The Press Room is one of the great places that many of the foreigners love to visit in Hong Kong. This place, decorated with dark wood panels and lit indirectly by uplights, is filled with western kind of atmosphere. The big blackboard and the huge glass container at the entrance showcasing their fresh seafood are definitely their signature.

Today we came here for a nice dinner, and I liked what I saw when I arrived at the restaurant, greeted by the smiling staff. We were led to a sofa seating at a corner, where I could have a full glance of the place easily. We looked at the menu and were amazed by the choice of food and drinks listed. It took us 15 minutes to decide what to order.

The first dish would be the bread, and I told my friend that if the bread was good, that meal wouldn't be too bad. If the restaurant put some effort in the simplest dish, that means other bigger dishes would also receive the same amount of attention and care. The bread here was quite well done, and I knew this meal would be a nice one.

Our salad took quite some time to arrive, but it turned out to be a nice one. This is the Roast Portobello Mushroom, a mix of wild leaves, summer herbs and truffles.

The starter came later, which was the Foie Gras & Chicken Liver Parfait with Toasted Walnut Bread.

This was very delicious. The foie gras was not too fatty or fishy, and went surprisingly good with the sweet seasoned vegetable. We actually asked for two more pieces of bread to finish this dish off.

Our main course, the Châteaubriand, followed right after the starter. The grilled, dry-aged US prime tenderloin was served with both béarnaise  and pepper sauces. The meat was medium done, and was so well prepared to have a crispy layer outside with inside juicy.

The beef was very tender that each bite was a step to heaven. I appreciate how the meat was prepared and sized because the portion was just right to make you full but not too full to make you throw up. The broccoli topped with cheese was a perfect complement to the dish, while the little potatoes and grilled tomato balanced out the tenderloin well. No wonder they marked this in the menu as a chef recommendation.

We enjoyed the dinner very much, and everything was wonderfully set up. The service was great too, and I think that is the most important thing besides the quality of food as bad services can ruin a meal completely even if the meal is made with precious black truffles and expensive abalones. I am sure a revisit will come very soon, and I will definitely try the dessert menu next time! Yes, I was already too full after the tenderloin!

Now the best is coming, and they are all in Tokyo. Yes, we got the best meat here, so get ready!

六歌仙燒肉店 [ Official Site ][ Google Map ]
Barbecue is not uncommon in Japan, and there are so many different barbecue shops you can choose from. You though should not miss this one where you can find the best meat and seafood for your barbecue. This is in Korean style, but is probably better in Japanese services and ambiance. We had high-quality wagyu beef, ox tongue and baby lobster for our grilling pleasure. The excellent beef in rice soup and crab-meat in rice soup completed the whole wonderful dinner. This place is not cheap, but we know good food always has a price. It is worth it!

Godiva Concept Shop [ Official Site ][ Google Map ]
I actually don't think Godiva is that good anymore, but their concept shop attracted me so much that I couldn't help to pay a visit. Inside, you can find the walls and ceiling melting with chocolate, making the whole room so mouthwatering. Even though the chocolate was just so-so to me, the drinks were still well blended and great. We tried the banana chocolate decadence, and it was surprisingly light and yummy, though the small size wasn't enough to quench my thirst.

ゲンカツ Genkatsu [ Official Site ][ Google Map ]
I have introduced you the best tonkatsu in Hong Kong, and I thought Tonkichi was already very close to top one, but sorry not anymore. If you visit Ginza in Japan, don't miss this wonderful place where you can find the best pork cutlet in the world. This is no ordinary cutlet but contains 25 layers of 0.5mm finely cut pork slices. At first I wondered if that would make the meat too tough and chewy, but it actually melted in my mouth! Oh my god, that is just too good to describe, and once you have a bite, you know there is no going back to other tonkatsu shops. The rice was also very well done, and it actually shone in the wooden container! Must-go place!

ねぎし 牛たん麦とろ [ Official Site ][ Google Map (Shibuya) ]
One day we went to Shibuya, and was planning to visit a famous skewer place. However, it was too full and we were too hungry to wait till 9 for a table, so we just randomly picked a restaurant for a quick dinner. We were too lucky to find this place, which is a fast food restaurant specialized in grilled ox tongue. The meal wasn't expensive at all, and those thick ox-tongue slices were amazingly good. They were grilled just right: crispy on the outside and juicy inside. The soup was great too because it was very light without MSG at all, which made it a perfect match with the rice and meat. We couldn't help but visit it again the next day!

