, the beef was not the highest class one. Best beef was the the one with beautiful white pattern like snow, like granite patterns. As you can see from the picture, the beef we got was not bad with a bit fat (or "snowflake" they usually say) but the second dish of beef we got later had very little fat. Maybe that is good to health but that would be a bit too chewy.

The pork was just so-so because of the heavy fat layer. Some people would say the fatty layer would a good thing in pork since that would help ease the rough feeling in the mouth. I don't know but the taste and texture of the pork was just okay.

In general it was not a bad lunch and with this attractive promotion, it seems to be a good value meal. However, if you are looking for some really serious beef hot pot, I would recommend other places to you.

This little shop with wood cladded facade is located at the corner of Tsing Fung Street, Tin Hau, right under a flyover. It may not have the best sushi in the town, but definitely one of the best in that local area. I am not sure about what the others wrote on the popular Hong Kong food website Openrice.com, but I must say that the food here in Etsu Sushi isn't bad at all. I guess some of them just don't know how to eat or appreciate good food.

Anyway, when you go into the sushi shop, the first thing you can see is a glass box with something moving inside, and they are...

Yes! If you order one of their crab dishes, the chef will grab some of these crabs from the glass box and fry them! But we didn't order anything like that, as we believe good sushi and noodle will be fine. The starter was some sweet lotus root slices...

And soon the sushi arrived. We got sushi of scallops (hotategai 帆立貝), salmon, sweet Botan shrimp (botan ebi 牡丹蝦) and the fatty bluefin tuna (toro 拖羅).

The shrimp ones were very good, and I seldom see such a big and meaty shrimp! The big head part was taken out and made as soup for us, so that you could get all the essence from the shrimp.

Then the skewers came. We got two, one is the ox tongue and another chicken cartilage. The first one was very well done with the amount of salt just right, or else the seasoning would overwhelm the taste of the whole thing. The chicken one was just so-so. Now, the main courses started. The first one was the clams boiled in sake soup.

Oh my god, it is not easy to find such big clams with so much meat inside! This was just awesome and the sake penetrated completely into the clams and you can taste the clams, the sake and also the sea water too! That means the clams were fresh not refrigerated. Nice! Next one was the hot pot with beef and vegetables. Not a very surprisingly good pot but it wasn't bad either.

The hot pot was part of a small set we ordered, which also included a dish of chicken slices made with Hokkaido milk sauce.

I thought it was very special as the name suggested, but it turned out to be just a creamy sauce chicken thing. Finally the set was completed with a bowl of cold udon served with tempura.

The noodle was only so-so, but the tempura was well done. It was not very oily and the shrimp and vegetable used were fresh stuff. I went to another Japanese restaurant some days ago and the udon was better and so I wouldn't give a high score for this one.

In general, the food was all above average, with the sushi and clams being the best. This meal was not cheap and one may get something in similar quality with a lower price. However, if you are looking for a quieter place, away from the busy city center, this is not a bad option. This place also serves quite a big collection of sake and Japanese wines, and if you like to eat with some alcohol, Etsu Sushi would be one of your options.

The House of Jasmine (link to OpenRice.com) is one of the modernized or westernized Chinese restaurants in Hong Kong. Usually, many restaurants these days are renovated or modernized to attract more customers but the food quality may just be the same as before. It can be tempting to go inside and eventually you have to pay more for the still-the-same-average-quality food just because of the new decorations.

I went there for a relaxing lunch with my girlfriend after hearing some positive comments from our friends, and we hoped that the lunch was not just about the beautiful interior design. Surprisingly, the food was much better than I expected.

We ordered just dim sums without any big dishes (if you have more than 3 people, usually you have some dim sums first, and then order one or two big dishes like fried rice or noodle). The first dim sum arrived after 15-minute waiting, and it was the buns, the Buns with Molten Cream and Egg York Filling (奶皇包).

The inside was really molten, as it just spilled out and hurt you fi you were not careful enough. The filling was so creamy and smooth, well done! In some average restaurants, you might even get solid filling instead of molten due to the lack of skills, and so it is not easy to find a place with molten filling buns.

Then the Mini Rice Bucket (迷你桶飯) came.

Not bad, but something better arrived at the same time.

From the top they were Fried Rice Dumplings (鹹水角), Shao mai (燒賣) and Steamed Rice Rolls with Shrimps (腸粉). Yes, there is no exact English name for the second one and I have no idea how to describe them in taste, haha! Anyway, the rice rolls are delicious, as the rice layer outside was not too thick while the inside are fresh whole shrimps! And that is the first time I have seen such a plate holding the rolls, with three slots for each, interesting!

We also ordered a very interesting dim sum called Abalone Dumplings (飽魚餃), and in the past people did this in the shape of abalone so that the poor people could also enjoy "high-class food" in a cheap place! Today, the dumplings do have abalone slices inside, and the sauce is also made of abalones. Tasty!

Finally, the dessert came. The Egg Tart with Bird Nest (燕窩蛋撻) was a little bit fancy but it was not as good as we expected because of the fact that it was not hot enough when served. However, the pastry part was good and there was quite some bird nest on it. You know, in cheap restaurants you would be given only a tiny bit...

It has been some time since I have such a high-quality Chinese lunch, and I must say I am very satisfied. Together with the good service, I recommend  this place to anyone who is interested in Chinese restaurant and who is picky at eating environments.

One of the strangest shops in Hong Kong is definitely this cake shop. You go inside, there is nothing but three white walls around you with the big name Awfully Chocolate in front of you. There is one counter, and if you don't see the picture next to it, you will never know that this shop actually sells chocolate cakes and ice-cream. And yes, NOTHING is in the shop, not even one cake until you buy one and then the lady will show you a real cake from their shelves.

Originated from Singapore, the founder of this strangely designed shop is actually a couple of lawyers. The two people decided to leave the law field and started this shop in 1999, and immediately became the talk of the town. Now, you can find this shop from Singapore to Taiwan to Hong Kong.

Inside, you can only see one menu, and you can only find the prices in the name cards. There is no display at all, just one ice-cream counter with only one kind of ice-cream inside. They only sell three kinds of chocolate cakes, namely the All Chocolate Cake, Chocolate Banana Cake and Chocolate Rum & Cherry Cake. That's right, there are only four products, and all of them are made with pure dark chocolate.

And you cannot buy one slice. You have to buy the WHOLE cake. Wow.

Seriously, that is the first time I have seen a shop with such strong personality, from design to the products it makes. Tonight I was feeling a bit low, and I wanted some chocolate to cheer me up. Suddenly I remember this shop in one of the magazines (not ads because Awfully Chocolate never does ads as the founder believed that good things need no advertising) and tonight I decided to visit the white shop for a scoop of chocolate ice-cream.

And I saw a special promotion, buy one cake get a free scoop. So, why not? I got an All Chocolate Cake. First, I finished the whole scoop of ice-cream in the shop. Wow, just smooth and good! Very chocolate! You don't feel like eating ice-cream but really molten chocolate, but it is not that overwhelming, not too sweet or bitter. Just right! I love the cup they use for the ice-cream too! Here it is:

And now we start to go ahead with the cake!

And unboxing...

Wow! The chocolate is so rich and it is just mouth-watering! I am sure that any chocolate lovers cannot resist this!

I must say that this is one of the best chocolate cakes I have ever had. The reason is simple, it is rich but to the point that you can taste the chocolate and the cake. Sometimes, some cakes are too rich in chocolate that you can only taste the sweetness, which forces you to drink tons of water. This one has no such bad effect. Everything is very well balanced.

The cream of chocolate is very well done as it is smooth but not too soft like whipped cream. That fits well with spongy cake! Surprisingly, this cake is not heavy at all. Instead, it is light with all the chocolate cream around it, awfully well done I must say!

Let me tell you, I can finish this in less than three days! Finally a truly good chocolate cake place I will go from time to time!

The Mandarin Cake Shop in Mandarin Oriental is famous for their exceptional quality in their cakes, as one will immediately agree after seeing the decorative cake creations resembling LV bags and wedding gowns displayed at the entrance.

Wednesday was a lucky day for me to try some chocolate delicacy from their cake counter, while it was also a sad day too. My boss was leaving the team and so we bought some cakes as farewell after-lunch dessert to thank him for all the teaching and guidance. I guess everything would be fine, even though we knew in our heart that the team would have quite some tough moments in the coming years without a true leader.

This is a food blog and so we are to talk about cakes here instead of "mourning". We bought five cakes and all of them were from the chocolate counter (by the way the shop has some really delicious hot chocolate drinks, which look like chocolate sauce actually, ha). The first cake was black, and in no way did it resemble a chocolate cake. It was a passion-fruit chocolate cake, with layers of chocolate and passion fruit cake inside.

Then it was the chocolate mousse cake and the Sacher cake. The latter one was very good probably because of the crispy layer at the bottom!

Finally here come the chocolate mousse cup and dark chocolate mousse cake.

All of them were not cheap, but the quality was very high. The mousse was very smooth while the sweetness was just right not too much to overwhelm the other tastes.

No departure is happy as a matter of fact, but we hope that the cakes would lessen the bitterness. Maybe my boss is right, as he said, "C'mon I am not dying!" The reason why it is hard to accept is that he was the spirit of the team. We realize that it is not just good work or job nature that unites a team, but the joy and fun we shared over the years. That is why we are so different from other teams in the office.

I wish you all the good luck, my boss. We will meet again, I am sure, in the future!

Wow, I am actually writing backwards. A week ago, I went to this western restaurant with my friends to celebrate the birthday of one of them. This was not my first time here but second time, and I remember it was pretty nice on my first visit. We didn't eat much but everything was nice.

First we had some bread, like typical western course. The bread was crispy outside but it was a little too...how do you say, too chewy. It is a bit hard to swallow...

Then the pizza arrived. It was a Traditional Italian Pizza with spicy sausage, pineapple and tomato as toppings. However, I have no idea how traditional it was, and I will know later since I am going to Italy soon, haha!

We also ordered some escargots and fettuccine with black truffle and mushroom slices. Both of them were nice though not special or wowing.

We also ordered a dish of steak but we were too hungry it seemed like, and we just swallowed it when it arrived before we realized I needed to shoot a picture of it...anyway, we also had some drinks. I got a champagne cocktail while our pretty lady friend got a Snowball herself.

