French fusion

Early this week I had a nice dinner at Fusion 5th floor, a sweet not easy to spot restaurant in sheung wan. It was a private kitchen originally, but as time evolves, it has grown into a full restaurant that can seat more than 50 ppl. It is always nice and adventurous to discover new places, and for me, I had been to a lot of top restaurants in hk on business purposes, I would rather go to places that are not extravagant and pretentious to have a slow dinner and private talks with my friends.

So, this place has no fancy decor, couch seat that makes you feel like queen, and waitors who pretend to know english only, but humble white table cloth, limited ornaments, and staffs who look like belonging to the same family. It also has a open door patio for dining if the weather is good.

We had a 6 courses tasting menu and also 2 glasses of wine pairing which only costed H$88, that made the total amount close to 600 per head. Each courses were meticulously prepared, and I like the beef course the most because they used wagyu beef and the meat was so soft and juicy. A bit downside on the dessert, the chestnut pancake and coffee creme brulee were good but not fantastic. If they made something more sophisticated that would have been a perfect meal.



Also went for a lunch at the salon de joel robuchon. This place has been my favorite food to go, lunch and dinner place in HK. Of course I wouldn't be able to afford to dine there all the time, but even if I can, I don't want to get tired of it as I still want this to be a special place.

A french version of carbonara, my first impression is wow, of course a lot creamier and richer than the italian version with big chucks of panchetta.

Mille Feuille egg and chicken mousse, a contrast to carbonara, it has very light flavor but dense enough to make you full.

Sandwich of foie gras pate with mango puree with crushed peanuts, it is an innovative combination and is something that keeps you desiring for more.

I didn't know they have a new creation for the big v-day! I normally don't like white chocolate but this one outscores my favorite salted caramel tart. It has a super soft and creamy white chocolate mousse shell that almost feels like mascarpone cheese. Inside is raspberry and passionfruit puree. The taste of everything just complemented each other, and it just looks sooo pretty...
The one in front is chestnut cake, I like this more than their mont blanc because it is a lot fresher with passionfruit in between chestnut cream.
Baby king is in town this week. While in his eyes the world is just as innocent as him, he is curious and adventurous about everything, what we eat, how we act, the way we talk, the way we walk, he is picking up bits by bits everyday. For parents it is such a huge responsibility to cultivate their kids, it is like creating a painting on a blank canvas, each color and each stroke makes a difference and as an audience it is obvious to tell whether the finished product is full of anger like van gogh or a whimsical elaborated monet painting.

V-day

Can anyone reminds me of what exactly are we celebrating on valentine's day? Are we celebrating the power of love, thanks god we finally find our soulmate, or is a day that the girls can ask the guys to do anything to show how important they are?

I always hate valentine's day to be on a weekday, because 1) I need to be at work early in the morning, meaning cannot stay up late at night on v-day; 2) what's up with the flower war, it becomes a competitive sports in the office, receiving flowers on v-day doesn't equate to how nicely the girls are being treated, the guys can be an asshole but still sending you a bouquet of flowers, it is just a matter of $$$. It is a job needed to be done, or they will need to put up with the girls' tantrum symptom.

On Feb 14, I discovered how obscure and contradicting hk girls are. How difficult is it to carry a bouquet of flowers anyway, why they want the guys to carry the flowers for them? There are three things I would never ask a guy carry:

#1 handbag - no matter how big the bag is, with the exception of diaper bag because the mom has a tub of lard in her arms already, carrying a lady's purse is just a big NO! I thought the whole idea of buying those expensive handbags is to match with the total ensemble, why the hell do they want a man in suit to carry a feminine bag?
#2 shoes - shoes belong on the floor, not on the hands, I would never ask a guy to put on the shoes for me, unless I am pregnant and have serious back pain.
#3 flowers - i think we are already asking a lot from guys to buy us flowers, once they transfer the flowers onto the ladies' hands, they deserve a victory lap in the ladies' hands.

Unfortunately, you are mostly likely to find guys carrying ladies' bags and flowers everywhere in HK. It seem to me that as much as the girls desire for their bfs' to demonstrate their masculinity, taking care of them financially, buying them expensive footware and bags with their limited disposable income, at the same time, they want to kill their masculinity by forcing them to do whatever that can make them look sissy. What a cruel animal we are, is it a form of revenge or animosity to combat against mens' belief of polygamy?

