April 2014: GreyHound Cafe IFC & friends' arrival

April 2014

Now that I have moved closer to central area, finding food is becoming more of a pain in the arse unlike back when I was still residing in CWB area.  

Discovered Greyhound cafe and while I dont like everything they had to offer, I do like a couple of things they have like their squid ink spaghetti and duck noodles. However, avoid the crabcake at all cost. It's terrible and taste nothing like crab cakes. It's greasy and tasted more like rubber.

Duck noodle

Meanwhile, my uni frens came to HK for some tradefair and I offered my guest room to them. 

I havent seen SK since we graduated! I was alittle taken aback when he said my home is too neat and makes him uncomfy because he's a messy person and plus he wasnt exactly a close friend of mine unlike Vince. I dont like to force people and I believe everyone should do what they like and so without feeling offended, I told him not to feel obliged and do watever he feels like he needs to do. So SK moved to a hotel leaving Vince behind. I think Vince might be happier since the source of snoring was gone and he didnt have to squeeze on a Queen bed with another guy. Hahahaaa

Took them to Lei Garden. The one at IFC really sucks as compared to the one in a Times Square. 

HK Food Review: RyuGin@ ICC SkyDining

Feb 2014 

Ahhhh...time to share my awesome experience at RyuGin Hong Kong@ICC SkyDining 101. To sum it all up, "Beyond Expectation"

The whole gastronomical journey from start to end completely blow me away with the intricacy and meticulous presentation of food, not to forget how it won my taste buds over effortlessly. It was soooo good that I dare say it's even better than some top rated Kaiseiki meals we had in Japan itself.

After we had our free valet parking, we headed up and was promptly seated. The restaurant had limited seating and they do swipe your card in advance during booking to prevent last min no show or cancellation which is chargeable. Fair enough since the materials will cost a bomb and much prep work are required.

The menu for the night is on the table for your leisurely glance over. It doesnt read impressive but mind you, the food will blow your mind.

Menu for the night

Waiting to be impressed

First dish to be presented was "Fresh Urchin with simmered Raddish". What can I say apart that the urchin was so packed full of sweetness and it was a seamlessly beautiful union with the raddish. Imagine 3 months on, the memory of its awesomeness can still evoke the glorious satisfaction and longing for this simple dish.

Fresh Urchin with simmered Raddish

The second dish was a mixture of monkfish liver and calms. Normally I'm not a fan of liver (apart from pork's) but this was surprisingly "non liverish" in taste. I didnt know if its the miso or the calm that did the trick of distracting or deceiving my tastebuds but it was another winner. The small raddish though was more for texture than taste.

10 years Speciality: Monkfish liver from Hokkaido, clams, with mustard miso sauce

Next on the list is the fresh prawn dumpling and while the clear consome looked unimpressive but it was delightful with every bite as it does not overpower the gentle natural sweetness of the prawn. If only all dumplings on this earth are made this way! The light yuzu scent gently refreshes your palette and enhance the natural fragrance of the dish.

Yuba soy skin fresh prawn dumpling

The 4th fish is sashimi. No words are needed. Me being me, I just need to touch the salt mountain design and it is verified glued down. So no fear of messing it up. Lol

We are on a roll here and the dishes just got better and better and left me craving for more. Usually by this time at some other joints, after a few hits, the misses with start to appear but NOT at RyuGin. The next dish which was charcoal grilled Alfonsino fish was clearly another winner here. The sweetness and juiciness without doubt will win over even the most hardy critic of fish dishes. It was pure ecstasy. The fish was cooked to perfection and sublime. If only I could bring myself to cast away my manners and lift up that stone slab just to lap up every bit of the fish juice oozing out, I would. The red raddish did nothing for me but the star winner is honestly the fish.