Overall the food was good and nice, and the price was not too unaffordable. The quality was above average and the service was good. However, there was nothing special in the menu, as you could find similar food in other restaurants. It will be better, I think, if they have something special, or invent something so that you can only eat here. That would give a stronger impression.

Still not a bad choice at all for some western food, especially for those who are too bored by the food from Fat Angelo or Dan Ryan's.

I have no idea why the owner of this restaurant named it "Sportful Garden Restaurant". Maybe it was supposed to be "thoughtful"? I don't know, but this Chinese restaurant, even with a strange name, is quite famous in the town.

Having 8 branches all over the island and Kowloon sides, the restaurant is famous for some high-quality cuisines, which are mainly Guangdong food. There are some fusion dishes as well, but that is not surprising since Hong Kong is an international city with so many cultures mixed together like a dish of fried rice. Anyway, tonight we went there to celebrate my mum's birthday, and it was a pretty nice dinner set. Let's zoom in!

The dinner started with the shark fin soup with crab meat and fish maw slices (花膠). Unlike those in other restaurants, this soup was filled with shark fins and was actually a bit "fishy". I guess that proved it was real shark fins, right?

Then it was a combo set, with abalone and duck foot (鴨掌; shouldn't be duck web 蹼, which refers to the membrane not the whole foot).

Then we had some vegetable. What do you think it is? It is called "tung hau" (茼蒿). It has no English name but a Latin name called Chrysanthemum coronarium. It tastes like amaranth (or pigweed 莧菜) with a strong and strange smell. Yes, from the name you can see that it is a kind of chrysanthemum and you cannot imagine that it tastes like this.

Following the green dish we had the Swiss wing with glutinous rice filling. Of course, as you know that Swiss wings have nothing to do with Switzerland. This dish looks very delicious, and it was actually quite filling. The BBQ eel slices also came. They were very crispy and the taste was very good, but I think they were a bit overcooked.

The final dish in our main course was the tiger pawn. It was quite big and very juicy.

There was no rice for me this time, and I thought I would get hungry soon since I am the kind of people who need to have rice for every meal. But it looked like I didn't need more since the meal was pretty rich in flavour and that made you stop eating anything more. However, despite the fullness ,the dessert was a nice finale for the meal. It was the coconut cake with bird nest.

It was a great dinner but to me everything is a bit too rich for me. It seems to be a kind of once-in-a-while thing instead of an every-day meal. Anyway, if anyone wants to have some nice and decent Guangdong food, this will be one of your options.

Yes, I was trying to say quench your thirst, but it is a play on words. Today I finally got the beautiful Angel's Cake from Maxim bakery, and it is actually just a honey crunch angel food cake. A crunch cake is only a simple cake with cream outside, served with caramel crunch. An angel food cake is a kind of cake with a hole in the middle, which was said to be the food for angels due to its light color.

And I think that is beautiful isn't it? It is so yummy that I cannot stop eating it till all the crunch melts in my mouth! Okay, the crunch cannot really melt, but it is delicious!

Me and my girlfriend went to Starbucks at least once a month and we ordered this every time when it was available in the beginning of the year. It was very good too. My best experience with crunch cake was at Sevva. One slice of that crunch cake was quite big and also pretty expensive, costing HK$166 which is more than enough to buy the cake in the images above!

Anyway, if you have a chance, try it! It is light and simple, but delicious enough to make you dream of it every night! Haha!

Some people was asking, hey, what are you eating lately? Did you swallow any good food?

Actually, you don't need to go to all the high-class restaurant for good food. You can do it at home! I am lucky that I have a very good chef, who is my beloved mum. She does really good dishes and she can make that dish again after trying it from the restaurants! Tonight, we had an amazing dinner, and let me show you what we have:

The main course is the soy-sauced baby pigeons. It is a very common dish in Hong Kong, and they taste delicious! They are served with soy sauce and usually sliced into four parts for easy eating.

Then we have some oysters. They are small oysters from Japan, but they have very strong flavour. You can even taste a bit of sea water too!

I added a bit more food to the meal. I bought these two from the supermarket, which are the Japanese-style eel with BBQ sauce and salmon sashimi. They are very nice side dishes!

So you can see, good food can also be prepared at home, and it needs only a bit more work. Yes, I am lucky because I am not the one cooking, but I am learning! It is actually fun to work in the kitchen, learning about the food and how to turn them into delicacies. By the way, I haven't made a cake for a long time! I guess I should try again this weekend!

Last night we went to this sushi shop, which got famous when it was still in Yuen Long, the far-away-from-city-center new town. Now it started to grow and opened a few new branches, and we finally came to this new one in TST.

It was actually a special day for my best friend, and I didn't want to ruin his birthday dinner. Unfortunately I saw some negative comments on the web on this restaurant, and that killed a little bit of my appetite. Thank God it was more about services, and then I was prepared. Let's go to the sushi!

The famous sushi here is the long sushi, invented by the owner of this restaurant. They made this up because they thought they could wrap the whole rice with just one single sashimi, and enjoy the whole taste of the fish on it.

The sushi was okay, not to the level that I could scream. The fish was also fresh, but not incredible fresh. The experience of being long? Just so-so. It sounds a bit better if you can eat it in another way: cut the fish at the top to half, then eat it as one sushi with one sashimi. After all, most of the people don't have such a big mouth to swallow the entire thing.

I personally like the smoked eel most, but the salmon was not bad. Still, everything was typical in taste, not enough to stimulate my taste buds to the climax.

We also ordered two hand rolls, one is the roll with deep-fried oyster, one with foie gras and sea urchin sashimi on top.

I ate the latter one (focused one in the image), and the taste was funny. The foie gras was good and the urchin was okay, but then they were mixed together, the combination tasted funny in the mouth. Not bad, just funny. At least, the foie gras was really fried and hot. I would throw up if both toppings were raw. Just too weird, right?

Then two hot dishes arrived. First one is the small beef sashimi, and the second one is baked mushroom with butter.

The first one was not good at all. I guess it was too raw that it was too hard to chew and swallow. The taste was not bad but when it felt like chewing gum after some time in the mouth, you just wouldn't like it. The mushroom was okay, just a bit too salty to me.

Overall, the meal was average, and I didn't see why there were long queues before. One can find much better sushi in the town! Perhaps it is the price, since we just ended up HK$200 per person. If you need some casual Japanese food without much expectation, this may be a choice for you. Interesting enough, there are other things in the menu which are completely non-Japanese: cappuccino puddings, lamp chops...guess if you have a friend who hate Japanese food, he can still order something in here, haha!

Right at the time I knew my best friend Alonzo was back from Japan, I immediately grabbed him for a quick lunch. He is a charming guy and we have so much fun and laughter together. We went to this Vietnamese restaurant hidden away from the busy center of Causeway Bay. Alonzo led me to here after walking along some narrow alleys and strange catchwater.

The little shop, called Locomotive Contemporary Vietnamese Cuisine, can only hold 40 people at most, but it is not very cramped as they also have big sofas and pocket seating. Looking at the menu, it was not very cheap at all, and so we tried one or two plates and tried to see how worthy the food could be.

First it was the rice paper rolls, which had pork, spring onion and some other mixes inside. It was not bad, especially when you eat it with a sweet sauce that comes with it.

Then my main course came. It was another "pho" like the previous blog you saw, with all the beef stuff inside. The main feature of this pho is its size! It is just HUGE! I can nearly put my head into the bowl!

I read a lot of negative comments on this restaurant in Openrice.com, the website that most of the HK people go to and leave comments. However, while it is not a very high-class or famous eating place, it is not bad to me. The food was tasty while the side dishes were nicely prepared too. I can only say that the Internet has a lot of people who don't really know how to eat but how to type only. So most of those comments could just be disregarded.

Anyway, if you are around in that corner of the city and looking for some big bowls with good flavour, I think this is not a bad choice at all. If you don't mind walking more and paying more, I of course would recommend you to just visit the core of Causeway Bay where you can find a lot more decent restaurants!

My lunch didn't end with a nice cup of coffee. It was too hot outside and so I got this new product from Starbucks : Blackberry Mocha Frappuccino. Not very special to me but at least keep me cool!

I was always planning a dinner with my family at the beginning of the year but it was postponed several times for different reasons. Finally, our family dinner became true and I chose the newly open BLT Steak as the venue.

The opening of this New York based steak house marks the arrival of the French chef Laurent Tourondel and brings up some French-style American dishes and all-round finesse. The restaurant is designed by the architect Hernan Zanghellini, who created a cozy and casual dining space. As HKClubbing.com talks about this new restaurant, "A native of France with the passion and skill of a classically French-trained chef and the sensibility and style of a metropolitan restaurateur, Laurent Tourondel has successfully infiltrated the rarified world of New York restaurants and the American dining landscape, much to the delight of critics and diners alike.

"Bistro Laurent Tourondel takes the steakhouse concept to a new level by artfully combining the highest quality ingredients with the precision only the finest chefs can wield. “I created BLT Steak as a modern steakhouse – one that focuses on the best product and the most exact techniques. That is the key for me, to keep it simple and wonderful” states Chef Tourondel."

The restaurant only provides the best prime steak from US and grain-fed Australian Angus beef, while you can also select from a wide range of burgers, salads and side dishes. You can also find a long wine list too, though most of them may look young to those who knows wine well.

Before our main courses came, we had these huge popovers. They are breads with cheese on top and puff inside, which are very interesting!

We also had a little dish of salmon served with olive oil.

The food came really fast, and the two rib eyes already arrived before we finished the popovers. First is the Australian rib eye, and then the 14oz American rib eye.

I must say the meat was of high quality. My first reaction was that the charcoal smell was very strong! It was all over the two steaks. The outside was very crispy, but the inside was very soft and tender. American rib eye had  finer texture while the Australian rib eye seemed to have less fat. I guess I like the American one more.

My favourite dish was actually this spicy BBQ corn! It was so delicious with all the molten butter on top...wow! We also had some Fava beans though I wasn't very fond of it.

The another main course came and it was the rosemary chicken served in a big pot. It tasted like spring chickens and was not really special. Still, the meat was soft and good, and the sauce went well with the chicken too.

The dessert came right after our main dishes, and the first one is the Crêpe Soufflé which looked like a huge fat pancake. It was served with passion fruit sauce, and you know what? It tasted so good!