That's it, I hope you enjoy it! Do visit these places with you are in Japan, because if you don't, your trip won't be a good one!

Alright, I am late. It has been some time since I came back from Japan. Some friends of mine keep bugging me about this food blog, and finally I got time to finish it. So, let the food p0rn begin.

味之時計台 [ Official Site ]
Not a very famous and high-end ramen shop, but here you can find some really good noodle. The ramen was pretty well done, and the meat was soft and juicy, and the great soup made a perfect match with the noodle. You may not expect high quality from chain restaurants but this one is definitely above average, making it a good choice if you are looking for a quick but decent lunch. ★★★

出拔小路 [ Google Map ]
In Otaru, I don't think you can find many places to eat except here. This place sits at a road junction and is a little complex containing several little shops. You can find ramen and skewer shops, but this ice-cream store may be the most famous: they sell this melon ice-cream! Yes, they put milky vanilla ice-cream into a half-cut melon! You can probably imagine how it tastes, and it is not something extremely special, though it is definitely cool and fun to hold a melon like that to eat ice-cream. (even cooler in winter!) ★★

鳥花雪 [ Google Map ][ Related Website ]
I never like soba noodle because they don't really taste good to me. Now I realize only the soba noodle in Hong Kong sucks. We visited the famous hot bath town Karuizawa in Hokkaido, and went to this little house which makes only 50 sets of soba noodle a day. After that they just close the restaurant. This is the best soba noodle I have ever had, and unlike that in Hong Kong, the noodle here really tastes buckwheat. It was pure delicious and went perfect with the special soy sauce. The tempura shrimps were excellent and not oily at all. This is definitely a meal that you should not miss. Five stars! ★★★★★

富田農場 Farm Tomita [ Google Map ]
This farm in Furano is all about beautiful flowers especially lavender, and that's why all the people come here in summer. There is no special food here except these two which are really interesting. The lavender ice-cream is definitely a must to try, and the melon bun is a bigger and more wonderful surprise. The whole bun smells like melon as its name suggests, and the inside is all melon cream! It is so milky but at the same time tastes very light. I enjoy that much more than any other souvenirs in the farm. ★★★

山頭火 [ Google Map ][ Official Site ]
This famous ramen shop is one of the best in the Sapporo town. The rich soup with sesame goes so well with the noodle which is filled with the smell of egg. The best, though, is the roasted pork. Put the pork slices into the hot soup for a while, and then place it in your mouth, you can feel it  melting on your tongue! Thank God you don't need to visit Hokkaido to enjoy this wonderful ramen, because they have opened one of the branches in Hong Kong! Find it in iSquare, TST! Of course, the Japan one is still better, haha... ★★★★★

梅八 [ Related Site ][ Address: 池袋東武 11/F Ikebukuro Tobu 11/F ]
Tonkatsu is definitely one of the Japanese signature dishes. This one is located at the food floor of Tobu department store, and that's why it often has a line of people at the outside. The queue however does not exist because of any excellent food, because we think the pork here is just so-so. It smells good but is a bit tough, and there is quite some fat in the meat (we thought only wagyu beef needs that much fat). Despite that, the meal is okay overall, and definitely not a bad choice for a casual lunch. ★★

なんつっ亭拉麵 [ Google Map ]
Ramen looks like...um...just ramen, yellow noodle in beige soup, right? This one has black soup instead. Winning the second runner-up in the TBS Ramen Competition 2005, this shop is about nothing but delicious noodle. They use a special sesame oil for their ramen, which is sesame oil mixed with fried ginger, hence the dark brown color. The soup is very well done, which is made from boiling pig head (yeah I know!), pork chop, pig bones, chicken bones and sea weed for a long time. That's why it tastes so good and rich! Definitely a must-eat place in Tokyo! Five stars! ★★★★★

Jean Paul Hevin Cafe [ Google Map ][ Address: 新宿伊勢丹 Isetan Shinjuku ]
I love chocolate, and everyone knows it. Since two years ago after I tried the dark chocolate ice-cream at Jean Paul Kevin in Omotesandō, I recommended it to everyone I knew. This time when I was in Isetan, I found this little cafe and it was also Jean Paul Hevin! No doubt I immediately ran inside and got myself a chocolate cake with a cup of hot chocolate. Everything was so good, and all the chocolate was rich and...rich! If you love chocolate, you should not miss this place, and if you are not a complete fan, go visit too and become one! ★★★★

Stay tuned for part 3, the best is yet coming!

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!