Six stars in Kowloon

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Chef Sung Anh (안성재) has become a global household name this year, thanks to his part in the Netflix series Culinary Class Wars. Although he was already well-known in the culinary world after opening Mosu in Seoul and receiving 3 Michelin stars, it was only after the airing of the Netflix show that those who don't regularly patronize fine dining establishments became familiar with his name.

Mosu Hong Kong opened in the first half of 2022 while Hong Kong's borders were still closed, and I've had the opportunity to dine there twice - although I've not been back in some time. When it was announced that Chef Sung would be in town for a collaboration with Jimmy Lim of JL Studio - making it "6 stars" in the kitchen - I was pretty excited to see how the menu would look like. I had thought about grabbing a table when booking opened, but hesitated as I was still unsure of my travel plans around this time. Thankfully an invitation came to join a tasting today with other media and "KOLs", and I happily crossed the harbor on a beautiful day for lunch.

I was a little apprehensive about the seating arrangements today, as things didn't work out so well the last time I accepted an invitation to join a tasting at one of restaurants from this group. Thankfully they seated me with the boss man, who got so tired of my company that he started to socialize with guests at other tables...

We started with a few small bites from both kitchen teams:

The welcome drink was a Korean rice wine, with grains of (glutinous?) rice, cinnamon, ginger, and interestingly lemongrass for a touch of Southeast Asia.

Lucky 14

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I haven't seen much of DaRC and Ro Ro this year due to their busy travel schedule, and as we met up for a casual dinner a few weeks ago, we realized there would be limited chances we could see each other for the rest of the year. So they very graciously added me to the guest list for tonight's dinner at my favorite private dining facility, and the group would eventually grow to a party of 14.

Our host arranged the menu with Chef Tak, which are full of the classics that I have become familiar over the years. The highlight, though, would undoubtedly be the snake soup, which is only offered when the reptiles are in season during this cooler part of the year. I was definitely very excited.

1996 Bruno Paillard Assemblage, dégorgée en Janvier 2006, en magnum - the acidity was quite nice on the palate. The wine was starting to show some maturity but still tasted youthful and lively. On the nose there was a little flint, a little sugar cane, and a hint of straw. Overall this was rather elegant.

Leisurely dim sum lunch

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I'm doing my small part in helping my friend eat her way around Hong Kong, and today we're at Forum Restaurant (富臨飯店) for some dim sum. It's something that my friend has sorely missed while being away from Hong Kong, and she's finally getting her fix. The restaurant was surprisingly full at lunch today, with all tables occupied in the main dining room downstairs, and Jacky busy pouring wines for a big wine crowd in one of the private rooms, a few of which were also full.

Seeing there were just two of us and that we wanted to try as many dishes as possible, the staff informed the kitchen and for most of the dishes, we were served only one piece for each of us. This was very thoughtful.

Deep-fried radish cake stuffed with preserved meat (蘿蔔絲酥餅) - I love ordering this for visitors, as the crispy and delicate pastry shell can be fantastic. The shell wasn't as perfect today, but still a nice experience.

The shredded radish and diced ham inside were very, very flavorful. The radish was particularly sweet.

Latin with Spanish

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It was exactly 3 months ago that our Gang of Pfour washed down some Italian food with a few bottles of Italian wines, so we were now due for another meeting. I was surprised to learn that neither Ms. Hurricane nor Wai Gor had ever been to MONO, and it's been much too long since I last saw Ricardo - both of which definitely need rectifying.

I had a panic attack about an hour before dinner started. Foursheets is currently taking some Chinese meds, and doctor's orders are for her to avoid a whole slew of ingredients in her diet. I hurriedly messaged Ricardo, who very kindly promised to do what they can to accommodate her. And they certainly did.

Seeing how it was our friends' first visit, I suggested that they take the Journey instead of the Soul menu, as there was a course that no one should leave without trying.

Mexican infladita / corn / bafun uni / tonburi - I was here for an event last month so I've already had a taste. The purple corn infladita came topped with some summer cypress seeds (とんぶり).

The bar in the 'hood

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A friend is back in town for the first time in 5 years and is eating her way through some of the city's best restaurants. While I would love to join her for every meal, I have decided that I would only do one big meal per day these days, and agreed to accompany her to Neighborhood for her first meal.

The Kitchen Nazi has not let people (translation: me) sit at the bar counter for a while now, but as the restaurant was busy on a Thursday night, he decided to put us there as it also enabled him to have more of a conversation and interaction with our friend.