The surface was very crispy because of a thin layer of caramel, and the inside was very soft like custard. It was not sweet at all and thus tasted very good with sweet and sour passion fruit sauce. Definitely a very good dessert after all the heavy meat dishes. We also had a Pineapple Soup with White Chocolate ice-cream. I am never a fan of white chocolate but this was not bad at all. it tasted more like vanilla which went well with the pineapple sauce and fruits at the bottom of the big bowl.

You also have some madeleine cakes too for your coffee, if any. Not bad not bad!

Me and my sister ordered two cocktails. The red one is mine, which is called 57th Street Manhattan, while the yellow one is Mango Margarita. Both were pretty strong. Mine just tasted like the alcohol for cleaning wounds! Thank God I could take it without problem but that was like all up to my limit already!

It was a really great dinner. Everything was very well prepared and cooked. The steak was extremely good to me, and I would say it was right after Ruth Chris from my experience. (yet I will go to Lawry's and Intercontinental Steak House for a complete comparison!). The side dishes were nice as complimentary and the desserts surprised me a lot! The service, unlike some of the people wrote online, was not bad. I asked about recommendations and explanation of the steak types, and they were happy to answer us. The manager was helpful as well!

The whole dinner was not very expensive, less than HK0 per head this time. I am sure that I will come back again, and that you will like this place too!

If you want to have nice Vietnamese food in Hong Kong, you must not miss Ching Ting, one of the most popular restaurants in Causeway Bay. Previously a small and always crowded noodle shop, Ching Ting is now inside one office tower, two blocks away from its original position. With a much bigger place, there is finally no need to wait for a long time for a seat.

The reasons why you need to come is first, the food is good and second, cheap. Of course, it is not cheap like those Dai Pai Dong but you know you are not spending like a fortune like in those high-class restaurants. At least in here, you are paying for quality not for some beautifully decorated food which tastes strange in your mouth.

I got some appetizers first when I was waiting for my companion, and it was one of the famous dishes from Vietnam, the deep fried shrimp cakes.

It was served hot and still tasted so good after trying this for more than five times before. The good thing is that it was not over-fried. It was crispy on the outside while spongy inside. You should not miss the sour-sweet sauce coming with the cakes because the taste of the shrimps was brought up much with it. Then my main course came. It was called "huo che tou" (火車頭), which means "locomotive engine" literally. I have no idea how they relate to each other, but it is a bowl of flat rice noodle with four main ingredients: beef meatball, ox tender, ox stomach slices and beef.

It was very good especially the beef because it was thin and soft. Sometimes you might get big slices of beef which are hard to chew but that won't happen here. The noodle was great too as you can tell from the thickness of it.If it was put aside for too long, the noodle absorbs much of the soup and becomes "thick". That affects its texture and you can tell immediately when you put it in your mouth. The time my noodle was just right.

Finally the famous dish from this restaurant came. It was the deep fried butter chicken wings!

Instead of using flour or other things for the deep frying, they use butter. That's why the chicken wings smell so good! It may be too oily for some of you, but the crispy surface just makes you drool! This dish is always served hot, right after they were out from the frying pans. You can still hear the sizzling on them!

They also have some good dishes including the rice paper rolls and skewers, but we were too full for more. Go visit when you are looking for some good and fast Vietnamese food. This is the place!

Happy Easter too!

Bicho 備長 is located at the 26/F of the Diamond Plaza, which is a tower of different kinds of food. Here in this Japanese restaurant, you can try a lot of nice Japanese-style skewers, or yakitori in Japanese (but the term is for birds only, maybe kushiyaki? I don't know the exact term...).

The place was not very big at all, and it was dark and moody. There are only a few tables and they were pretty small. We were lucky because they had this half-price promotion on selected items if you ordered between 6-8pm. If we didn't have this promotion, I must say this place wasn't cheap at all. The price of each dish is reasonable but the point is you have to eat a lot in order to get full.

We started with something simple and typical, the tebasaki (chicken wing) with mentaiko and pork filling.

Then we had nankotsu (chicken cartilage)...

And then we jumped to the famous dish of this restaurant, the renowned lychee rolls with pork on the outside! And I must say, it is indeed very good!

One would expect the lychee would be dry because of the grilling, but it was actually very juicy and sweet, while the pork on the outside was crispy! The two kind of textures mixed together in a very interesting way, while you can also taste two kinds of flavour. Interesting! We also tried another famous dish here, the beef skewers. I think it was just so-so but not bad at all.

We of course had some kushiyaki dishes, or side dishes. They include spring mushroom skewers, ikada (scallop skewers), atsuage tofu (tofu skewers) and grilled eggplant slices.

Then the second round of main course came. They were the tiger prawns and gyutan (ox tongue skewers)!

The ox tongue was just delicious! The edges were crispy while the meat was juicy too! Not very dry and it was also thoroughly cooked. Usually they just used salt to grill and I must say they got the amount of salt just right here. It was not too salty, just enough to bring out the real flavour of the meat. It was wonderful! On the contrary, the prawn was not that good. It was a bit dry and I think it was a bit overcooked. Thank God it was a half-price item, as this prawnp was not cheap among all these dishes!

Finally we had this octopus tenticle skewers and Japanese rice cake skewers as a little finale. The latter one was a bit disappointing, and I advise you not to order this despite the good look.

In general, this is a very good restaurant. Nearly all the meat stuff were good, while those side dishes were not slovenly made. Everything was very nice except the table size but that was minor (of course it was!). When I left, I realized another great yakitori place called Sumi Hime, which was featured in some food magazines in Hong Kong. I guess I would try that and make a comparison between that one and Bicho!

Today I will treat you all some candies, and it is from Ferrero Rocher! Okay, this one is called Ferrero Garden, and I had no idea what this was when I bought this, but it was a collection of five flavour!

The five flavours are coconut, strawberry, almond, hazelnut and pistachio. I only tried the coconut one so far and it was very good, probably because I love coconut.

Have you tried these before? If so, did you like it? Or you like the original Ferrero Rocher more?

Last night I went to Morihachi Yakiniku, one of the popular Japanese grill restaurants in Hong Kong. There are two branches, and I went to the one in Causeway Bay which is located in an old office tower, and there you would not expect any good food up there.

I felt like I needed some Japanese food, and so I went up and had a try. The space was pretty dark and moody, but it was open and people could see each other in their seats instead of having any booth seatings. Maybe we should just start the food here, haha...

We started with this Japanese salad, which was not very special but okay. Then we had this ricepaper rolls with shrimp filling and mango sauce. It was quite nice with a bit of sweet in the vegetable!

Then the main course came, which was a big bowl or raw food for your grilling pleasure. There were several kinds of beef, with ox tongues (bottom ones with garlic on top), two giant shrimps (in the middle) and pork.

And you can see the pork and shrimps being grilled:

And of course, the perfect wagyu meat! (和牛)

And this dinner set also includes this Fried Rice with Wagyu Slices, and it was very good without much oil and the beef was very tasty. The only problem is the size. It was pretty small to share between two people.

The whole dinner was delicious, and I must say the beef was very, very good while the giant shrimps were fresh and juicy. We also ordered two glasses of peach wine, and that was good too, not too sweet not too alcoholic in the taste.

The dinner was pretty expensive but with that quality, you may agree that every once in a while its good to treat yourself.

We started our day with a breakfast buffet at the Four Seasons. Nothing special, but everything was of great quality.

Then we went out of the Venetian finally, and went to the town center. In case you don't know, the Venetian is a gigantic place where you can spend your whole day inside. Anyway, the town center definitely had more people, but comparing to my previous visit, you can't deny that the financial crisis really did some damage to the city.

We arrived at this renowned restaurant for lunch, and guess what, the waiters here weren't that nice. You would never get a seat unless you make a reservation several days before you come.

A Lorcha 船屋餐廳 is not big but they have some of the best Portuguese food in town. The interior is not very special with only brown and white tones, or maybe they want to keep this place as traditional as possible.

Because we had that buffet in the morning, we did not plan to order too much this time. First it was the Pork Ear Salad, which turned out to be a really light dish! Surprising enough it did not have the pig smell that you would expect when you had pork ear in other places. For this you can only taste the freshness of vegetable, brilliant!

We then ordered a dish of steak. Not special but just to fill up our stomach.

We then had this really tasty Clams cooked in Spanish style. Usually in Hong Kong, you might get something like a lot of soup or sauce but only a few clams. Here you got a full pot of clams, so many that it is like there are just more and more in the soup!

We ended our lunch with a glass of Sangria, which is a famous drink made with red wine and fruit juice.

Macau was once a Portuguese place and so many places contain the shadow and appearances of the Portuguese history and influence. It is good to try some Portuguese food here as they probably have some really good and traditional dishes. No kidding, this restaurant, despite some rude attitude, has some nice food indeed. Do make a reservation and give it a try. You won't regret it!

This weekend I spent it in Macau with my lady, and it was a wet and foggy Valentine's Day. We arrived there before noon, and we planned to stay inside the Venetian for the whole day as we did not want to get wet. With no surprise, we shopped till it was one, and we headed to the Venetian Food Court for a quick lunch.

Pizza Pizza looked like a Italian shop, and all the pizzas were made at the time you ordered. We had the four-cheese pizza, which was very good. It looked very good and you can smell the cheeses in the air right after it was taken out from the oven.

We added a Fatburger meal too but the burger was just so-so. I should have ordered another pizza instead.

After shopping for the whole day, it was already dinner time. This Chinese restaurant was located right next to the casino of the Venetian, and it had no English name. 海王老記 is famous for its expensive food like shark fins and abalones, and now you know why it is located there: those who just gambled and won some money would definitely get a seat here and have a taste of shark fins. Clever.

But we didn't come here for those kinds of food. It is also famous for its egg noodle (which is pressed with bamboo; in Chinese 竹昇麵). As we were both pretty full at that time, we decided to have some noodle and congee.

First we had the Fish Skin slices served cold 涼拌魚皮 as starter. Remember some time ago I went to Macau and had this similar thing in another shop. This is even better! It was crispy and a bit chilly, perfect to be an appetizer.

Then my noodle came. It was the Egg Noodle with Wonton and Shrimp Eggs On Top 蝦子雲吞撈麵. I think I don't need to explain what wontons are, right?

The congee came next. It was a quite simple congee with pig kidney slices inside. It is a typical kind of food in China and Hong Kong, which tastes simple and light.

