Last lunch in the 'hood

It's been a while since I last turned up at my favorite restaurant in Hong Kong, so we decided we should try to squeeze one more meal in before closing out this really shit year.  With government ban on dining in after 6 p.m. in place, our only choice would be lunch service - something that Neighborhood doesn't normally offer.  Luckily we were able to grab a table for lunch today.

A list of crowd favorites over the years are available as part of the set lunch, so Hello Kitty and I ended up sharing our dishes.

Beef tartare / foie gras - what a way to start lunch!  The color of the beef was lighter than expected, and worked beautifully together with the diced onions and the thin layers of foie gras.  All of this was accented with some deep-fried garlic chips, hazelnut chunks, and cracked Sichuan peppercorns.  Really, really tasty.

Potato gratin / white truffle - courtesy of The Man in White T-shirt.  Shirley came over and shaved some white truffle on top for us.  It's nice, but there's no way that the two of us had any chance of finishing this.

Handmade tagliolini / botan ebi - the tagliolini always has wonderful texture, and the sauce was pretty incredible with the usual piment d'espelette, but here we've got the duo of fresh roe from the botan shrimp (牡丹海老) themselves as well as a liberal sprinkling of Chinese dried shrimp roe.  So, soooo tasty.  I couldn't resist using some of the sourdough bread to soak up as much leftover sauce as I could.  The only downside was that the botan ebi were a little mushy, but I wasn't gonna complain too much.

Handmade garganelli / wildboar ragu - this has always been one of my favorite dishes here, so of course I would order it up.  The garganelli was al dente as usual, and the combination of minced wild boar, piment d'espelette, and cheese was just right.

Lobster bouillabaisse - OK, so this was definitely not one serving... The lobster was pretty nice, and I relished scooping up the tomalley onto the sourdough.  Not a fan of the mussels, though.

The best part of bouillabaisse here is always the soup itself, which is thick and full of the seafood that has been pulverized during the cooking.  Love the saffron and piment d'espelette.

Apple tarte tatin - Hello Kitty saved some stomach space for this, as it's her favorite dessert here.

I'm glad I got to come to my favorite restaurant one more time during this turbulent year.  They certainly need our support, and I am always grateful to have the opportunity to enjoy some of my favorite dishes over the years.