The bar in the 'hood

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

The new bastard in town

The Birdiegolfs have been away on a long trip, and now that they have returned, wanted to meet up to belatedly celebrate Foursheets' birthday. When another restaurant that Foursheets thought we should try didn't have any openings until we hit November, Ahleeso suggested that we do it at Club Bâtard. They've obviously ponied up the membership fee as an early bird, so now we get to piggyback on them.

Now that the restaurant has moved to Central and expanded their operations, it's no surprise that we would run into friends while we were here, but I wasn't expecting to run into the Specialist and BFF.

With Foursheets' new dietary restrictions, we forced everyone to go à la carte instead of following a tasting menu. I think that worked out well for me...

Bâtard's burger - I had been seeing people post about this "duck burger" so I just had to try for myself. It's small and gone in just a couple of bites. The minced duck patty came with slices of duck foie gras, barbecue sauce, and julienned bell pepper. Very tasty for sure.

Pasta! Pasta! Pasta!

Mr. Ho is back in town after an absence of nearly 2 years, and was in the mood for more Italian food. Unfortunately I no longer patronize a certain dining group's restaurants so we are not going back to the restaurant where we last dined together, but I proposed Estro as a substitute. They have introduced a new menu where diners can order à la carte and no longer need to choose their tasting menus, so Foursheets and I were pretty eager to try it out.

For me, Juve Fan's best dishes have often been his pastas. This is not to say that the appetizers and main courses are not delicious, but for me the hit rate on the pastas have pretty much been 100%. Tonight I was determined to just do three different pastas and nothing else.

We started with some aperitivos and bread, and the offering has been lightened a little.

Tarali - I still really love this as it's just soooo fragrant and tasty thanks to crunchy bits of almonds along with black pepper. That anchovy buffalo milk butter is still available on the side and as sinful as ever.

The Chairman in transit

DaRC pinged me 2 days ago and asked if I could join a dinner tonight with a couple of visitors from Paris transiting through town. I had missed doing lunch with the visitors a few weeks ago as they were transiting on their way to Japan, and now that they are on their return journey home, I figured I should take the opportunity to catch up with them at The Chairman (大班樓). After all, they took time out to show me around some of their favorite spots in Paris during my trip last year, and it was only right that I return the favor somehow.

I was glad to see that the menu for tonight could still fit on the front page, although we did have more courses than the "standard" menu.

Cold squid noodle and lily bulbs with pine nut gazpacho (魷魚涼麵百合配松子凍湯) - this was obviously a dish created after The Chairman did their collaboration with Onjium (온지음) and Seroja in Seoul earlier this year. The lily bulb petals were, of course, crispy, starchy, and sweet, while the pine nut "gazpacho" was velvety and refreshingly chilled. A really good dish to start with.

DaRC and I figured that the squid "noodles" were not actually long strips of squid, but real noodles which had been made with mostly squid in the fashion of Chinese "fish noodles (魚麵)".

Ginger and vinegar pig trotter terrine (甜醋子薑豬手豬耳凍) - this is a dish I have loved very much ever since I first tasted it almost exactly a year ago, as the combination of sweetness and acidity from the black vinegar layered with the ginger complemented the flavors of the pig trotter and pig's ear. Tonight, though, they brought these out from the chiller too soon, as the jelly had started to melt a little by the time this was served to us. I do like that they added some finely diced sansho leaves (木の芽) on top for that touch of fragrance.

Crispy taro cake with smoked duck (茘甫鴨盒) - an oldie but a goodie. I just looooove how fluffy that taro mash gets after deep-frying, and unlike some other places, I've never ever tasted that nasty baking soda crap in the taro.

I loooove how smoky and tasty the filling is, with that chunk of crunchy water chestnut and all.

Thick cut Chairman style char siu (炭火厚切叉燒) - it's taken them a while to even offer char siu on their menu, but nowadays this is one of the best versions in town. It always come as thick cut, always nice and charred with smoky flavors, and of course it is always nicely marbled and incredibly succulent. Tonight the taste of Mei Kuei Lu (玫瑰露) definitely came through.