Of course, with the Kitchen Nazi being himself, he arranged everything for our friend and there was never any question of us ordering what we wanted to eat...

Boiled artichoke / liver mousse / truffle - having this for the second time in a row, and that liver mousse packs a real punch when it comes to richness and bitterness. I do like it, though.

Rainy expedition

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Mr. and Mrs. Locust are back in town for the first time in a year, and as we kinda missed each other a year ago, we've only seen each other once since the borders opened. Tonight was their "free night" away from family, and I was asked to pick a place for us to eat out. Having known Mr. Locust for more than 30 years, I pretty much know which types of places are up his alley. And in spite of the distance we'd have to travel, I really thought Sun Hon Kee Restaurant (新漢記) would be something he'd appreciate.

Unfortunately for us, the presence of a few typhoons and tropical depressions around meant it started to rain in the late afternoon, and ended up with a downpour in parts of town. We changed our original plans of taking the train up to Fanling and ended up taking a taxi to dinner, which ended up costing a pretty penny.

Brother Hon was in da haus and Foursheets immediately struck up a conversation with him. While we ordered a few dishes that we felt were "must try", the boss added a few dishes which were off-menu for us.

Pork tendon with shallot oil and soy dipping sauce (白烚豬前腿筋) - I can't imagine bringing someone here without ordering this up, and as always, the strips were very springy and crunchy. This was also VERY strong in terms of their pork flavor. Perfect with the soy-based garlic dipping sauce on the side.

A good day not to die

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Some 6 months after our last relaxing lunch, my friend pinged me again to arrange another date. He proposed two venues, with one being a private club and the other being Restaurant Petrus. I mentioned to my friend that Uwe usually enjoys killing me and that it's been a while since he last got the chance, so naturally my friend was kind enough to make that booking.

I was really hoping to surprise Uwe so for the first time ever, I didn't tell him that I was coming in. Unfortunately, my friend ended up alerting him without specifically mentioning my name, so the cat was out of the bag.

I had been dining out a lot this month, so I asked Uwe for a reprieve from the usual. Much to my surprise - and perhaps on account of my friend - he agreed. There would only be three savory courses today. My friend did tell Uwe that he would like some mushrooms...

Vegetable waffle with vegetable dip - the acidity from the vinegar and the mild mustard flavor were nice.

Champagne cork - oh yes... I remember this from earlier this year. Love the Comté cream inside this gougère.

Hidden in the clouds

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I have long had a policy of not visiting restaurants associated with people I consider assholes, as they most certainly are not deserving of any of my hard-earned money. Over the years I have heard different stories about a certain chef well-known in town for drinking with customers at his sushi counter, so I've never had much interest in getting another taste of his cuisine.

Years after it opened and rebranded itself, I finally sat down in front of the main counter at Sushi Kumogaku (寿し雲隠) - at the invitation of Mr. Chichi, who owns a share in the restaurant. Truth be told, the boss invited The Great One to dinner but needed a "plus one", so that became my job for the evening. I also had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Giona for the first time.

I actually don't know anything about the current taisho (大将) Kin (健), so I had zero expectations. But I figured that the boss is well-aware of my reputation, so the fact that he extended the invitation means he's got sufficient confidence in the guy.

2013 Dom Pérignon - the nose was really nice and toasty with lots of brioche, and the acidity on the palate was nice, too.

As expected, we started with a few otsumami (おつまみ):

Thread-sail filefish with liver sauce (皮剥ぎ 肝和え) - I jokingly complained to the boss afterwards that instead of serving us "real" caviar, they used the chaper, plant-based substitute that is summer cypress seeds (とんぶり). In reality, I really enjoyed this first course, as the flavors of the liver sauce was much lighter than I had expected. I suppose the use of perilla flowers (花穂紫蘇) also made it a little more elegant.

Oysters and goose

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The King is passing through Hong Kong on his way to sightseeing in China, and asked to meet up over dinner before boarding his high speed train tomorrow morning. I tried to book a few high-end Cantonese restaurants located in 5-star hotels on the Kowloon side, only to find that the first three I checked were all fully-booked for the evening, even more than a week out! After some discussion with our visitors, I decided to take them to our new favorite Chiuchow place Noble Imperial (尚御潮滷居). This seems fitting since I last saw the King at Sheung Hing Chiu Chow Restaurant (尚興潮州飯店) just days before its closing.