Charcoal grilled Alfonsino with grated green raddish & red raddish salad

After the fish, it left me dizzy with anticipation. Could the dishes get any better than this honestly? The 6th dish that came was Japanese hairy crab with shitake mushroom egg custard. I stared down at this unassuming bowl of goodness and held my breath as I took my first spoonful. Just shoot me already. This bowl is choke full of flavor that I couldnt be more delighted to say this has got to be the BEST egg custard I have eaten ever, and I have eaten many. The silky smoothness coupled with the wholesome woody shitake aroma, and throw in those crab meat. It was heavenly!

Japanese hairy crab with shitake mushroom egg custard

Following swiftly behind was finally the meat dish. My long awaited Wagyu beef. One way to describe it? TO DIE FOR.

wagyu sirlion

The 8th dish I suspect is a filler dish, that is to fill up those in between gaps inside your belly with rice. The rice itself is bland but the abalone was great. There was no way to top the fish and beef and so in comparison this will obviously pale in taste. However, that said, that miso soup was AWESOME. 

Simmered abalone rice

By now, we have finally reached close to the finishing line, the desserts. I present to you the "Minus 196 degree mandarin candy with + 99 degree homemade mandarin jam". This dessert is KICK ARSE good. The freezing cold mixed with the sweet sourish hot jam was brillant! I wished they gave me two of these.

-196 degree mandarin candy with +99degree homemade mandarin jam

196 degree mandarin candy with +99degree homemade mandarin jam

Last but not least, the 2nd final dessert. I cant rem the name but this was the only disappointment of the night. They tried to do some Jap-Chinese fusion to signify CNY but nope, doesnt work. I didnt finish this esp after all the successful 8 dishes, not gonna ruined my nite with this.

Add caption

All in all, it was an awesome dinner and would I recommend anyone to come here? A resounding YES YES YES! If you are all for food and gunning for one special dinner to pamper that special someone after saving up for the whole year, THIS IS ABSOLUTELY the one place you should go for.

HK food Review: Dinner at BCN (Barcelona)@ Soho Central, peel street

Decided to try a Spanish dining spot for a change. So called up BCN ( BarCeloNa) and got ourselves a seating at 7.30pm for two. 

Unlike other restaurants, BCN will watsapp the menu to you and u are expected to decide what menu u want at least one day before the dinner. So I chose trip to Spain.

 The weirdest thing is that the whole dining party must have the SAME menu for a non table seating. So if a party of 4 comes here and u want different choices, I reckon it makes more sense to make 2 reservations request to sit side by side. It's quite hard to talk for a party beyond 3. 

When we arrived, only a party of 2 Korean gals were here. The place is empty otherwise. That doesn't bode well for a Friday peak dinner night. 

The whole place is counter seating. No tables. Considering the whole place is empty, am surprised that they sat us just next to the Korean gals with one seat apart. So we could hear each other's conversation. 

By 8.30pm, it's still only the 4 of us. By now, I'm almost 3/4 way done. 

For starters, we had iberico ham n cheese. Nothing to rave about.

The next dish is octopus with potato sitting in a pool of olive oil. If u love slurping up oil, I guess this will do it for you. Personally, was a little let down by both the presentation as well as the dish itself. While the octopus itself is cooked well n sweet, retaining its seafood flavor, yet the potato slice was rather bland n disappointing. The texture combination is a let down. I would think it needs some other pairing to give the dish more character. It may be authentic but if u have an overpriced menu, I expect something better, and a larger slice of octopus to start with would b brilliant.

Following shortly, comes croquette dish. As mentioned before, croquette is my speciality... And frankly, this is kinda hit and miss dish. Out of 3, only the middle one was any good....

By now, I wasn't wow but neither too bitterly disappointed. Just when I thought I could remain suitably neutral about the dishes, the garlic soup which followed next was frankly the first disappointment of the eve. I think this Garlic Soup is about as exciting n tasty as a can of Campbell soup...what lies within this bowl is cubes of potato n a large chunk of garlic. Seriously dude...u don't open a restaurant, charge an arm n a leg and serve me this.