Fresh water crab roes with pomelo skin and winter melon (蟛蜞膏柚皮冬瓜) - this is always a unique dish, with two different textures and that sauce made with roe from the very special river crabs (蟛蜞). No bitterness in the rehydrated pomelon skin, no siree!

Cleansing soup (一口湯) - this was apple and pear soup tonight, so the sweetness was pretty obvious.

Slipper lobsters poached in rice broth (魚米粥蝦籽琵琶蝦) - oh yes... that silky smoth "congee" made after filtering the rice grains and other solids out. Sweet to the taste, as is the very tender slipper lobster, only punctuated by the umami from the shrimp oil and shrimp roe. Always a beautiful dish in all its variations.

Steamed fresh flowery crab with aged Shaoxing wine, fragrant chicken oil and flat rice noodles (雞油花雕蒸花蟹配陳村粉) - no one comes here for the first time without tasting the signature, nay, iconic dish. They may not have been the first to come up with this dish, but they certainly do it well.

Camphor wood smoked black foot goose (樟木煙燻黑腳鵝) - it's been a while since I last got served half a goose here...

But in all honesty, half is all we needed. We made sure our guests took the leg, got some of the neck and Frenched the bird by taking its tongue out of the head. Wonderful smoky flavors, and looove all that fat underneath the skin.

Stewed pork belly and preserved vegetable claypot rice (梅乾菜扣肉煲仔飯) - pork belly is always a good idea...

Mixing up the braised preserved mustard greens (梅乾菜) delivers the flavors evenly. So, soooo tasty.

Of course, we cannot forget those rice crispies at the bottom of the clay pot.

The pot is sent back to the kitchen so that the remainder of the rice crispies can be cooked with clam broth.

Rice crispies in broth is such a comfort dish for me, and I empty the bowl in no time even though I'm already very full.

Gourd juliennes and white wood ear fungus cooked in homemade fish broth (魚湯白木耳浸瓜絲) - this is such a Cantonese way to serve vegetables... in fish broth!

Desserts trio (甜品三味):

Wolfberry ice cream with black sesame cream (杞子雪糕配芝麻糊)

Mung bean cake (綠豆糕) - the outside is made with mung beans (綠豆) while the filling was made with red adzuki beans.

Chiuchow mooncake (潮州朥餅) - I do love these Chiuchow-style mooncakes with flaky pastry, adzuki bean paste, and candied winter melon (冬瓜糖).

DaRC and I brought out a few bottles as a treat for our visitors, and I hope they enjoyed them.

1990 Maximin Grünhäuser Herrenberg Riesling Kabinett - nose of white flowers, lemon, and a hint of caramelized sugar. The nose was much more elegant than expected, without the usual notes of polyurethane. There was only a hint of ripeness on the palate along with lots of acidity, which gave the wine a long finish.

2014 Mouton-Rothschild - the wine was opened the night before. Very fragrant nose with lots of mint, sweet fruit, and some smoke underneath. This paired very, very well with the taro and smoked duck thanks to the smokiness in both.

1990 Joh. Jos. Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese Goldkapsel - very big nose with honey, nutty notes, a lot more plastic and polyurethane, some acetone. Really viscous, round, and sweet on the palate. The wine showed more marmalade and orange blossom water with additional aeration. Really lovely.

2004 Vieux Château Certan - at first whiff the wine was much more smoky than expected. Started drinking more than 1½ hours after opening. Very fragrant now with a lovely woodsy nose. There was also a little bit of vanilla on the nose. Tannins were still here but very well integrated by now, with a good acidity balance on the palate.

It would appear that our visitors were very happy with the meal, even though they had eaten very, very well during their time in Japan. They were off to the airport for their flight home, and we hope to catch up with them again very soon.