This would now be our fourth visit in the last 3 months or so, and Foursheets is now on familiar terms with boss lady so that dishes are being pre-ordered via messaging...

Marinated goose webs (滷水鵝掌) - very nice flavors of master stock (滷水).

A Pic-y Friday

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It's been more than a decade since I spent 2 nights at Maison Pic (now known as Hôtel Pic) in Valence and dined both at the gastronomic restaurant with three Michelin stars and the casual bistro 7 par Anne-Sophie Pic (now renamed Bistrot André). My one regret was that for our main dinner, we all chose to take the Collection Pic menu which featured more classic dishes from the family's history - thereby robbing me of the chance to get a full taste of Anne-Sophie's own cuisine. She did open an outlet in Singapore just before the pandemic hit, but it wasn't on my hit list and now it's gone.

I wasn't particularly interested on any of the outlets when The Forty-Five opened last year, figuring that most of them were overhyped and not worth my attention. I did wonder a little about Cristal Room by Anne-Sophie Pic, as I have heard positive feedback from friends. But I never took the step of walking in.

I was a little surprised when PR8 extended the invitation for me to join lunch at the restaurant today (especially after my dig at him for the initial press release), but I figured there's been enough time for the kitchen to work out the kinks after opening, so perhaps there wouldn't be any nasty surprises. The surprise, though, came in the form of my dining companions - with whom I shared a table just two days ago.

Billecart Salmon Pic - nice and floral nose. Good acidity on the palate with a little bit of ripeness.

We started with three small bites:

A very different Chindian

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For the last few years it seems that PR8 has been working overdrive to promote "4 hands" collaboration between kitchen teams, sometimes with very different cuisines. At times it almost appeared to me that nothing was out of bounds and the crazier the better. This cultimated in a joining together of Forum Restaurant (富臨飯店) and Chaat. I was not a participant and, honestly, was somewhat skeptical of the results. PR8 was, of course, adamant that it was genius. But as the old Chinese proverb says, "A dog cannot spit out ivory from its mouth (狗嘴裡吐不出象牙)".

Now that Chef Manav Tuli has set up Leela, there is a new collaboration with a Chinese restaurant - this time with Yong Fu (甬府), one of my favorite restaurants in town. Regardless of whether the idea did actually come from Chef Manav or Chef Liu Zhen (刘震), I will always blame the hare-brained idea on PR8...

Tonight was meant to be a preview of the actual event so a few of us guinea pigs were invited and placed in the private dining room at Leela. I did ask PR8 whether there would be any bitches in the room, but he wasn't very forthcoming beyond giving me a couple of names he knew I wouldn't have issues with...

The menu looked pretty long, so I was glad I had a light lunch in preparation for the onslaught tonight.

Bollinger Special Cuvée - good acidity but pretty simple and flat on the palate. Later on this showed a little bit of Chinese salted plums.

Rooted in Bangkok

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I received a message from The Great One asking me to join her at lunch today. Our friend Vincent Thierry is back in town for a few days, doing a collaboration with the team at Racines to celebrate the restaurant's second anniversary, and he's invited us to come to lunch. Although I've had a couple of chances to catch up with Vincent over the last 2 years in Bangkok, it has been 5 years since his eventful trip to Hong Kong - when the Hong Kong International Airport closed down from protests and he had to return to Bangkok by detouring to Macau.

Romain Dupeyre had worked with Vincent from their time together at The Lebua in Bangkok, and has now done a second collaboration with the head chef from Caprice. I was curious to see what these two would cook up, but I had full confidence in anything Vincent chooses to stick his hands into.

"Oreo" - this version of the famed treat comes with Parmesan cream sandwiched between two Parmesan cookies made with truffle jus. The cream in the middle had really nice milky and cheesy flavors.

Pig and more pig

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A friend is back in Hong Kong for the first time after moving away 8 years ago, and she sorely misses good Cantonese food. Foursheets decided to organize lunch at Moon Bay Chinese Cuisine (灣悅 賞 • 中菜) and grabbed a big group so we could partake in a nice little piggy. At one point we were almost going to be a big group of 12, so the restaurant put us at the big table at the corner of the main dining room.

Since we are meeting at lunch time, it seemed appropriate we would focus mostly on dim sum. They do a pretty good job here and have been more consistent compared to their FLM stable mates.

Baked barbecued Iberico pork buns, honey sauce (明爐蜜汁黑豚肉叉燒餐包) - this is always a good idea, and I love how the buns puff up. The filling was really tasty and sweet.