Before I can recover from shaking my head, the seafood paella was squally disappointing. The flavor was acceptable but the rice was so chewy that I couldn't go beyond 5 spoonful. I had to ask the chef if paella is intended to b this chewy. The last paella I had in Spain def wasn't this chewy where I could still see the complete white within each grain despite the seafood soup browning. 

The chef initially said it's meant to b chewy, but less than risotto. I told him that his was definitely MUCH harder n chewier than risotto. I offered my plate for his tasting. He took a bite and insisted it was perfectly cooked. He said "I stayed in Spain 3 months..." And then He went on defending his dish that "he didn't want to bastardized the dish to HK style" and that ALL his other patrons love this dish. Instead of doing something about it there n then, his parting words were "u should let us know next time u want it softer"

Buddy, in the first place, how would I know your seafood paella would be so hard, 50% harder than risotto and definitely unlike wat I had in Spain Barcelona. Secondly, what makes u think I'm gonna come back???

When a chef is so defensive to a simple question, it's really no point continuing the conversation. I left it as it is, he walked off and even when he saw that we didn't touch the dish further, no offer to cook it further, no nothing. Not a simple apology on my obvious disappointment.

The next dish slow cook pork was very good though n cook to perfection. However, while the cinamon sweet sauce was good, personally I didn't like the pumpkin purée. I think it had a tad too much of something else either some oil or butter which ruins the natural sweetness of pumpkin.

The dessert Catalan Cream was again nothing great. The cream was warm at some parts and cold at some parts. Not a very good redeeming ending.

All in all will I be back? Never.

Not on my list to recommend. 

Do I think this place will last, sadly, I highly doubt it. The chef (from tonite) definitely needs to rethink about his recipes, overpricing and cooking techniques....also, too many waitress n staff for such a small place. 

Unique ice cream place in tin hau

My fren in Singapore was just lamenting the other day, about how many more "cafés", soy bean curd, ice cream joints we need to be invaded by on this small island, where everyone sells about the same thing with no innovation and creativity. 

While I have no further inputs on her observation, I am on the other hand, happy to announce that I just love HK vibrant food culture that constantly allows new shops to spring up in pockets one after another. While my beloved CWB has seen its demise for small F&B ventures, saved for expensive conglomerates that have deep pockets to pay the exorbitant rental rates, It is with much delight that apart from sheung wan, Tin hau is also turning into a nice eating spot! 

Apart from I M Teppanyaki which I had found, we too discovered a nice bread place "BlissHive" with very nice cakes and their freshly made breads are without preservatives nor margarines,  and a gourmet meat place ( love the pig trotters door handle)...while strolling the area, spotted a steamboat place too. 

From BlissHive, I tried their NY cheesecake and another banana walnut mascarpone cake. Also bought a loaf of green tea bread to try. Personally I prefer the cheesecake which isn't too sweet, the banana mascarpone has this hard crunchy top that didn't quite do it for me. However, their green tea bread was nice, esp when I paired it with butter and kaya spread.  

The whole feel is soooo Bustling with local crowd without the gweilou as often seen in central. The crowd isn't ur average joe either, since I overheard a lot of highly educated youngsters who are either ABCs or schooled internationally. 

The best was spotting this shop called lab made ice cream where they churned out ur ice cream "made to order". It isn't your everyday off the mill favors but rather a small but eclectic offering such as pandan cake or toasted bread flavor. The crowd size was amazing. U would not be faulted to think its more of a crowd befitting of a beer joint but nope, it's purely ice cream, to-go to boot. The patrons seemed to love it. One has to push past the crowd just to get close enough the board to see what were the flavors of the day. I was too full to try it that night but I promise u I will be back to give a full review.

Honestly, given the maddening crowd, I think the flavours must be something to be reckoned with since this store has been around for quite some time. However as my local fren would put in perspective, "why pay 9 times the price for 奶醬多 ice cream when u can get the real thing at 5 bucks at 茶餐廳。" lol

Hk Food Review: Gonpachi@ Lee Gardens CWB

Gonpachi has opened for several months now but I didn't bother to go try it out as I wasn't very smitten with the Tokyo main store several years back. I went to Gonpachi Tokyo twice and both times I was highly disappointed.