Then we had some Deep-fried Fish Balls, made with cirrhinus (or Chinese common carp 鯪魚). It looks pretty typical but it tasted very nice, and the meat had a really nice texture.

We were just too full, and so we went to bed early. Let's start the next day in another blog...

Last week I went to Sorabol, one famous Korean restaurant in Hong Kong which can also be found in other cities in the world. It is famous for its grill stuff, while they have some really nice pot rice too.

I did not take many photos but here I have two. First you will see this really delicious beef. When it came to the table, it was like a roll of cloth, the the waitress, who was a bit impolite, unwrapped it and sliced it into pieces for you to grill. It was really good. The beef was juicy and the thickness was just right...yummy!

Then we ordered a famous Korean dish, the Ginseng Soup with Chicken. However, it didn't turn out as good as we expected because I could hardly taste ginseng in the soup. Still, it was tasty.

This restaurant is not cheap at all. If we did not have this coupon offered by a friend, we would not visit this place. Thank God the food was good and above average standard, otherwise I would be swearing here!

The new chain burger shop looked like a huge addition to the Hong Kong fast food field, but I only had a chance to try it yesterday. It started with great popularity and good reviews, but it didn't get too many points from me.

Indeed, this Teriyaki Burger was just a typical beef burger with some sweet BBQ sauce inside. It was good to have much vegetable there, but it was just too typical with no surprises, and it cost me like forty bucks! (that is like 5 bucks in US) And no fries!

Definitely if there is another chance, I would advise you to spend that much money in Triple O's or Simply Life. Disappointing, or maybe other burgers were better. Tell me if you tried the others.

Today I went out with my girlfriend for a walk at Harbour City, one of the biggest malls in Hong Kong. When it was about tea time, we found this new shop on the second level, the New York Fries.

Probably the strange mentality of Hong Kong people, when we see new things we feel excited and want to try at once. In the menu, there are three special fries besides the Classic, which are the Poutine, Veggie Works and the Works. We finally ordered the Works with a hotdog to share together.

Seriously, I expected much better fries from the new shop, but it sounds like it was just better than those from McDonald's without no good surprise. It did taste good, but I would say it was the sour cream that made it, and I am a big fan of sour cream. The mix of bacon and cheese was good, but still not enough for me to make me mouthwatering at first sight.

Where did you have your best fries so far then?

One Island East is a new commercial tower which from an architectural point of view looks pretty nice. Right opposite to this tower you can find a recently opened ramen shop, and inside there are some pretty fine Japanese ramen and hot snacks. The location of this place is not easy to find at first (that tower isn't easy to reach either), but you can see it being full for most of the time until the clock strikes at 10 or something.

I ordered a seafood ramen 海鮮拉麵, while my friend got a nice traditional ramen with roasted pork in Japanese style 叉燒拉麵.

And very surprisingly, in this modern restaurant you can really find traditional ramen, and they were very nice. Of course, you cannot compare them with those from Japan, but at least this is quite similar, and much better than the ramen from chain restaurants in areas like Mongkok or TST. You can taste the egg in the ramen while the soup was very tasty. At least, you didn't taste the GSM nor would you get thristy after drinking the soup.

We also tried two typical small dishes, the deep-fried chicken cartilage and smoke-grilled eel. Both are very delicious and you know that they are really made when you ordered them, not from the fridge and then the microwave oven.

And it looks like it was not much but we were actually very full. The services were very good too and the waiters were nice. I like the place as everything was clean, and those tables were huge. It took a while for the food to come, but I suggest you slowing down, and have a taste of the high-quality Japanese food. It may not be something like crazily extraordinary, but definitely better than many of the Japanese restaurants out there.

Technically speaking, it is not the first, but the second because I didn't count breakfast for this as it was just some bread. Today, I met Jason (wreckoning) after some time (last time it was before autumn and we had some really good Japanese food for lunch together), and we, being two food lovers, went to Kowloon City and search for great local food.

This time I didn't take many photos as we were talking and talking like crazy good friends (actually we are, haha!). However, I must show you this famous dish from a local restaurant, which always has long queues outside.

This famous dish is the beef cake, in which you can find fresh and hot minced meat. With some kind of special sauce it was made with, this cake was just so good and tasty!

So that started my new year. We also had some spring rolls with mutton and some great dumplings. After that we went to another restaurant, the traditional Hong Kong tea house, and had another light meal.

So, what's your new year resolution? How about follow me for some more good food? Ha, but first, be sure to do more exercise! One just can't only eat!

Oh yeah, that's part of my new year's plan too!

As from the previous blog, you know that this blog is about our lunch at Tenmasa of the Crown Hotel in Macau, and it was one of the most prestigious Japanese restaurants here, specializing tempura of all kinds. Now, let's take a look at the wonderful deep-fried food.

The meal of course started with a little appetizer, but I had no idea what it was. The jelly thing had actually no taste, no idea...

The waitress brought us the tempura soy sauce, and it was for vegetable tempura only. For seafood ones, you use sea salt instead.

Then the chef in front of us brought the raw seafood, preparing the tempura for our sets.

He started with the typical shrimps, and then the fish...

And yes it was a fish! Then we had eggplant, and then mushroom which looked like some kind of plant...

After that, the rice of the set came, together with a bowl of noodle, which was for my lady.

The chef continued to fry the other tempura, including this really interesting thing. On the left it was pumpkin, and the right was sesame roll with tofu inside!

Then the scallop came, which was wrapped by a piece of seaweed. Finally the last tempura was served, and it was a tempura cake with shrimp and scallop slices inside.

The meal was very good and you could see the tempura were very well made and dry, not oily at all. We were so full after that, and a green tea was served as a break before the dessert.

And it was black sesame ice-cream! Very smooth and very "sesame"! The bowl was very pretty too!

The meal wasn't very expensive, HK0 per head only but with such great quality! Located at the 11th floor of the Crown Hotel building, this is one of the great places to eat when you come to Macau! I guess in Hong Kong, you can only find two to three places with such great tempura, and one of them is definitely Inagiku at Four Seasons.

Seriously my throat hadn't recovered yet but facing such good food, how could I resist?

On Boxing Day me and my lady went to Macau to have some good food and fun. It was still Christmas holiday and you can imagine the streets and shops were filled with people like the Christmas day. The worst part was that you had to queue up outside some good restaurants as everywhere were people. Perhaps the waitiing time was the best moments for us to appreciate the Christmas decorations surrounding us...

And we went to Cheong Kei again for the famous egg noodle with shrimp eggs. This time we also ordered another famous dish, the steamed fish skin! It looks like flat and wet but it was actually very crispy like chips!

The final dish is the deep-fried fish balls, very good!

After this brunch we went to a high-class Japanes restaurant at Crown Hotel, but I will talk about that in the next blog. We will continue and talk about the tea. This time we had some typical street snacks, the curry fish balls, and trust me, this one is so curry and spicy that you have to drink water after each ball!

And I bought this bun called "black pepper bun", which comes from Taiwan. Too bad I missed it when I was in Taiwan because that shop wasn't open until 2pm, but now I had a chance to try it. Made by putting the buns in a big oven burning with charcoal at the bottom, these buns had a strong smell of charcoal, but inside the pork had a strong smell of pepper! It was pretty good!

Let's take a look at the delicious Japanese food and tempura in the next blog!

Some time ago I went to Agnes B's cafe, and it was a pretty nice place. Last weekend I went to another le Pain Grille, but this time at the newly open Agnes B La Loggia in IFC. Taking several shops including the corridors in front of them, this "la loggia" turns part of the IFC shopping mall into a English-style village.

The restaurant has a much prettier decoration, and with one side of the restaurant facing the harbour, this le pain grille definitely has a more comfortable and open ambience. With all the nice services and high price tags in the menu, I am sure that this place aims to attract high-class people rather than the general.

The meal of course started with bread, and also a little egg tart which was not sweet like the Hong Kong style egg tart. It looked big in the image but it was just a finger size.

And the bread was also "designed", but probably not by Agnes herself. It had the typical symbol that Agnes B always had.

My appetizer was pan-fried scallops served cold with orange slices, and I must say I still prefer it hot. I had no idea why they needed to be served cold as they were already pan fried.

Then the main course came and it was a veal tenderloin in a special sauce by the kitchen. It was okay, but not really exciting to me. The bean was a nice addition, but I personally didn't much like the smashed kind of vegetable.

Overall I think the quality was average, but it was not good enough to have such a high price (HK0 per head). I guess I paid much for the brand only. The place however was nice, and if you have a chance to go there, I suggest you taking a seat at the cafe outside the restaurant, where you could have a piece of cheesecake and a nice coffee, and spend a Saturday afternoon alone. That would be a much better choice.

Our food trip has yet ended on Saturday when night fell. Before we went to the night market, we went back to Taipei 101 to make some night shots at the top of the building. It was a different scene! This was what I got and you could see today's view of Taipei at night time.

Cannot find Taipei 101? I shot this on the top of this building, damn >_>

And then we headed towards the famous Shilin Night Market, where you could find the food stalls packed together under one of the shelters. You would see long queues but you just have to wait or else you won't be able to have a taste of real Taiwanese food.

The first thing of course was the Taiwanese style fried chicken! But the queue was so long that it extended to the bus stop 50m from the store. During the wait, my sister got back when another famous Taiwanese snake, the shaved ice, and this one was in chocolate flavour!

Finally I got the chicken! It was so good! And it was much bigger than what I expected!

Going into the food market, we saw this funny snack which I had no idea how to describe. It was a fried bread like thing wrapped by a piece of thin pancake thing. This one had black sesame inside but it just tasted so-so.

And then you could find the famous peanut candy in one of the corners...

And finally, we had this thing called Sausage-in-sausage, which looked like a hotdog. The "bun" was actually sausage casing stuffed with glutinous rice, and then was sliced and stuffed with a Chinese-style sausage. It was actually very good but pretty heavy...

And finally we couldn't eat more, and we retreated back to the hotel, where we found this huge wood sculpture. It was all wood logs, but cut into a sphere! Crazy masterpiece!

The next day we started the day a bit later as we would like to have brunch at the famous Taiwan restaurant called Din Tai Fung. It is so renowned that all the tourists just want to go there and try their famous Shanghai soup dumplings. They have a lot of branches but still all of them have long queues after 11am. Therefore, we went there at 10:30am in order to get a seat. Thank God it was just opened and there were only a few customers.

