Yamm

Took D's recommendation to try out Yamm at Miramar hotel in TST on Sunday night. Including myself, the first impression of Yamm is "ah? Miramar"? It is a newly opened japanese restaurant which serves lunch and dinner buffet at the newly renovated Miramar hotel. The renovation isn't completely done yet, the other side of the hotel where the chinese restaurants are located still retains its 80s old school glamor with dull marble floor and fading wall paint. The other side resembles the opposite, chic and modern decor with silver and grey color tone, golden chandeliers, spacious lobby and built in TFT LCDs.

Considering it is a dinner buffet, it has less variety than other hotels...part of the reason being it mostly serves japanese food items. I actually don't have the problem with the variety, because normally I wouldn't be able to try out everything that's offered at the buffet but in this case I almost finish everything that they can offer. The food was quite good, staff was very attentive, the meal also came with a welcome drink, a choice of wine, champagne or juice or soft drinks. One selling point is that food is ordered and delivered to the table. An order of sashimi, nigiri, robata, teriyaki, tempura, mushroom cream soup were delivered to the table one by one as soon as you sat down. The owner is actually quite proud to think of this idea, yet to me, I don't think it is that big of a deal and I wasn't impressed by the pretentious gesture. I wish they are more meticulous with the food as to their service, i.e. more variety of sashimi, fresher and premium ingredients. I understand the reason for cost control, but they should have hire less staff but serve better food. Overall I feel satisfied and couldn't have eaten more.

Food marathon Part I

Instead of drowning myself in sorrow, I took a more positive approach to weather the day of getting a yr older. The celebration came down to meeting up with good friends, chatting for four hours straight over gourmet meals at fancy restaurants.

Friday night, we got ourselves a table at Zuma, renowned to be one of the best japanese fusion restaurants in the world. Located at Landmark, the place was surprisingly huge, with sushi bar, indoor and outdoor dining space. The crowd was predominantly caucasians, or chinese who only know english, all dressed up, and reminiscent of what you would expect to see in nyc, with people who seem to have plenty of money to splurge, know the way to enjoy life, come to the restaurant to see and to be seen.

The food overall was fine but not great. I was expecting much more sophisticated and innovative dishes than what I had that night. There's no doubt that they used the best ingredients that were available, the lobster sashimi was indeed very fresh and still retained the saltiness of the sea. The beef tartare was fresh to taste instead of greasy. The scallop was cooked perfectly without a bit of roughness. I guess my problem with the meal is that the dishes didn't surprise me at all...the presentation was very pretty, the ingredients were very fresh, but the flavors were very ordinary. My other problem is that the dishes were way too small and not value for money..a guy can walk out feeling hungry after spending hkd1000 per head...




A fashionable guy slightly gay looking walked in with four girls, all dressed in tight sparkling short dresses with plunging neckline, parked at a table in the open terrace. Normally I wouldn't pay too much attention or criticizing other diners, but that guy looked too much like a pimp and the girls looked like working girls. Well.. at least they should be the expensive ones to dine at Zuma.
Second dinner at Fish at Marriot. The weather was perfect with sea breeze, and the restaurant has very nice ambience with a swimming pool on the side. We had fried calamari, lobster and crab cake, spicy seafood pasta and char-grilled blue nose with fries on the side. Reminded me of the food in Tassi.

I LOVE the birthday cake from Joel Robuchon, which is a passionfruit with white chocolate cake. This is what I like to call a dreamy cake.

More food pictures to come...to be continued......

Strawberry pavlova

Pavlova, its more like a kid's dessert. It is just like candy, crunchy outside and marsmallowy inside.

Making pavlova is easy but very time consuming. It only requires few basic elements: egg white, sugar, cornstarch. First need to make a fluffy meringue, then bake at very low temperature and resting for more than two hours. I topped my mini pavlova with whipped cream, strawberries and blueberry sauce. Little sweet to stimulate the dull appetite in this humid lazy summer weekend.

Cooking again

What can be better than staying at home and making a perfect meal during a typhoon and rainy day? We gathered together again and made a scrumptious meal, like french we dined for four hours and having wine and small dessert between courses.

First course - seared scallops salad with aged vinegarette.

Second course - mini pavlova with vanilla ice cream and strawberries.

Third course - braised ox cheek in wine and tomato sauce.

I am not really a big fan of beef, but this ox cheek blew me away.. we were a little bit extravagant here b/c we were using the japanese wagyu ox cheek. We braised for about 2 and a half hr and the meat was super tender and juicy, like a soft pillow you want to sink your head in. The sauce was well flavored with red wine and veggies, you can easily have two bowls of rice with the sauce and meat. I think this is truly a guy's meal.
Fourth course - Seems like we never get tired of chocolate souffle.