However, spoiling for a quick lunch in CWB on sat peak lunch hour with no prior reservations, I decided to give Gonpachi Hk a go since we were just in Lee Garden anyway. The fact that it's pricey made it a safer bet than cheap lunch prices which is bound to be packed.

There is a lunch set menu, and it isn't all skewers. Amen. I settled for a tempura don set while my man settled for the 6 skewers set. Both set are priced around Hk 250 plus /minus, before service charges etc.

The servings are a nice large size actually, complete with miso soup and 2 mini starters. My tempura don was ok. Marginally above average and not too sweet with sauce.  My man's skewer set actually is more yummy than mine. There's the standard minced chicken stick, beef stick, green pepper stick, bacon wrapped round asparagus stick, mushroom stick etc, though I wasn't too wild abt the green pepper sticks. it was actually quite good!

We both ordered extra drinks, him the ice cold yuzu lime and me the yuzu honey warm. It was quite unnecessary really since the tea was sufficient but oh well, wanted to drink something else. The drinks are ok, not spectacular.

Oh, I ordered a snow crab croquette as well and it came in 3 pieces. The servicing size was perfect and the crispy skin was very thin and light without being greasy. While the filling is indeed packed with nice mouthful of crab, can't help but feel its a little too creamy for my liking. The cream they mixed with the crab meat is also too sweet, which is at odd with savory crab meat. So as a croquette lover and critic, this isn't my fav and while it doesn't fall flat and has it merits, it isn't the best in town unless they can improve on the flavor to make it less sweet and a little more liberal with sea salt seasoning for the filling. ( and I'm someone who doesn't like excessive salty dishes)

The food is nice but I take issue with the short chairs. No kidding, it's one of the most odd chair to table height ratio I have experienced and so I had to request the staff to pass me the zabuton or the red cushion to prop up the chair height.  I'm not short, averaging 1.65m and if I think the chair is too low for a comfortable meal experience and proper digestion, I don't know how other shorter HK ladies cope?  My man on the other hand HATES the non stop drumming "music" noise that they play. So instead of a nice relaxing dining place, it sounds more like a charging field with occasional quiet or soft music interlude. Weird choice of music if u ask me but no one did.

The place is often relatively empty at early dinner and lunch. I am assuming the pricing may have something to do with it. Then again, the Viet restaurant An Nam next door is just as pricey but it's always fully book....hmmm...

After the meal, we were given several hk20 coupons to be deducted off next meal. Supposedly accumulative is fine. Would I be back, yes, but not often due to the non justifiable price.

Hk Food review: Second visit to I M Teppanyaki

Last weekend, we decided to head back to "I M Teppanyaki" for dinner. 

It seemed rather difficult to actually get a seating with chef Mok during weekends since he is almost always fully booked by "regulars" that booked a room etc.

We couldn't get him last Sunday and initially we were told Sat nite at 7pm would be possible. So we changed our dinner plans instead. However, comes sat afternoon, I got a call citing that Chef Mok is not available to us as he is being booked again for room. So I assumed that "normal" guests are second class to the rich who can have regular meals there even if we had already reserved a slot in advance. The lady kept recommending the other chefs. Hello, I know there are other chefs, don't state the obvious. What is annoying is that when I did the booking the first time, I had already told her WHO I don't want to cook my meal but on sat, she recommended the pretty boy again. I know I didn't want pretty boy Cal to cook my meal and so thankfully Chef Stone was available. Was I annoyed by the last min change and the apparent "I don't rem what u told me" service, kinda annoyed but well what can I do unless I don't eat there right?

When we arrived, we were seated and chef Stone came to greet us. He told us if the beef tenderloin would be ok and since my man prefer his meat less fatty so we said ok.