Now the food came. We started off with a kind of vegetable that you can only find in Asia, which was very popular in Taiwan. I couldn't find the English name but in Chinese it is called "yau mo cai", meaning "ink vegetable. However, ours looks like too green to be ink.

Then the "drunken chicken", actually marinaded chicken in Shaoxing wine.

And then the main course! The Shanghai-style dumplings with pork and crab meat inside! Delicious!

And my favourite noodle, the traditional steamed beef soup noodle!

Finally, the dessert. It was not really dessert, but we both wanted to end the meal with something sweet. So we ordered the sesame big bun, which turned out to be not so big. Still it tasted very good.

The brunch was so good! In Hong Kong we had one Din Tai Fung in Tsim Sha Tsui. Even the quality was nearly the same (to me it is, but some said no), the price tags are all different. We spent US$35 for everything we just ate, but in Hong Kong with the same amount of money you could only get two noodles with the dumplings (not 10 but only 6!), and one more appetitzer!

We then went shopping in the biggest bookstore in town, the Eslite Bookstore. In Taiwan, reading is like one of the hobbies that most people would have, and people may spend the whole day just reading in the bookstores. With the lower prices, some people come over to buy books. Even better, Taiwanese use traditional Chinese like we Hong Kong do, and so we can share books without any translation.

After walking in the stores and boutiques for 4 hours, we had a break at Starbucks. I ordered a grande mocha with a warm chocolate pudding cake! This cake is pretty famous too in Taiwan, having a name called "soft heart", and you know why.

We finally needed to pack up and went back home. But before going to the airport we forgot the famous Taiwan dish, rice with minced meat!!! We went to Tu Hsiao Yueh again. They also had this rice and it was so cheap! Only US$1!

And then we left, taking a plane back home at 8:20pm. With quite some time still in the airport, we shopped again for books and magazines, and you can't imagine how heavy my bags were!

Now you have a glance of the famous Taiwanese food, and so remember to try these first when you go to Taipei. However, this is only like 30% of all the good Taiwanese cuisine! I will post more when I have a chance to explore this cool place again!

A week ago me and my sister went to Taipei, and it was a crazy rush to Taipei for just food and books. During the 50-hour trip we ate the most famous dishes and street snacks in the region, and the price for me was a sore throat after that weekend.

We stayed at the Grand Hyatt Taipei hotel, and it was "notorious" for being haunted as some people claimed that it was built upon a graveyard used by the Japanese army during the WWII. Anyway, nothing happened at all and the stay was actually pretty comfortable.

Grand Hyatt Taipei is right opposite of the famous Taipei 101, the tallest building in Taiwan. We of course went there, and we went up to the top and look at the whole city. But, the food is the key point of this whole trip. View? Not this time, haha

The above is the wind damper of the building, which weighs more than 660 metric tons and further stabilize the building during strong wind or earthquake.

Before the visit we went to a local restaurant for a quick meal. Probably our brain hadn't started working, we just ordered a burger as breakfast. Surprisingly this burger was not bad at all! Soft bun with fresh veggie made this burger one of the best I have tried!

Our real food feast started at Tu Hsiao Yueh 度小月, one of the oldest noodle shops here. Famous for its dan-tsu noodle, this place also has some traditional Taiwanese food, including the deep-fried small oysters.

Delicious, isn't it? Without any break, we went to another noodle shop straight ahead, which you can find the best Taiwanese beef soup noodle!

We first had a dish of steamed pig guts (I think it was pig as usually it is), but it was actually pretty chilly! Then the noodle came, and I couldn't help it but swallowed the whole in minutes!

The first bowl of noodle was the traditional beef noodle 紅燒牛肉麵 while the second one was my sister, a beef noodle with cow tender 牛筋麵. They were so good but even that we ordered small size, the bowls were so big that we already got very full. To no avail we had to take a break before swallowing other good stuff on the same street!

We then went to Ximending, a place where all the hip culture and fashion are located. It is just like Mongkok in Hong Kong. After wandering around and shopping for 3 hours, we resumed the noodle series again. We went to the Goose Place (鴨肉扁 or Yah Rou Bien) which is very famous for its goose dishes! Yes, the Chinese name means duck but it actually sells goose meat.

Tasty isn't it? Let's talk about the name of the shop. The owner actually opened a restaurant selling duck meat, but the sale wasn't good and so he introduced geese as well. Then more and more people came and eventually those people came only for the goose dishes because they were more delicious. Finally, the owner just sold geese till today, but keeping the same name. That's why.

Walking further, we went to another place which was a bit weird. This noodle place had no seats, and all the people just stood there and ate, and therefore it was very easy to locate this place, called Ay-Chung Flour-Rice Noodle 阿宗麵線.

The noodle was so thin that this whole bowl was like soup, and I guess you couldn't even use chopsticks and that's why they gave you a spoon. Some people really like this thing, but I am not really a fan of it. However, it is interesting to stand in the street slurping a bowl of noodle.

After all the noodle, we headed to the night market! Let's continue in the next blog!

This little shop in Central is a famous wonton place for many years, and its recent acquisition of one Michelin Star is definitley the icing on a cake. Mak An Kee 麥奀記 is not a big restaurant, but you can be sure it is always occupied by different people from local people to tourists to rich guys.

I today had lunch there, and had their two famous dishes. First is the egg noodle with shrimp eggs served with soup. We just ate it without the soup, but drank it later, while some people like to add the soup onto the noodle. No matter how you eat it, you can still taste the great flavour of the noodle. You can feel the sponginess and the taste of egg in your mouth! That is good egg noodle!

Then we had a bowl of wonton, and this was once a very controversial dish. Some people claimed that this was the original because it was the original small size, with little pork mixed inside. Others however said that good wonton should be bigger with more pork inside, like half pork half shrimp. For me, I think this is pretty good. Perhaps to me, with little pork you can then taste the fresh shrimp meat inside. The wonton skin was very delicious too!

Some people said eating here was expensive and not worth it, but I would say it was not bad at all. I have no say on whether it is traditional or not, original or not, but still it is apparently part of Hong Kong culture. I hope that we can keep all these great dishes despite the fast development of Hong Kong, just as how we try to keep our heritage in the city.

Yesterday was my birthday, and certainly work took most of my time (from 9 to 6 man!). After work, I took control my life again and spent the night with my lady. We went to the Golden Bull for some nice Vietnamese food, and it was all good.

This time there won't be many shots, since we had something typical and common. I wanted quality not special fancy dishes. We had flat rice noodles and the famous Roasted Chicken in Preserved Bean Curd Sauce. We ordered this interesting dessert, and we didn't know that it was in heart shape!

The top black layer is black glutinous rice, while the second yellow layer is green bean paste. I forgot what the white layer was but it seems to be coconut jelly thing. It was very delicious and it was served with coconut sauce.

These days I had a really good time, and I guess more food is coming since some of my friends have to celebrate my birthday later due to their own schedules, haha...thanks everyone who wished me Happy Birthday, and finally I am 27! Yay!

Spring Deer is one of the very famous and old Chinese restaurants. It is famous because nearly all the travel books talk about it, and so most of the customers inside are actually foreigners and tourists. That's why you will see a lot of coaches waiting outside the restaurants, making it like a sight-seeing spot.

I had my birthday dinner with my family at this restaurant last night, and I always wanted to try its food. In this restaurant, you can find all the different kinds of Beijing food, including the lost ones. Those are the traditional food that you may not find in Beijing, but you can find and eat them here. Let the dinner begin now (I mean, rewind, haha)

That is slices of jelly sheets (雞絲粉皮), which are used for dumplings. They mixed it with chicken slices, some vegetable and a little peanut butter, and it tasted very good. Then the main courses came. This one is the lost Beijing food, deep-fried stewed pork trotter (酥炸元蹄).

Usually you prepare this dish in brown sauce, but this one actually is deep-fried after being stewed, and so you have this really crisy surface and juicy pork underneath.

Then we have the mixed vegetable in earthern pot (雜錦沙鍋). It is like vegetable soup inside, and you can find Tianjin cabbage (津白), shiitake (or winter mushroom 冬菇) and rice noodle.

And if you know Chinese cuisine, then you should know that this kind of pot is very famous. They can make good dishes!

Now the famous barbequed Peking duck arrived! Nothing special actually, because it is a roasted duck and its meat was sliced out. You use the pizza-like bread to roll the meat and Beijing scallion together, and eat.

We wanted to get the famous Beijing-type mutton with scallion but we were too full! The food was so good and that was like one of the best Chinese food in the town! The environment was old like 1980 Chinese restaurant, but at least the place was clean and it fits the food it provides!

Delicious! The trotter was so wonderful but we couldn't finish the whole thing, and so we took the rest home for the next meal. That's the old tradition in Chinese culture, that sometimes they take the remaining food back home, tyring not to waste any good food. Anyway, it was a great dinner!

My first birthday dinner started last night, and it started big. One of my best friends was treating me in this newly opened Japanese restaurant, featuring all these special "tonkatsu" food (deep-fried food0.

We went to Butagumi Tonkatsu located in a commerical tower in Causeway Bay. Remember some time ago I went to that famous Tonkichi Japanese Restaurant? That one has really exceptional food, and this one we just went to seem to pick up the same style, and we will see how good they can be.

After fiddling with the table objects, the side dish came. Yeah, I thought the main course would come first. The side dish is a Japanese-curry-flavoured potato cake, and it was yummy and very curry.

Then, the main course came. It was HUGE. Mine was pork cutlet (of course in tonkachi style) with deep-fried oysters.

Saw the big tiger prawn too? That was free as every customer would get on during this special promotion period. That added much more to my already-very-big dish. My friend loves prawns, and hers was prawns (originally 3 and adding the free one making 4 in total) with pork mini-cutlet.

And now, a close-up shot of the cutlet, and see how it was like...

The meat actually didn't look very soft, but interestingly it was actually soft and good. Also, the surface was not oily at all. It was very crispy, and the texture of the pork was nice. The prawns were good too, and really huge (7 inches long!) while the oysters were the best, crispy outside and juicy inside. Very good!

