Smoked with delicious fat

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One of the restaurants in Shenzhen that I had heard good things about is Fumée (拂鳴). I had yet to pay them a visit as I'm still in the discovery stage with regard to the city across the border, and I have naturally focused on restaurants serving various schools of Chinese cuisine. I figured I'd get around to it eventually. When Mr. Chichi asked whether I'd be interested in joining a group tasting on a Sunday night, it didn't take me long to say 'Yes'.

After taking a detour on account of my stupidity, we arrived at the restaurant just before the appointed time. Our group was seating along the counter facing the kitchen, and I had the good fortune to keep the Kitchen Nazi company. He's always fun with eat with.

Our evening started with some Champagne...

Christophe Mignon ADN de Meunier Brut Nature, dégorgée le 20 Mai 2020 - initially this was served much too cold, a common mistake, so there wasn't much showing on the nose except for a little minerals. Got a little better once it warmed up with a little more depth on the palate.

Chef Reina Chen explained that she was serving us a spring menu, with ingredients reflecting the flavors she associates with the season. We would start with something refreshing:

We were shown some of the 9 ingredients used to make our welcome drink, including cardamom and "leaves from the forest".

This smelled of guava and pine or cypress... definitely very green. Nice and refreshing.

A classic Hong Kong experience

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Mikacina is back in town, and I was excited to have the opportunity to show her something more "local" than the other places she had on her itinerary. It would only the second trip here for Mr. P, and I was eager to let him experience more of what we love about Hong Kong. Rather than taking them to a cha chaan teng (茶餐廳), I opted for a slightly more comfy experience at Ho Hung Kee (何洪記). After all, it's a place that Foursheets and I visit from time to time by ourselves. I jokingly told Mikacina that she could have "Michelin-starred congee" when I first suggested the place, but she didn't take me seriously, and didn't realize until she arrived that the restaurant does, in fact, hold a Michelin star.

We were placed in a cozy booth just next to the restaurant entrance, which had been decorated with a flower motif. A somewhat romantic touch I did not expect from this place...

Foursheets and I proposed a few items that I thought were classics and visitors should experience, and after getting our friends' approval - including for items Mr. P did not think he would enjoy - we placed the order.

Assorted meat congee with sliced fish (羊城荔灣艇仔粥) - well, this IS one of the classic congees, and our Korean guests enjoyed it a lot. It's clearly very different from Korean porridge, and the varied ingredients like sliced fish, squid tentacles, jellyfish, shredded pork, peanuts... etc. make for an interesting mix.

Hot in the city

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I seldom have hankering for hotpot meals in restaurants. Besides the soup base - and often I would prefer something clear or even plain water - it's mostly about the ingredients. There isn't much cooking skill involved, and I freely admit to having next to none in that department. I'm almost always joining friends or family when I find myself at a hotpot restaurant. So it was the case today... when Mr. Chichi extended a rare invitation to join him for Beijing-style lamb hotpot (涮羊肉).

Having spent a lot less time in Central over the last year or so, I've been oblivious to the opening of Peking Hotpot (新京熹老北京涮肉火鍋) - a genuine Beijing import. I had, in fact, walked past it last month without taking much notice. But since Mr. Chichi is organizing, I figured I'd get to have a pretty good experience - and a lot of food.

We have the hotpot with traditional clear broth (傳統清湯鍋).

We were presented with the array of condiment sauce (搭檔小料), and I love the traditional sesame sauce.

Rush, rush

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My friendly neighborhood prime broker wanted to take me out to lunch in order to celebrate my new job, and also as an early celebration of our birthdays. She was rambling about some restaurant she'd never been to... when she suddenly lamented that she hadn't been back to The Chairman (大班樓) in a long time. Well... I decided to grow some thick skin and begged for a table - which was how we ended up here today.

Lunching at The Chairman is something I have seldom done, unless it's a weekend or I'm not working. Imagine showing up here today and immediately recognizing people at a few neighboring tables. I guess I don't live the same leisurely life as those people... but that's OK.

I left the choice of dishes entirely in the hands of my broker a.k.a. the Landlord. I thought she would consult with her colleagues before making the choices, but I was wrong. There were a few dishes that I would not have picked, that I didn't care for, but I bit my tongue. This lunch was about making someone else happy, and it had nothing to do with me.

Cold squid noodle and lily bulbs with pine nut gazpacho (魷魚涼麵百合配松子凍湯) - no, this isn't Cantonese cuisine. It's more Japanese and Korean, and that chilled pine nut cream is just so refreshing on a warm day. Those petals of 9-year-old lily bulb from Lanzhou (蘭州) is just so crunchy with incredibly high sugar content.

Redemption, one week later

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I was less than impressed with my dining experience at Hong Kong Cuisine 1983 (壹玖捌叁) last Friday, as the experimental tasting menu delivered a few head-scratchers. At the time, though, we already knew we would be coming back for lunch today. I had seen positive comments posted by friends about the dim sum here, which was why my dinner last week was so shockingly disappointing. Anyway, we got a different group today so we could try lots of stuff from their menu.

I was pretty excited looking at the dim sum section of the menu during my dinner last week, so I opened it up and started scanning for the goodies. That's when the staff came and told us not to order anything from the big menu... as the kitchen had come up with a new list of dim sum items, and those were presented on a totally different menu. So... one of the items I was most excited about trying is no longer available. Now I was disappointed even before we started ordering.

Someone was pretty excited about checking out as many dishes as we could with the five of us around the table, and it did turn out to be a big lunch...

Diced peppery Black Angus beef puff (胡椒安格斯牛肉餅) - I was a little surprised that this was the first item that arrived, but I suppose they had been pre-baked and could be heated up quickly?