Back to la grande dame

Mr and Mrs Birdiegolf felt that my birthday would be a good excuse to meet up and pop open a couple of bottles, and somehow I steered the conversation towards The Peninsula Hong Kong. It has been YEARS since I last had a proper meal in the hotel, and while I had been tempted to check out either Felix or Gaddi's after the arrival of the husband-and-wife duo - each of whom was at the helm of the two restaurants - but I just never made the move. Not even when Seb came back to Hong Kong for his new gig at The Pen.

That ends tonight. Knowing that none of us have been to Gaddi's in quite some time, it was high time we paid La Grande Dame a visit. I got in touch with Seb and made the arrangements. This was gonna be fun!

We stepped in to the dining room and were led to one of the tables at the back of the room. Not the usual table for the Birdiegolfs when they were coming regularly, but the room hasn't changed much... other than maybe the Baccarat Harcourt Our Fire candlesticks on our tables. We've still got the band sitting in the room, and the average age of the diners in the room was still above mine. But they did remove the requirement for gentlemen to come in a jacket, so I guess that's progress...

I honestly don't remember starting the meals here with gougères but my friends seem to be familiar with this.

89-year gap

Although I enjoy an occasional light bullying of the Candidate - which usually involve forcing her to taste certain wines that are not to her refinedpicky palate - I do acquiesce to her demandsrequests from time to time. Today was such an occasion.

We saw a couple of weeks ago that Caprice had gotten themselves a few bottles of William Kelley's wines. These are very young, produced in minute quantities, and have been totally hyped up. The candidate had gotten her own allocation, but given the limited number of bottles around, she was reluctant to pop her own bottles when the wines are so young. At the same time, she wanted to have a taste of the wines now to see whether the wines live up to the hype.

While I was here three nights ago, I was informed that the restaurant was down to their last bottle of the Gevrey-Chambertin. So I immediately made a booking for lunch today, and hoped for my friend's sake that no one else was interested in the bottle before we came in.

Luckily for my friend, it seems that no one else was as interested in the wine as she was.

As usual we start with a trio of amuses bouches presented in the boîte à bijoux:

Lobster roll - this was pretty nice.

Closing day, part 2: per aspera ad astra

For my "real" birthday meal, I chose to return to Ta Vie 旅 as it's one of my favorite restaurants in the world. I have followed Sato-san's career since the relatively early days at Tenku Ryugin (天空龍吟), during the previous Year of the Dragon. Since launching his "Pure, Simple, Seasonal" philosophy for his cuisine, I have been a very big fan - and rejoiced when the restaurant was promoted to the coveted Michelin 3-star status last year.

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It was pure coincidence that we arrived on the last night before the restaurant is scheduled to close for renovations. They have been in this space since 2015, and I guess they are due for a makeover. I felt very privileged to be here tonight, as there has been many memories created here.

Closing day, part 1: that Chiuchow place

It's the day of the big reunion, so a number of old friends are back in town for the event tonight. But it happens to be my birthday, and I told the organizers long ago that I wasn't gonna spend my birthday with this lot... Meanwhile, I hadn't seen the King in a little while, so we took the opportunity to catch up while he's in town. As Sheung Hing Chiu Chow Restaurant (尚興潮州飯店) has decided to close their long-standing location next week before moving into new, more modern digs, my friend decided that he would like to come one last time.

The place has always been run down and didn't exactly look spanking clean, and the various adjoining shop spaces - which they all owned - weren't all that different in that respect. I guess that's one of the reasons why I never thought about going there much - especially when their dishes weren't significantly better than other Chiuchow restaurants in town.

As is their usual practice, we were offered small cups of gongfu tea (工夫茶) to start us off.

Cold crab Chiu-Chow style (潮州凍花蟹) - this was obviously a MUST for this meal, and coming in at HKD 1,600 it wasn't outrageously priced. Pretty nice.

The Hairy Chevalier

It's a big day for Hairy LS. Foursheets and I were among a small group who received an invitation to the residence of the Consul General of France in Hong Kong and Macau. Besides the commanding view of the Hong Kong skyline, we were there to witness our friend being bestowed the distinction of Chevalier de l'Ordre du Mérite Agricole.

The ceremony was brief, and after the medal was pinned to the lapel of his jacket, we toasted the moment with some Billecart-Salmon Brut Réserve and nibble on some canapés. We were very happy for our friend to have been bestowed this honor. Now he's a knight... but where was his horse and armor?!

We were still kinda hungry after the ceremony, but had no dinner plans, so a few of us went to - where else? - Caprice Bar for some simple food and drinks.

Royale tarte with duck and foie gras, raspberry and chocolate sauce - it's been too long since I last enjoyed one of these tartes from this kitchen, and although we are in the middle of summer, I still love them! Nope, not heavy at all... not in my book. Of course, the King of Sauce delivers with that combination of fruity acidity from raspberry vinegar and the chocolate richness.

No curry for old men

Ever since my first viit to Nine One just a few days after it opened, I have been wanting to return with friends. Our high school gang hasn't met up for quite some time, and as it turns out, one of the senpai is making a what we hope is temporary move back to Tokyo. As he is quite fond of Indian food, I thought it would be a good opportunity to get the gang to check out the place.

I requested for three items which I didn't get to taste last time around, then left the rest up to Samaira. So I ended up getting much of the same dishes as on my first visit, which was OK. They're tasty enough for me to have them again.