Compared to the famous Tonkichi one, this one can only scores 2/3 of their competitor. The salad in Tonkichi was so good that you can just eat it without the cutlets, while the sauce there was exceptional. Here, Butagumi was not bad, but it lacks the details and the sauces could be a bit better. However, you have much more choices in this restaurant, from the basic cutlets and oysters to prawns to potato cakes to some fancy egg rolls. That makes eating a bit more fun when the quality still has some room for improvement. Also the prices are a bit lower, making this place another good choice for tonkachi stuff.

The final comment from me is that the dinner sets are too big! If you are not the big eater type, I suggest you not ordering any side dishes because it will be impossible to swallow them all! The environment is nice, but some chairs are higher than normal, making my back ache after dinner...anyway, have a try when you feel like some deep-fried Japanese food!

Alright, last week we had this famous crab meal as dinner. Every autumn is actually the period of eating the Shanghai Crab, and this has long become a tradition.

You probably have read my previous entry on the Shanghai Crab which was a year ago nearly, and we didn't do any exception for 2008, though the set dinner was a little bit different from last year's menu.

Instead of a tart as the final course, we had boneless fish slices instead. The vegetable also changed, and if you go compare with last year's menu, you may see that there is a decrease in crab meat, haha! But then we realized that this combination was actually good because now the veggie was pure without crab meat, it went well with the fish which was indeed very heavy. Perhaps they put all the crab meat and stuff into one dish instead of spreading them between the tart and vegetable.

Anyway I didn't take any photos because you can already see them in the previous post. It is a very good meal again, but some of you may know that these crabs are very heavy in cholesterol. Fortunately I only ate one a year (didn't eat any between these two blog posts!) and so I guess it is fine.

Still, I need a little more exercise as my belly is...ouch! You know what I mean!

Sounds like it has been a long time since my previous post on food. I had a lot of great food but I always missed the camera and shot some pictures to put up on blogs. Last night I went to Lei Garden, one of the famous Chinese restaurants here in the town, and we had some really great dishes. And the best thing is that, I remembered my camera this time!

Perhaps in most of the major cities with China Town, what you can get is actually typical Chinese food, like fried rice and sweet and sour pork. That is so common and does not really show how great Chinese cuisine is. Now let me show you some real things here.

After a great soup made of fish and red beans, we had the first dish coming: duck breast slices with fried pineapple pieces on small asparagus...

The mixed tastes of pineapple and duck are really good, and it is a pretty fresh start of the main courses. Then we have a common veggie dish, fried kidney beans. The dark color is due to the black soy sauce, which contrasts with the taste of the beans.

Then here comes my favourite dish, and it is the reason I was here in this restaurant. It has a pretty Chinese name, translated as "Shih-Tzu Rice Soup". It is actually soup in the rice, but in English it is said in the reverse way. Shih-Tzu is a girl's name, and she was claimed to be the prettiest lady in Chinese history, so when you describe someone as Shih-Tzu, you mean she is extremely beautiful. To be exact, this dish is rice in lobster soup with mix of fried rice.

Fried rice? You may ask, why? It is actually deep fried rice, so the rice will have some crispy bits. They were added at the last minute before the whole thing was served, and so they were still crispy. You see in this image, there are some little crispy rice inside...

See the two crispy rice there in the spoon?

Then it was the pork. It was pork-chop with garlic bulbs in sweet sauce. Very nice, and the garlic bulbs were really sweet and delicious, very well blended with the meat.

Finally the dessert. My parents got a bowl of almond juice (not really juice but Chinese kind of dessert you know...that's the English name I found ). My sister and I could not really stand that kind of smell (aroma that is O_O while I don't think I like that "aroma"), so we ordered the little Chinese mochi with black sesame paste, which is very famous...

And you can see the hot molten sesame paste inside! So good!

It was a great dinner, so now you know what Chinese food really is?

It was a great weekend with good food at home. I got them from CitySuper two days ago, and this ramen from Japan is pretty nice.

The noodle is very different from what you got in the restaurant, which is just cheap stuff. This is really smiliar to that in Japan, with the taste of egg inside. Very nice! And then I got huge jelly...so huge that it can feed two people at least!

See all the beautiful and tasty fruits? Very delicious and it is just from the fridge, and it is perfect under such hot weather!

What did you have this weekend?

It was a busy Saturday, and I have no idea why it happens like this. Usually when you thought that a half-day-work Saturday was the most casual and free day in a week, things just stacked up too much that you needed to finish them before next week came. So I worked like a dog from 9am to 1pm, and even worst, I was late for lunch with my friends.

So I rushed after work to the new restaurant located in Prince's Building. I don't know why people just pronounce this as Prince Building, and I have search and checked and it is really Prince's, read similar to "princess". Anyway, Sevva is a new place for fine dining, and has a great environment. The owner Bonnie Gokson, the sister of Joyce Ma who is the owner of Joyce, invited one of the greatest US designer Calvin Tsao to revamp the top floor of Prince's Building.The menus and name cards are all filled with beautiful illustrations by Gladys Perint Palmer. Obviously, this is a designer place, but how about the food?

We started the meal with some so-so bread (though it was nice as it was warm bread), followed by the smoked duck salad. This was really nice salad, with everything so well-blended together. The olive oil and vinegar did not overwhelm the taste of the veggie, while the addition of peanuts was a nice touch.

Then the main course came.

The king lobster pawn spaghetti tasted really good, and I must say that was the biggest pawn I have ever seen. Okay, may not be the biggest, but it was really well made that you could taste the herbs inside the meat. The BBQ baby rib burger was interesting too, and for sure this was the first time I saw a burger with black sesame, haha! The smell of charcoal went out from the slices of tomatoes and onion, and you know it is good stuff.

After the meal we had a little drop of alcohol. The close one is "Hong Kong Fog" while that is "Don't Worry Be Happy" behind.

The whole experience had a pretty heavy price, and yes, cost I mean. I also have to agree with some other people that the service was not very good since people expect more when you pay like HK0 or even 1000 in the restaurant. Obviously the level of service and administration have not gone up to a high-class restaurant standard yet. However, with all the beautiful settings and food quality, it won't be too long that this place will be popular. I love the place since it is right at the middle of Central, and at the deck you can browse over the busy city, with HSBC Tower and Legco building next to you, not to mention the stunning night view over the harbour. Expensive, but I think it is worth it (if you are not eating there every week!)

Today is actually the White Day, or White Valentine's Day, which is originated from Japan. What is that day about? In Japan, the tradition is that the girls give their target boys chocolate on Valentine's Day. After a month, if the boys are interested too in the girls who gave them chocolate, they will do something in return, usually more expensive gifts. Further reading about this here, and now back to my blog.

I went to a Japanese restaurant with my lady to celebrate this special day. Inagiku is one of the greatest Japanese restaurants in town, and of course, the price can't be low. Located at the Four Seasons hotel and above the IFC Mall, the restaurant has a great view to the harbour.

The place has a nice feel and design, simple yet modern. The details are really nice, or perhaps it just suits my taste.

The first dish is a very small one, just one spoonful (again, not cheap at all! ). It is a sea urchin sashimi on tofu mixed with walnut. It tastes really good, because you can actually taste the three ingredients when you put this into your mouth. Then it is the sashimi, a must in any Japan meals.

The scallops are so good. It is not soft like molten, but just fresh and "crispy" (you know what I mean). The salmon is very good too, and you can see the texture. It is fresh and red, and the fat is evenly distributed. Then the main course is coming up...their famous tempura! First, they have this set of seasonings, from top to bottom (far to near): lemon slice, sea salt and green tea salt. (yeah, green tea, but I can't really taste the tea. it is just salty )

Wow, the tempura is just...beautifully done!

Then the most expensive dish comes. It is...umm...no idea about the English name but it is Japanese sliced beef! It is like Kobe Beef, and it melts too in your mouth!

Finally, the rice dishes that make you full. The ordinary grilled eel is not ordinary at all. It is thick and juicy! The rice with it is the real Japanese rice, a bit like glutinous rice but not sticky, and it is the rice used for sushi. It is very good! Then we also had this delicious seafood fried rice. It is not oily yet it is not sticky (sometimes the poor chef does some really sticky fried rice). The rice is actually crispy, and that is really good.

Finally, the dessert. My lady has this really good sesame pudding, while I have the typical green tea ice-cream. Wow, the sesame is really "sesame", the taste is very rich, and same for my ice-cream. You can tell that it is not made with some artificial flavouring, but really green tea. After swallowing it can still feel the little sweetness of tea like that when you are drinking tea. Really tasteful!

Such an amazing course it not cheap, but the quality is very high. I like it very much and I am sure when my wallut can afford such a menu, I will come back again! At least, the whole setting in the restaurant makes me want to stay!

Wow, this is funny. I was thinking about getting some snacks from Sogo department store on Saturday after work, and I got this one from that supermarket. It was sakura potato chips, and I thought it might be a funny warm-up for my Japan trip

I was like, what the hell? Sakura into the salty potato chips?

Turns out it looks like ordinary chips, but it has some sweet flavour, and to me it tastes like coconut but of course, it is salty. It is not bad at all, and it is good to see how creative people are these days.

And again, only Japanese can think of stuff like this.

Professional Assessment, pro maltreatment
Finally! The torturing 3 weeks have finally gone. I took the study leave right after my birthday, and the preparation eventually ended when the exam started on 10th December. The 15-day study leave in between was killing. When some thought it was a great chance to relax, it was the opposite. Facing the regulation booklets and lecture notes nearly 8 hours a day, I tried to memorize as much as possible before my eyes couldn't help to shut. In the last 3 days, I was yelling to take the exam right at that time earlier, because I just couldn't stand the wait anymore with these stacks of notes!

The exam was going okay, but some of the papers were tricky enough that I already knew I might not pass all of them. In this assessment for the architects, if you cannot pass all the papers, you will retake the failed ones in the following year. I hope to pass all in the next year and so I will be a registered architect. Then, part of my dream will be considered accomplished!

Merry Christmas!
Right after the exam Christmas arrived. It was a good timing too because when I went back to the office, many of the seniors went on holiday. It was great not only because of the reduced workload, but also the fact that I could take some time to recover. You won't believe that I still felt dizzy after the exam, and I needed to sleep for many hours in the two following days to get back to normal.

This year Christmas was not very special. I only went out with my girlfriend for a casual dinner in Festival Walk. We already had Christmas buffet, a kind of tradition that we two had, when December just started. We didn't want to spend too much since prices after mid-December would be too high, and due to my exam I could only eat after 20th. Therefore we just had it earlier instead. We had a nice dinner though at Dan Ryan's on Christmas Eve. I suggested going there because I always love the atmosphere there, especially the special occasions.