P.S. There are a couple of girls just got married last year at my office, and yes, they did receive flowers on v-day last year, but no, they didn't get anything this year.. Does it mean a guy doesn't need to do anything thoughtful after getting married? I found that it is so much sweeter and more genuine for a married guy sending flowers to their wives. Why not saving a few bucks while dating, but contribute more after marriage?

A week of rest

Although we didn't go visit a lot of family friends this year during the CNY, this whole last week was definitely overdone. Every morning we had our giant spring rolls and daikon cake, after breakfast we kept chewing on the chocolate and sweets and sunflower seeds. At night, we either had big feasts with visitors at home or dining out at fancy restaurants with the most extravagant dishes. Seriously, do we need four different desserts after having 9 savory courses? While we are salvaging our cholesterol, I did a rough calculation, not only our stomach are stretched to the max limit, we drank without any mercy at all...we probably had killed 20 bottles of wine just this past week.

Now I am taking a break from this festive CNY, kicking the love handles out of the way, back to this dry and dull working life..

One thing that occurs to me that seems rather odd..is that I seem to be close with a lot of people (esp male) who are addicted to designer goods/fashion. I think it is okay for girls to love pretty things.. but for guys, why??? Am I too stereotyping guys to be more of tech savy gadget men, or am I too reluctant to believe that they will spend ten grands on a jacket? Not only that they have tailor-made shirts and shoes (which I think is normal), but also they don't find any resistance paying that extra buck to spend a night at a designer hotel, scanning girls to find out what they are wearing instead of their cup sizes, prompting designers' names as if they are part of the dictionary.

I know a person who shares the same love for Eames loundge chair, having a stock of EorS chairs, Bourgie table light and Chaise lounge chair. When I asked for suggestion for the brand of electric pepper mill, the response is like... "you wouldn't be able to survive with a low quality grinder, the way the blades work and everything..you should really get the top of the line peugout branded ones, I just got one, it is amazing".. I was like.."how come you know all these? you don't even cook? why do you need such a powerful grinder?" " no no no. that's not the point, I don't really use it much, but it looks pretty in my kitchen"

Is it that girls are becoming more like men, and men are becoming more than girls. Or are we seeing neutralization in genders??? A thousand question marks are bubbling in my head.

Happy CNY

Happy Lunar New Year! Today is the first day of 2008 according to the Chinese calendar. Some young people may find it troublesome to celebrate the chinese new year, visiting relatives and family friends' apartments for home-cooked meals seem to have lost in tradition. But as for me who have lived in the states for years with no holidays granted, every CNY in HK is precious to me and I am still eager to ask for red pockets shamelessly to make up my losses in the states.

Our Shanghainese tradition is to have giant spring rolls in CNY...yeah, everything on the table for Shanghainese has to be large and generous in portion. We don't like the tiny finger size spring rolls served at dim sum restaurants. Our giant spring rolls are packed with vegetables like julienned chinese cabbage, bamboo shoots and mushrooms, and most importantly a thick juice/broth that can burn your tongue.

So, this is what I had for my breakfast today..these are perfectly cooked with a nice golden brown color and crispy skin.

We dip these into chinese vinegar to eliminate the oily flavor and help with digestion.

Auntie C gave us some home-made daikon cake. At dim sum place you probably end up with something mostly flour and water and chinese bacon is hard to trace.. this one is very generous with daikon, bacon and little dried shrimps.

Fashion forward at age one

It runs in the gene.. my whole family is addicted to anything that's trendy and pretty. I really can't stop myself from posting a picture of my nephew...as he was climbing up the staircase, intentionally posting for a picture. Look at how pretty he dressed...btw, why do they have pockets for kids' jeans? I don't really think they need to use pockets... but just for decoration purposes...

Dame..he does have big eyes..oops..shouldn't swear in front of a kid.

I think I only owned a pair of bak fai yu when I was small.. don't know if it is good or bad to start an ostentatious living style at the age of 1.

Love for marron

As I have mentioned before I am going to bake a cake for every beloved friends and families this year. HaHa.. I just assume they all like what I make, even if they don't like it, I am forcing every bite into their mouths.

I am kicking this off with a b-day cake for my mom..baking is just like cooking, only use the best seasonal ingredients all the time. I tend to refrain myself to make berry mousse cake this time of the year because berries don't ripe perfectly during winter times, and their aroma just don't go well with the heater sitting next to you..The options I have left with is either poached pear or chocolate, so this time around I opted for a warmer and filling chestnut and chocolate mousse cake.