Khakra, chundo - the khakra (ખાખરા) and chundo (छुन्दो) still go very well together.

Corn chips and kachumber - the guys were pretty surprised by this combination, and of course they found the kachumber (कचुम्बर) pretty refreshing.

Rainy day catch-up

Rikachu and family are back in town for a few days, so the old gang got together for a dim sum lunch today. As usual I got given the task of choosing a restaurant, and this time around I brought us to Imperial Treasure Fine Chinese Cuisine (御寶軒) in the Crowne Plaza Hong Kong.

I had to stay home for a delivery so I was a little late to lunch, and the orders had been put in by the time I arrived. Happy to not have been in charge of ordering...

Barbecue pork with honey sauce (蜜汁叉燒) - nicely marbled with decent charring of honey glaze on the outside.

More passion, more sushi, more shari

Some time ago Foursheets mentioned her desire to have some nice sushi, since it has been quite some time - going back to the middle of last year - when she last had some great sushi. As I had been visiting Sushi Shikon (すし 志魂) exclusively for almost the last 2 years or so, I thought it may be a good idea to revisit Sushi Fujimoto (鮨ふじもと). Business had been going gangbusters when they first opened during the pandemic, but of course now that everybody and their grandma is flying to Japan to eat, seats are no longer difficult to book.

One of the big changes since the restaurant's early days is their policy on photography. On my previous visits, photos of the food - with the exception of the pieces of tuna - were forbidden. Since I don't eat bluefin tuna at high-end sushi restaurants, that meant I had no pictures of those meals. These days there are no longer restrictions on photography, which is good for me.

The first things we saw were these big abalones from Shimane Prefecture (島根県), since they can longer get the ones from Chiba Prefecture (千葉県) like they used to thanks to Hong Kong's seafood ban.

Especially for you

This month DaRC goes up a big figure, so there has been a series of celebratory dinners. Tonight our little group gets our turn to open up a few bottles with him, and once again he's chosen to support RAW Yeah on this occasion. With the recent announcement regarding Nikushou, it made sense that we tried to lend some support, and RAW Yeah was kind enough to open the restaurant exclusively for us tonight.

The menu was, of course, set by the boss... and as usual we had a mix of seafood and beef, most of which had been meticulously sourced.

Firefly squid with broad bean and white asparagus (螢烏賊 空豆 ホワイトアスパラガス) - didn't think I'd be eating firefly squid this late in the year, but I wasn't gonna complain!

Aussies in the hood

My friends from Down Under requested to revisit Neighborhood, as they had enjoyed their visit back in 2018 very much. We had a smaller group this time around as a few of our common friends were busy or out of town, so unfortuntely there would be no repeat of having 4 magnums with dinner...

I asked The Man in White T-shirt not to kill us, since there were only 4 of us. But of course, the Kitchen Nazi is not one to listen... and I didn't even try to order from the menu tonight.

Kuruma prawns - these are always so good. Love that the Kitchen Nazi gets his fishmonger to get him kuruma prawns in this size, because they're just so tender.

Saucisson "Noir de Bigorre" from Basque black pigs - it's been a while since the last got to taste this, as the Kitchen Nazi preferred to send us dishes that weren't so processed...

A night of Champagnes and Burgundies

We haven't seen our friends from Down Under for 6 years, thanks to their 2019 plans being cancelled on account of social unrest followed by 3 years of Covid border closures. Now that borders have been open since late 2022, we are glad to welcome them back on the last leg of their trip before they return home. I rounded up the Candidate and the Film Buff for our first dinner together tonight, as the Aussies definitely had some things they could bond over.

I was surprised when the gang voted in favor of Xinrongji (新榮記) over another crowd favorite, and even more surprised when, booking our table just 5 weeks ahead of tonight, I was told that YES, one of the restaurant's very limited number of Peking ducks was still available for pre-booking. I didn't hesitate for even half a second.

I picked out a few other dishes to pre-order, but when we arrived at the restaurant, the manager informed me that we were still some distance away from the minimum charge required, especially since the Candidate was being counted for this purpose despite her very late arrival and the fact that she was not expected to partake in any food. So I added a few other dishes on the spot, but was told it was still not enough. The manager was obviously trying to get me to order the high-value items to get us to spend more, but unfortunately I just wasn't interested in those items.

We always start with some fruit as well as some confectionery:

I didn't bother asking where the melon came from, but it was pretty crunchy just like ones from Hami (哈密) or elsewhere in Xinjiang.

Walnut cookies are always nice here.

Long time no pigeon

Foursheets' bestie is in town from the Land of Maple Syrup, and we've decided to take them out for a nice dinner to welcome them back to Hong Kong. Given a few options to choose from, it was decided we would be enjoying some pigeon tonight... so off to Stellar House (星月居) we went.

This is a rare chance for our visitors to have Shunde (順德) cuisine, and I'm not even sure if they know what the area is famous for, so I made sure to order a few classic dishes which, from experience, the kitchen executes well.

Crab and winter melon soup (鮮蟹肉冬茸羹) - this was a hit with the ladies, but I really didn't understand the presence of undercooked and crunchy loofah, as they introduced some green flavors that I didn't care for. Also got some diced mushrooms. The white pepper was pretty noticable.