The streets were swarmed with people on the Christmas Eve and Day, and it was pretty scary even that Hong Kong was always full of people sometimes. Christmas always means a hard time for those who are in relationships and those who have tons of good friends, since finding a gift is not easy especially when you have already given quite some in the previous years. I swear it feels like artist block. I had only a few days for gift preparation, but my lady already hinted something. It was a good thing for me, but I guess I have to take back the control next year or else it will be more like filling up her wish-list instead of anything else.

Food and more food!
I know some of you who haunt my page loves my food shots, and at the same time, some friends of mine start to do those kinds of macro shots too. I can't believe such influences from me, haha! Anyway, I recently went to a restaurant, Tonkichi Japanese Restaurant, which is very famous for its tonkatsu food. What is tonkatsu? I have no idea but the pictures show:

This is deep dried oyster (first image) and pork (second image). In Japanese it is called tonkatsu and I guess in English it is called deep frying. There are different ways to make nice deep-frying dishes, and it is usually made with nice breadcrumbs and egg. I can't believe how well done these two dishes are. Behind the crispy hot surface the oyster is so juicy. They are big ones and you can taste the smell of sea water! The pork is very nice too, with a special sauce you make yourself. You are given a bowl of sesame, and you crunch them and add some barbecue sauce. It is so good with the pork!

Even more, the sliced cabbage is very good too! It is so typical, you may think, but the waiter taught us to mix it with the special soy sauce and some kind of vinegar, the vegetable turns into something really delicious!

I have came across this restaurant before and when I wanted to go inside, my friends said it was too expensive. Finally I went there without my friends pulling me away, and see? I miss such good food! The conclusion is, you know how good your friends are!

I am just kidding! So, are you prepared for your 2008?

Last night I went out for a nice dinner with a good friend by the harbour. It is not really by the harbour because there is no view (blocked by another restaurant) but still it is close. Anyway, Stonegrill is one restaurant that I wanted to try for a long time. Reading reviews from good to bad I actually felt a bit reluctant to try at first, and only after some friends' recommendation did I finally say, "Let's just go and try, and prove who is right!"

As the name suggests, the main point of the cuisine here is to grill on stone. A piece of stone at a temperature of more than 460 Celsius is definitely something one wants to try. Interesting enough, when the piece of hot stone came, very few fume came out but we were warned again not to touch the stone in any case. We would just let the raw food demonstrate how hot it could be.

We ordered steak, lamp and salmon for the grill game. The meat was all very good, and indeed, after slicing the meat apart and pressing them on the stone for just 10 seconds, the red faded out. While the steak could be made medium and the lamb could be made just right, salmon would need more time. One would say you can just eat it like sashimi, but the taste and texture of half-done-half-cooked salmon isn't really appealing to me. Anyway, a picture will say more than I can!

I guess I have messed up the correct order of a meal since I showed you the entree first. Anyway, we ordered some sliced squids for the appetizer, and it was really good.

The pasta after the grill was very tasteful. It was a crab linguine with some garlic on top, and interestingly it tasted a bit like lobster sauce. That means, it was good!

So it turns out that this restaurant isn't bad at all. It is expensive, but the quality is high too. The bread and soup were all nice, and the waiters did pay attention to our request, even briefly introduced us how to grill on the stone when the main course arrived. In general I am quite happy with it.

The conclusion is, after reading reviews, you have to research first. If your research finds out that the quality and food are both special, you should try it. Seeing is believing, and so is tasting.

Last Sunday I went by the just-open Agnes B Delices store, which sells some kind of high class chocolate. You know I love chocolate and when there is something new, I can't wait to try it. Maybe I will show you some pictures of the beautiful packaging first.

I bought a box of chocolate slices, but not the most popular brick one with patterns on, because I am not really fascinated about the Agnes B logo on the chocolate. I care more about the taste. 

After some serious taste testing (okay, not really that serious), I think it just passed my benchmark. I don't think it is very special or very delicious, but it is still rich. I would still prefer the Godiva chocolate, which has some really rich and tasty dark chocolate. (77% is perfect!) Let alone the quality of chocolate, one must admit that the packaging is really clean and beautiful, and perhaps that is the real part your money will spend on.

Did you have your chocolate yet today?  

It has been some time that I wrote a blog. These days I was busy like hell, handling two piece of design work in two weeks. I was designing the interior for a lounge and a presidential suite in thecurrent hotel project, and while it was hard, it was still fun.

However, this time I want to show you some food, not my work. Recently it was my girlfriend's birthday and we ate something that you may have never had before. First, I want to show you some vegetarian food that we had some weeks ago. You are right, some weeks, because I was too busy to upload them! Here were two dishes...

Do they look like vegetarian food? The first dish is the "fake clams meat", made with just flour (and some chemicals and sources,ha ). The second one is obviously some grilled thing, but everything in it is vegetarian, made with something I have no idea of, some plants and someglutamate rice. Isn't it amazing that people can make such cuisine without using any meat? And they taste very very very similar to the real thing!

Okay, this is the dinner I had days ago. It was a "Imperial Crab Meal", and the real English name is Shanghai Crab (Dazha Xie), which is one of the famous Chinese cuisines. The first dish is the Crab in Shark Fin:

I have no idea what the yellow thing called in English, and in some websites it is written as "crab extractive". It is all the inside of the crab, but not the meat. It tastes like egg yolk, with a little seafood taste if you know what I mean. Anyway, the second dish is the main course, the crab inside.

And this time you eat everything in the crab, both the inside "extractive" and meat. It tastes really good! But I swear, one is enough for you because it makes you feel full easily. Then after that comes the "Combo of Three". See if you know what they are:

Following all these is the dessert, which is just glue pudding with black sesame inside, a famous Chinese dessert. It is very simple and not very sweet because it is to "clean up" such a heavy meal. Together with the ginger tea, it makes you feel better after eating such muchcholesterol. Yes, very high level of cholesterol.

So, did I change your mind about Chinese food? Many of you may think that Chinese food is fried rice and noodles, and I guess you have seen the real meat of the recipes

Yesterday, I went with my girlfriend to the new cafe opened in Festival Walk, which is the second cafe in the series. The new Le Pain Grille sits actually inside a boutique, Agnes B Sports, and those who are new must feel hard to find the entrance.

The place was comfortable and dark, with everything written with its company name. It was beautiful though, and there were quite some French posters on the wall, making the place feel like one of the hidden restaurants in the street behind some corners.

The food was all nice, and I guess you will drool again because I have photos this time!

The bread was very good, with that insanely tasteful garlic sauce. I have no idea what that was actually, and I just know that it has garlic. It was so good to be with the bread, which were all warm! Then the appetizer came. My lady had the soup while I had a little special French dish. I don't remember the name, but it had slices of green apple and avocado, with crab meat between each of them.

Then the main course came, and we both had the same main dish. It was grilled fish (cod), surrounding one piece of grilled tuna in the middle. It was very good, especially the yellow sauce! And that is NOT mustard!

After all these really mouthwatering dishes, and before the tea and coffee were served, the dessert came and added a little more excitement to the table. It was not very special actually, which was a French crêpe. However, the quality was so good that I would like to have one more!

After the meal, before we went away without paying...okay, we paid, and before we left, the waitress brought over some gifts for us. It was no surprising though because that was why my girlfriend came! Anyway, the gifts were beautiful and they were cups with Agnes B names on them. Simple and nice, all because of the brand...anyway

Yesterday I tried the new ice-cream I bought from Sogo. This is from Movenpick, a Switzerlan-based ice-cream, and I got this flavour, crème brûlée! In case you don't know what it is, you can check here from Wikipedia. It is a famous dessert, which is served with some burnt sugar on the top. Sometimes in the restaurants the waitor burns it for you, by splashing a little liquer on it and burning it with a lighter.

So let's unpack it!

It looks really delicious, and damn, the top of the ice-cream looks exactly like the real crème brûlée!

Then let's get to the bottom of it!

Wow, it looks tasteful, and it IS tasteful! It is so soft, and the taste is just so "crème brûlée"! You'd better try it, and even it is a bit too sweet, just some spoonful of this ice-cream makes you high! Oh god, I can't help but to taste it again... gimme another cup!

Tomorrow will be my sister's birthday (oops, it is already now since the clock just struck twelve!), and my whole family all went to the famous Yung Kee Chinese Restaurant to celebrate.

Yung Kee is famous because its name appears on nearly every tourist book that goes overboard. It is famous for its roasted dishes, and here, I am going to show you how good it is. I am sorry, you will be mouthwatering again, and here comes the Thousand-year Eggs, which are actually preserved duck eggs. This is served as a starter.

Then, the main courses come. First is the roasted pork, and then it is the roasted goose. The pork is really good since the colors are sharp and the meat has little fat.

The goose is good too, and again, very little fat, which makes this dish really delicious and not fatty!

Then it is a commoner dish, chicken on vegetable...

And finally, we added one more dish, which may not appeal to some of you who live in the foreign countries. It is the...frog legs! This is Deep Fried Frog Legs!

And you may ask how it tastes. It tastes more like little chicken legs actually, but the texture is smoother and softer. The legs are not typical ones you find from some wet markets here. They are quality legs and I can be sure the frogs are good ones, fat ones.

This is a good meal, and there are some more special dishes I think one should try. It is my first time to eat here, and also my first time to see so many western people having meals in a Chinese restaurant! 30% of the people are not Hong Kong people! The service is good, though you will have to pay for it. Still, a must-try place to taste quality Chinese food!

PS: btw I am using my IXUS 800 IS to shoot these photos

Last Saturday I went to a newly open restaurant at Harbour City, called Cadero. This little shop is not really easy to be spotted out since it is mixed with other boutiques and cosmetic shop, but it possesses a wonderful sea view on the other side of the shop.

Curved knife, but really sharp!

We got a table at the balcony but it was a bit hot and so we moved in finally. The whole atmosphere was very warm and homy, so comfortable that you would not mind spending the whole afternoon here, which we did on that day. We had the tea buffet set which was only 108 dollars per head.

The food was very nice and high-quality even though there were many choices. Still, the steak, fried sadine and salmon toasts were all very tasteful, and the cakes were very delicious too. The chocolate cake had wine in it, while there was this new wine jelly!

