Boring dishes I sorely need

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My Favorite Cousin's birthday is coming up, and as I'll be home with mom celebrating her birthday falling on the same day, and seeing that Birdbrain's girlfriends have planned an excursion with her for the following weekend, we figured we'd get together tonight and pop open a bottle. The wine snob in me flat-out refused to bring the special bottle to the Chiuchow place requested by the birthday girl, so eventually we settled on trying out LALA, the new restaurant with Chef Franckelie Laloum. I knew the place was new and normally I don't pay much attention to new openings, but we needed a place open on Sundays that doesn't force us to take a multi-course tasting menu, so this seems to fit the bill.

I was chatting about this place a few weeks ago, and someone who I shall not name had dissed the food as "boring" and "stuff you can find at Louise 3 years ago". Well... I don't always need the latest and the most fancy dishes. In fact, what is very much lacking in Hong Kong is a good selection of places serving decent, classic bistro fare that actually tastes good, and where I can bring a bottle or two. Unfortunately the few places fitting that requirement are all closed on Sundays. So I'm grateful that I can come and order just a couple of dishes à la carte.

I know I shouldn't expect every restaurant to have impeccable wine service, but for a place that charges me HKD 500 for corkage, I do have some expectations. Yes, we all know I brought an old bottle of wine, so the person opening it knew he should be careful with the cork. Yes, broken corks happen all the time, but I would expect the restaurant to have the proper tools to extract older, fragile corks from the bottle and not need to run out and borrow it from somewhere else... And I would also expect care to be taken during decanting - especially when you already that the cork is no longer in one piece - so that we don't end up with bits of broken cork in multiple glasses.

So... not off to a good start.

Dude, where's my abalone?

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It's been a while since I last had the chance to grab a drink with Saffron Bae, with him globetrotting for events and visiting the new restaurants in his fast-expanding empire. He finally managed to find an open slot, and it seemed like the right time to bring out a certain bottle to share with him.

It's Saturday night and, of course, Caprice is reasonably busy... especially when the Chef's Table gets booked out by a big brand for a few days straight. I took my seat at the Caprice Bar, and soon Victor came over and noticed that I had brought along an interesting bottle. As I said, it's a terrible vintage for a terrible chef...

But first things first... Anyss came over and poured me a BIG glass of Champagne...

R. Pouillon Grande Vallée, dégorgée 2e trimestre - very fresh on the nose, floral and fragrant. Nice with good complexity on the palate, and I thought I tasted the meunier. With time the nose became more caramelized, and the wine became more alluring.

Tonight wasn't meant to be a tasting of new dishes like our last session so I was offered a "small starter" before taking the main course, which I had preferred over a burger.

Hungry in Ningbo

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Nine days after my scouting mission, I'm back at Yong Fu (甬府) sitting with The Hungry Tourist and his crew of, well, hungry tourists. This is only my friend's second time organizing a food tour of Hong Kong, and the first since 7 years ago. While they are clearly focusing on the "local" cuisine, we both thought that Yong Fu should be on the itinerary, since it represents the best that Hong Kong has to offer.

The menu tonight included a few seasonal dishes I had tried out last week, as well as some old favorites which have become quintessential. Some of the dishes were also chosen with the consideration that all the diners (except moi, of course) were non-Chinese guests from overseas.

Mud crab with mashed ginger and coriander (招牌十八斬) - this turned out to be more popular than I had expected. As usual, I did not partake when it came to raw crab.

Another northern expedition

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Someone thought it would be a good idea to take S all the way up north for some local flavor, and got us a booking for one of the private rooms at Sun Hon Kee Restaurant (新漢記). Foursheets and I love the place, but it's kinda far even for us locals, nevermind someone who is visiting. Well... somehow I ended up taking over as organizer, and invited The Great One as well as a couple of friends who were checking the place out for the first time.

As it was drizzling a little, we decided to make the long journey in a taxi. Funny that it was also a rainy night the last time we came...

Brother Hon seemed pretty happy to see Foursheets, even know I doubt he remembers our names. Nevertheless, we knew we were in good hands and there would be lots of food coming our way. Sure enough, there was a flurry of "small(ler)" dishes which arrived at our table in rapid-fire style...

Foie gras in 5 spice marinade sauce (鹵鵝肝) - never had this here before. Tasty, but the texture was a little on the dry and firm side. Still very smooth, though.

Pork tendon with shallot oil and soy dipping sauce (白烚豬前腿筋) - one of my perennial favorites here. I just can't resist tender, jiggly pork. That dipping sauce is just so tasty.

Old favorites get better

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I was casually chatting with one of My Favorite Cousin's friends a few weeks ago when she mentioned that she's never been able to dine at The Chairman (大班樓). This isn't particularly surprising, since a booking is difficult to come by unless you're a regular customer. I happened to have booked a table for tonight, and hadn't asked anyone else to join me, so I extended an invitation, and also reached out to other friends of My Favorite Cousin's to fill our little table of 4.

As I am, once again, taking someone here for the very first time, I had to overrule someone's wish to have an off-menu crab so that our newbie could have THAT crab. It's just one of those things.

Ginger and vinegar pig trotter terrine (甜醋子薑豬手豬耳凍) - I really, really love this starter. It's got the acidity from the vinegar and the slight kick from pickled ginger to help whet the appetite. It's also got the rich flavors from the diced pig trotter and pig's ears. I wonder if some of my dining companions realize this is based on the Cantonese dish of 豬腳薑？