Service by waitresses was rather patchy. Not much interaction except they would stand behind u waiting to be called. Another regular and wife, whom they addressed by name, came in slightly later and I supposed being "someone", the waitresses greeted them warmly, and offered to hang their outer jackets etc. No one bothered to ask us if we like to hang our jackets, and even when we are seated next to them, with our jackets obviously hanging off the chairs, no one seemed to spot this service oversight or discrimination. Even when their fren came in much later to join them, service was also top notch to them. Another walk in couple seated to our right was also given the less than warm hospitality. That's a second thing that rub me off the wrong way. Shouldn't service be more uniform when we are all paying guests, though I must admit that they are nice enough to allow the couple to our right to share only 1 set meal between them.

While service was a let down, the food was still exceptional. 

Apparently they had changed the menu this time round.

They had gotten rid of the scallop, replaced it with buttered abalone instead which actually works better for us.

We had known Stone chef from sessyu days. We had enjoyed his cooking because he had always
cooked our meat to perfection. This time round, he remained top notched and did not let us down. His seasoning was just right, and u can tell he is very careful about how much salt he sprinkle over the meat. He would carefully sprinkled it over the meat just at a right height, instead of the showy flashy "flinging seeds" technique the other pretty chef does. As well, we noticed he used suitably lesser oil as compared to pretty boy chef.

The buttered abalone was superb.
It was fresh and succulent with the slight chewy texture I like. Would be better if they sliced it a little thinner so that it would be easier to chew for ladies. However, taste wise, there is no faulting.

The lobster...remains as good as per my last review.

The foie gras was excellent and this time round I noticed they got rid of the round berries which I had
 reviewed previously as being too bitter. Good decision on that. Also, it was not teriyaki sauce but a more gentle fruity sauce. Fig perhaps? Not sure and forgot to ask.

This time round there is extra vege salad. It's a bit strange to serve it in the middle of the meal instead of at the start. It consist of carrot stick, asparagus,  the usual suspect in some home made light sauce. Nothing wow there.

The next thing is tenderloin.
Personally, I much prefer the meat we had in Oct. It was prob rib eye which was fattier and sweeter. The meat we had this time though looked marbled, was not as fatty and to me, loses the distinctive beef flavor. Also, it doesn't taste as good with wasabi as the fatty cuts. The fried rice is still paired with the lobster head miso soup packed with generous raddish mushroom though I must say chef mok's fried rice taste better than chef Stone.

The seasonal fruit remained as honey dew but instead of grapes, it is paired with strawberry.

All in all, the meal remains outstanding. At the end of our meal, chef Mok found time to come to our station and cook the ala carte dishes for his regular sitting to my left. Apparently chef Mok is heading to japan next weekend so he won't be around.

Would I come back, I guess so for the food and I hope the discriminating service staff would improve on their evidently suck-up attitude since we are all paying guests. Even if chef Mok is not available, thankfully there is always the lesser known chef stone so I guess it's ok.

More food and hanging out with BFF

Before my BFF heads back to Sg, I had her go yum cha with me at lei garden, so that she can sink her teeth into those yummy roast pigeon. In my excitement, I over ordered and had to pack some stuff back, but not before we devoured those roast meat and my seafood soup dumpling...oh sooo yummy!

For dinner, since we didnt have anything prebooked, we decided to try our luck with this new Japanese place - 目利きの銀次／ Mekiki No Ginji. I had eyed the place but not tried it till now. It's pretty nice for yakitori sticks but I wont recommend the soup rice thingy. Simply coz I hate gluey soup base.

After dinner, we went back to my (or now, our) fav soy beancurd place!!! I just have to have my ginger version while she had her black sesame ones. Oh sooooo heavenly!!! The curd is just plain wobbly smooth!!! 

We decided to have another late nite and I was thinking about wee morn 2am"snacks" at 24hr Tsui Wah but changed my mind after pinching my waist...another day then!