Facing the real challenge, this is my first time making a chestnut cake and I don't really have a recipe on hand. Firstly imagined a conceptual design of what kind of texture and flavor I was going after, with the minimum amount of ingredients I needed to purchase from the market (my dad is going crazy with all the additional stuff that I got and leaving no fridge space for his abalone and sea cucumber) and trying to minimize the chances of failure.

Finely chopped up valrhorna chocolate for a bain-marie, a nice hot bath.

I love the crispy chocolate layer for my last caramel mousse cake, so I am making it again, a thin chocolate crust layered on top of a plain sponge cake.

Unfortunately I got a wrong can of chestnut from the store. I should have gotten the chestnut paste instead of chestnut puree.. who would have thought that?! There are so many different kinds of chestnut - in the form of spread, puree, paste, creme....the paste form doesn't have the lumpiness of puree..although still delicious, but not perfect.
The hardest part of making dessert is not just about taste, it is all about the presentation, how to transform a dainty ready to eat into an eye candy. A sloppy and roughly presented piece means nothing but amateur (like me), it is the delicacy and creativity that dares to call for $40 a small piece.
Wah la! Proud to present my finished product..
My biggest mistake is not to whip the cream into the right consistency. The top layer of chantilly cream started to melt during my transport to the restaurant...what a shame. But the taste won applauds from audience...I told you.. I am just a amateur baker.

So the composition from bottom to top:
1) plain sponge cake
2) thin layer of crispy chocolate crunch
3) intensive chocolate mousse
4) chestnut mousse
5) another layer of plain sponge cake, well-soaked with chocolate liqueur
6) another layer of chestnut mousse
7) chantilly cream


Cannot not to mention about the shark fin soup at Kiangsu And Chekiang Residents.... i know it is not very environmentally friendly.. but it is sooo good...

Melbourne recap

Two weeks ago, I traveled to Melbourne to visit my relatives. I spent more than a week there.. basically didn't do anything except sleeping and eating, and sleeping.. ever since I started slacking off in Melbourne, didn't get up until 9am.. I seem not to be able to get rid of this wasteful habit after returning back to HK.

On my way to Melbourne, when I was watching Ratatouille for the 3rd times.. I caught sight of this gorgeous sunrise..


Basically everything in Australia is about nature. This may offend 90% of my friends reading this blog: To be honest, I am not that much of an animal person. I don't like cats and dogs, and I am disgusted to see people kissing cats and dogs. I find it obscure that people can share the same bed with their pets, especially when their pets pick up all the dirts from ground and scratching your favorite bed sheet with their claws.

My favorite animals are genuinely cute.. and except horses, they are remotely out of my reach. I got to see all three of them during my stay in Australia..

#1 horses - It was a 2 hr bush and beach ride in the mornington peninsula, south of melbourne. We first rode for 45 min in the curvy bush track before arriving at the st. andrews beach. It was such an amazing experience to canter along the edge of ocean waves, into the crispness of sea breeze.

It's been 3 weeks that I haven't riden at tuen mun.. sing sir does an excellent job managing this stable, it is by far the cleanest and most organized stable that I have been around the world.

Chippy, another horse that I ride most frequently.#2 koala - I seriously envy their lives, lazy by nature, they assure you that it is okay to relax and chill..why need to rush all the time if they have enough to eat. You probably need to go distinct in order to enjoy this kind of lifestyle. They spend 20 hours sleeping and 4 hours staring at you and do nothing. They are just so cute and innocent looking.. When I look at them, I feel like I am as cute as them, I should deserve to become a coach potato and stay chill.


#3 penguin - Went to the Philip Island for the penguin parade. We arrived at 8pm in order to get the front row and direct view...endured 1 hour of harsh sharp wind that pierced through the skin. Finally at 9:15pm we saw little penguin which were only about several inches tall emerged from the ocean, and for the rest of the 30min, more and more penguin showed up, going back and forth from the ocean, tallying their clans to parade back home. Too bad no cameras are allowed, they afraid the flashes will scare away the penguins. It is funny to see how they walk, their feets tapping on the ground, pointing their fat tummy in front and trying to balance their center of mass by slightly stretching and holding back their little black wings.. so cute!