There are only eight dishes on the buffet desk, and eight more dessert dishes on another table, but all of them are very good. There are also eight more choices on the menu, something that the waiters will bring out and distribute around the tables. All the dishes are small, but once you started you would like to keep going. My girlfriend and I were so full that we just couldn't move after the buffet!

Definitely an unexpected good meal after such a horrible week in the office!

** oops, sorry, no photo this time, very hungry and the food was so good that I forgot to take photos! **

Yesterday, I went to a Japanese restaurant called Kushiyaki Sesson, which is quite popular somehow probably because of the fame it gained when it was shown on TV. Anyway, it was a nice restaurant, and it is famous for its grilled dishes. Let me show you some of the food we ate last night.

The ambience was very dark and actually a bit small, and that accounts for its always being full. The place was all comfortable and I liked how they set the tables.

They even use this little carbon piece for the chopsticks holder! Anyway, here comes the food, but I have to say, I forgot to take pictures for some of them and so what you saw here were only half of the dishes...first was the started, which was preserved hard tofu.

And then we had grilled maize, grilled rice ball...

And then some seafood and meat, ie, grilled shrimp, grilled scallop and grilled eel!

They were all very tasteful but actually, very little in amount. After the dinner my girlfriend and I were both thinking, where then should we get to fill up the stomach? Haha, yeah, the dishes were all small and were not cheap too. I guess good taste always comes with a "good" price tag. Anyway, at least we tried this restaurant and I would say the grill is really good, but you will need a hamburger outside the restuartant after the dinner to be full.

Interesting enough, the cocktails aren't expensive...

On Saturday my girlfriend and I went to one nice restaurant by the sea, called the Quarterdeck. Located away from the city center, this restaurant is quiet and comfortable, and has a beautiful sea view too. Originally a pier for the sailors to take a rest, this place is now more like an abandoned warehouse with some shops and cafes which are rarely visited by anyone.

Most of the customers here are foreigners, and I guess it is all because of its history and that is why these people know this place. I know it because of my colleagues, because last time we went here to celebrate someone's birthday. Anyway, the food here is all western style (actually, if I am right, Australian style), and all the dishes are very tasteful and special. This time we ordered two dishes to share, and they were...

The squid ink risotto with squid slices, and... 

The fish and chips! If I remember, this is the white cod fillets with fat chips, according to the menu. I have to say, they are very special. The risotto is not really swollen like the usual risotto you eat in other place. It has the texture like the Chinese fried rice. This dish is just dark, all DARK, and you can see the "ink" all over the dish after finishing it, and also on your teeth! The squid slices were very good, and since they were grilled, you could still smell the rawness as if they were just taken out of the grill.

The fish and chips dish is freaking huge. You see those fillets? They didn't really look like the ones we saw in other restaurants. They were very good and actually not very fatty at all. The chips were so cute with that fat shape, and the tar tar sauce is awesome! Surprisingly, this whole dish is not very oily, and with a bit of salad it is quite easy to swallow this whole, IF you have a big stomach!

The lunch wasn't cheap, but once a month of food indulgence, this restaurant is certainly a place you can spend time in if you want to have a relaxing afternoon or evening with your buddies! 

Since no one asked me out for lunch, I decided to have something different for lunch today. I once wanted to join different groups or my girlfriend for lunch but it seems that such chances are getting less and less. Suddenly I was thinking, isn't being alone a good thing? I mean, I can be in charge of my own itinerary and I can decide what to do and to eat during the lunch time. That is a good thing!

I went to great, the supermarket at Pacific Place (and yes, that's their logo, orange in bold Verdena.) to get a sandwich for lunch. I went there several times and saw all those delicious sandwiches, but never had a chance to try them. This time I bought myself a turkey avocado sandwich and thought it would be a healthy meal with orange juice. I went back to the office and started eating, and holy shit, this was a really good sandwich!

 Wow, the vegetable was really fresh and crispy, and see those little sprouts (is that the name?)? They are so cool and the turkey slices were big and fresh. Wow, I love it!

I always believe that sometimes the best way to treat yourself good is to get some really good food. That is one of the ways to enjoy life and believe it, eating is the most basic way to feel contented. This sandwich is not cheap at all (HK$46, ~US$5.90) but you will feel like, "wow, so good!"

So last Friday I ordered breakfast in the office (usually I brought some bread to the office to eat instead) and what I got is some steamed vermicelli roll with roasted pork inside.

If you want to know more about this kind of dim sum, and if you know Chinese, you can click here to see more. Anyway, just a little knowledge for you on Hong Kong food, and what is the main course of this journal is my first cake in 2007! It is a marbled cake, have a look!

Oh yeah, the texture is really cool, not loose but tight. The chocolate has the right portion so that you don't think it is too sweet or what. This is so fun!

That's one of the main points in the new year for all of you: eat! Eat when you can and when you want to because that's the greatest joy in life! 

People like breaks, and for me a break with chocolate is the essence of my daily routine. Today I got a cup of hot dark chocolate drink from the hotel Mandarin Oriental.

The way they made this drink is really to melt a chocolate block and mix it with other ingredients, and it is done. It is just damn hot and tasteful. It smells very nice too, very "chocolate". The cinnamon is strong too but after drinking it, your mouth will be covered with the chocolate smell. It is really cool!

Now I am back to work... 

Last night my family and I went to the famous Chinese restaurant Chao Liu to celebrate my dad's birthday (it is a belated celebration anyway). I think some of you may be interested in Chinese culture especially in eating and so I took some photos and show you what my meal was like.

There are many kinds of Chinese food, and this is the food from one of the provinces Chaozhou. Their cuisine is quite special, marked by the dishes like sliced soya goose and thick congee. Chao zhou people like to dine before going to bed too, and you can expect these restaurants will only close after the clock strikes twelve. You can click here for more information (from Wikipedia, though the explanation isn't very accurate).

We started off with the sliced soya goose as the appetizer. It was really good and was served with some vinegar. Then we have some sliced pig ears too as the second starter. I know some of you cannot accept what it is, but that was actually quite delicious and was not as horrible and scary as you may expect.

Then here came the first main course, which was scrambled egg with baby oysters. Different from the big oysters you would get from some big buffets, these oysters are not high class ones but raw and typical that you would get along any seashore. This dish is usually served with Thai fish sauce, which is much better than just soya sauce.

Then, as shown at the bottom, is the famous steamed glutinous rice. It is mixed with mushroom slices, some peanuts, a little meat and soya sauce.

Here comes the chicken...

Finally, after all these main courses, you will have a set of tea, which let you clean your throat for the upcoming dessert dishes (or any more main courses). It is bitterer than the tea you drink during the whole meal, so that you will not feel too heavy at the stomach after the dishes.

The dessert we had included the crystal dumplings and the (translated as) black sesame soft balls. The first dish is normal dumplings but with sweet lotus seed paste, while the second one is a dumpling made with glutinous rice and hot black sesame paste (which is like liquid inside!). They were just so good!

So, you wanna try too? (Btw, if you are interested, I was using the Canon IXUS 800IS DCam, and I would say these photos are really nice, in terms of quality not my skills! )

Today when I went back home, I bought a bottle of Bailey's. It is the first time for me to buy alcohol, a bottle of alcohol, since it is usually my father who does it. I want to try some at home after dinner, and no doubt, it is really good.

I like Bailey's on the rocks most, since Bailey's is already sweet like chocolate and you don't need more things to accompany its taste. It is not weak alcohol, around 17% and so after one little glass you will get enough.

Very nice. It always reminds me the time when I was in Berlin, I got one glass of Bailey's after dinner. It was so awesome!

Do you have any sweet after-dinner drinks sometimes? What's it? 

On Saturday (yesterday that is), after work my boss asked if we were free for lunch. Then, to my surprise, my colleagues, my boss and I went to Shangri-La hotel (the one on Hong Kong Island, not one in Kowloon) and had our lunch buffet at Cafe Too. Yes, it is called Cafe Too. It is just amazing I swear.

Cafe TOO
It is just one crazy buffet and you can find nearly all kinds of food. If you are in Hong Kong, you won't bother with the Chinese food since you can eat it everywhere else. Though, I gave it a try and it was good, but what I like most is the Japanese food! The sushi, the sashimi and the other seafood were all so yummy and fresh! I have never eaten such thick and oily salmon! That's just so good!

And the candy counter is amazing as well. There are so many different kinds of cakes, and there are three fondues going in one row too! That's crazy! Including the dessert, I ate 4 dishes and I just tried one little piece of every dish, and I was already so full that I couldn't move! That's really insane!

After lunch I went shopping with my lady, and then we headed to Felix, the famous restaurant-and-bar at the internationally-renowned hotel, the Peninsula.

Felix
I cannot accept the fact that not until this day I didn't go to this place. I heard from others that it was really pretty and nicely-designed, and I didn't really have the chance to check it out. Finally, I arrived, and I was like...wow.

First you have to come up to the top through one pair of special elveators. The amazing thing is that when it is close to the top (28/F) like around 25/F, the lights inside the lifts will be dimmed and prepare you for the arrival. That's so cool!

As you can see from the left image, when you arrive you will pass through one corridor and see this big dining space. THe bars are actually one another level, which are led by the light staircases. They are pretty small, which can only accommodate 30 people each, at most. However, I guess the intimate space can act as another catalyst for human interaction, maybe. We enjoyed some cocktail and we must say that it was pretty cool. The design is very nicely done, from the ceiling to the sofa to the tilted walls. They are so well-thought! The bar faces the big window through which you can enjoy the beautiful HK harbour view, and there is this balustrade thing between you and the glass pane. It is tilted from left to right, and the slope is right to a point where your drinks will not slide or fall. Isn't that amazing?

The most amazing thing happens actually in the restrooms. The female and male restrooms are separated by one piece of glass only, and it is a half-frosted glass, translucent at the top and transparent at the bottom. You can see the girls' legs at the bottom! (though you cannot see anyone peeing, so no more bad thoughts). In the men's restroom, the urinals are beside the big window pane and so you pee "into the street", pretty funny. There is no sink in the restroom and all you can find is this big table (left image). Oh, it is actually tilted into the center and so the water goes into that middle. That's just...wow...I am speechless!

I think I was too lucky this day that I saw so much and experienced different things. I even saw a black Lamborghini on my way back home. First time I saw it with my eyes! WOW!