I came home with a bloated stomach and feeling satisfied. This is what we like to call the comfort food.

Raspberry & chocolate

It's summer again. A lot of people hated it, but I am one of the rare cases that happen to enjoy the summer time in Hong Kong. The humid air, the unbearable heat, the smell of sweaty people surrounding you are indeed intolerable. But I like the hot weather that slows everything done, a flow of fresh crisp air whenever you walk into the air con, and the sweating that helps you detox.

I made a raspberry chocolate cake to celebrate black charcoal head's b-day. I almost just wanted to make a fresher summer fruit cake because of the weather, but since he loves chocolate so much I have to made something that's extremely chocolaty to satisfy his taste buds.

The sponge cake base is a butter-free chocolate cake. I don't like using butter for cake because butter will take away the flavors of other ingredients. I like my cake to be eggy and fluffy.

Have to give credit to the whipped egg whites for the airy texture, evident by little holes that gives the cake its stereofoam like structure.

Melting my valrhona chocolate for the chocolate mousse.
Making some mini cakes for individual tasting. I have been looking for tear-drop cake molds for a long time, lucky me I found these at one of the HK vendors. Although not my favorite Mafer branded molds, but these also have beautiful shapes.

Either I don't have talent decorating large cakes, or there's an unknown standard guidelines or procedure that I need to learn from professionals. I found it difficult to make my large cakes presentable. I tried to beautify it by making some printed chocolate cones but still looks a bit weird.. so pardon me for not putting together a complete cake for window display, the taste is really good though.
The combination of raspberry and chocolate is impeccable, raspberry's sweetness and sourness compliment the heavy chocolate mousse perfectly. I made the jelly with fresh raspberry, and enhance with the citrus flavors of grand marnier and lemon. The chocolate mousse is made with valrhona chocolate and creme anglaise.
Received the greatest compliments from BCH and his entourage....glad to know my time was well spent!

Am I spoiled?

Things have been gotten a bit out of control, didn't have much time for myself nor for my blog...

Am I spoiled or am I asking for too much? I am just a little bit critical of what I put into my mouth.. I resent people who open restaurant without any heart in food. This is not a plain food business, not just cooking raw food and transferring to the end users. This is about fulfilling people with daily needs at the same time salvage them from boring and dull business life with a little spark of sensation.

I just had the worst meal in the years that I can remember... is a cheap take-out restaurant in admiralty, opposite from fairwood, near four seasons the japanese restaurant. At lunch, my colleague and I bumped into this new place which only sells a few generic hongki items, we gave it a try because it's fast and easy. I ordered a noodle soup, that's the only noodle dish they offered. I went back to my office and decided to chow down in lightning speed. I frowned as soon as I opened the lid, what? the soup base was satay?! No doubt that the soup base was spicy and full of MSG. There were a few pieces of dumplings floating around with the skin tearing apart.. obviously these have either been sitting in the soup for a long time, or they just didn't know how to cook dumplings properly. The only thing that was within my expectation was the meat, because they were processed pork meat, no cooking skills involved. To be honest, I was expected that to be something normal, at least similar to fairwood or cdc, didn't know it could be that disastrous, I spent my afternoon having gag reflex. So who ever being curious of this new place, my only recommendation is to AVOID! because curiosity can kill a cat.

Jersey war

Maybe it was friday or maybe we were feeling too deprived from work, our little research section went on a full thrust for the rugby 7's jerseys last friday. Yeah, we spent half of the day debating how to get the t-shirts before they went out, which brokers had the nicest t-shirts for the year, who should got the tickets to which days of the event..

I went to both sat and sun games, hijacking boxes to get t-shirts and toys for bb chu. The UBS one is unarguable the nicest one among all brokers. The JPM one has the nicest color. CL is so crap. I don't even bother to get the ML shirt. The color palette looks so nice when I put all the souvenir together. I really like DB's erasable board, I think it is smart for them to give out bb toys during the game while the parents were too busy drinking and socializing with other ppl.



This industry is all about sales and marketing... and they do know what sells and what not. According to my source, these ladies cost HKD18,000. Sure the audience enjoyed watching them dance as they were barely wearing anything and the room was so hot. And that's the exact reason why this industry is full of infidelity and insanity, there are just simply too much flirtation, temptation and indulgence, and there are so many people are willing to do anything for the money.