Sticks and Burgs

The Great One needed to bail on her booking at Hidden (秀殿) due to her babysitting duties on behalf of the tourism board, so Foursheets and I were only too happy to take it over. As this was a foursome, I asked a couple of other friends to join us. As it turned out, one of them was making his first visit after years of reading about my visits.

The boys were pretty happy to follow our lead and just raise their hands when we were doing the ordering. As I knew they don't visit as often as I do, this meant I was ordering a bunch of stuff just so they could try more items. Methinks I ordered a tad too much...

Awa-odiri fried chicken wing (阿波雄鶏手羽唐揚げ) - we always, always start with the chicken wing. One of my favorite chicken wings in town, with the wonderful acidity in the sauce being the perfect complement to the delicious deep-fried chicken skin.

Guess who's coming to dinner, 2024 edition

Gaggan is on a short trip to Hong Kong and only staying 2 nights, but he very kindly reserved tonight so we could eat out together. Just as I was starting to think of which Cantonese or Chinese restaurant to take him to, he mentioned that he would like to go to Neighborhood. I was, of course, overjoyed at his choice, since it is the one restaurant where I have visited more than any other restaurant in Hong Kong. I wasted no time in getting us a table, but I didn't want to tell The Man in White T-shirt who I was bringing tonight.

I kept being told that the boss' new lounge was "just around the corner" but no one ever told me exactly where it is. So I asked Shirley to take me there, and it really was as described... Paragon was a chill place to hang out.

Blue Note - any time I see a cocktail with Blue Curaçao as an ingredient, I MUST order.

I Want It That Way

I'm still biased against most "four hands" or so-called collaborations among chefs, as many of them simply showcase signature dishes from the participating chefs. Since many of these events have been hosted by restaurants where I know the chef, the reality is that I'm probably already familiar with at least half the dishes... so these meals become less of a discovery for me. There are exceptions, of course, and over the last couple of years we have seen more and more events feature dishes where all the chefs contribute to each and every dish - resulting in a "true" collaboration.

Historically the collabs I looked forward to the most were ones with Gaggan Anand. As long as I have been going to collaborations like GohGan and others involving him, they have generally insisted that all the chefs work together on all the dishes so that each chef contributes to every dish. I was, however, left a little disappointed at the second GohGaDen pop-up in Singapore last year, where I thought the chefs got a little lazy and a few dishes were simply lifted from the menu at their respective restaurants... but that was an outlier.

Gaggan was coming back to Hong Kong for the second leg of his collab with Vicky Cheng, and this time it was at VEA. My last visit to VEA was some 4 years ago, and this seemed like the perfect occasion to revisit the top floor of the building instead of the floor just below. I quickly messaged both Gaggan and Vicky asking for seats, insisting to both of them that we would gladly pay for our meals. I was glad to be told that seats had been reserved for our usual quintet.

We arrived a little early so I had time to drop off goodies with the boys and do a proper greeting before things started to go crazy. It worked out well that our little gang was seated in the middle of the counter area so it was easy to watch the action going on.

First, a little sip of Champagne. As Vicky is one of the Krug Ambassade, this was naturally a glass of Grande Cuvée.

Krug Grande Cuvée, 172ème Édition, ID 123005 - initially this was served too cold, but after warming up a little using my hands, the nose opened up to show the classic toasty brioche notes that I love so much from Grande Cuvée. The acidity was fairly high, and we had a little tartness and tannins on the finish.

As is often the case, there was no menu given upfront so we didn't know what was coming our way. I did receive word that changes had been made for me when it came to the first bite...

Yogurt explosion 💥 shirako, Champagne - these days the dish comes with pop rocks which, if you had asked me a few years ago, I would have said was "so last decade"... So we now have to pop the yogurt ball on the "lotus leaf" cone immediately before eating. But wait! This version came with a Champagne beurre blanc with salmon roe, but apparently the instruction to hold off on eating came too late for some people, and they popped it into their mouths before the sauce was spooned on top...