Summer Palace @ Shangri-La

I had a business dinner at the summer palace 夏宮 at shangri-la hotel tonight.. and pardon my ignorance.. I had no idea that it's a michelin star restaurant.. not that I care about the michelin ratings for chinese restaurants... is the fact that it's been rated as 2 stars made me pay more attention to the quality of food and services they got to offer.

Actually other than mandarin oriental I would say I visited the shangri-la hotel most often.. either for business luncheons.. for conferences... for coffee breaks. But I normally spent most of my time at Nadaman, and have only been to the summer palace for just a few times.

We were being placed in a small function room with a handful of people. A waitress was assigned to our dinner table. I was impressed by her swift and mechanical movement.. it seemed like she has been trained for doing the exact same thing for thousands times. With no mistakes, pouring tea and drinks at the same angles, placing plates in the exact order.

What we had for the night:

Barbecue pork and suckling pig

Winter-melon soup - this is my favorite item throughout the night, and it was just "lovely". the soup base was clear and light to taste, the ingredients are placed in tiers and filled up more than half of the bowl, including bamboo fungus, duck meat, winter melon, etc..

Scallops with spring onions - scallops are pan-fried to perfection.

Fillet of grouper with broccoli - big pieces of grouper fillets, floured and deep fried with a crystal sauce.

Mushroom and cabbage - to my surprise, mushrooms were crunchy in texture.

Crispy chicken - skin was thin and crispy. chicken was lean and tasty... I was really full at this point of the dinner...

Egg white fried rice - I actually like the fried rice a lot.. but I was too full to finish the whole thing.

Sago cream with mango juice and pomelo - I like they mixed in pieces of pomelo into the sago cream to add another layer of texture.

When you visit a western restaurant which has earned the prestigious michelin stars, you would look for innovation and surprise for your palette, something different about the chef's execution that make it worthwhile to wait for months and pay the big bucks. I don't really know if the chinese restaurants are that much defined by chef (considering chinese chefs tend to be very mobile), and not especially innovative with flavors. So... is summer palace michelin star worthy? I really doubted it, other than it is situated in a hotel and offers above average service, I can easily name multiple places that churn out the same quality of food with a lower price tag.

Macau

A trip to Macau doesn't always involve gambling and partying. We took a short trip over the left side of the harbor and found ourselves in the sinful city within one hour of boat ride. Our mission was to stroll around like tourists and tried out the most go restaurants recommended by guidebooks.

The city was not new to me at all.. especially if my memory is right i might have come to the city almost every month or so recently, doing the exact same thing, visiting the same restaurants since i always come with different groups of people, complaining the lack of cabs running on the streets, stuffing my stomach with local delicacies and dragging my exhausted body back to hk at the end of the day.

There is a lot of coverage of the macau local restaurants, praising how authentic and old fashion the food is... think about it.. there's really not much to do if you are not a big gambler, there are not that many site seeing places that can wow you, shopping is not that big of a deal you can now find the renowned almond biscuits in hk now. The only thing to do in macau is to eat....

We only had six hours in the city to stuff our stomach. Following our local friend's recommendation, here is the rundown of what define macau:

1st stop - 青州劉記 - most guidebooks would have told you to go to 大利來記 for pork chop bun, the place was so over-hyped now what you have lined up for doesn't live up to expectation anymore. Our local detective recommended lau gei instead, the restaurant was basically resembled a hk style street food stall with limited ventilation system and sense of hygiene, and quite different to locate. What should one order - the pork chop and fish ball noodles, and pork chop bun. The pork chop was extremely tender and fluffy and juicy, it didn't require a set of strong teeth to chew the meat. Pork chop with plain bun, something so simple can taste so good.

2nd stop - Lord Stow's bakery 安德魯 - I actually like portguese style egg tart more than the hk style, probably because the caramelized top of portguese egg tart adds another layer of smoky flavor and the egg custard is more creamy. They also come in smaller size so they're perfect for afternoon snack. Their serradura 木糠布甸 is very tasty as well. They are very generous with the application of 木糠, and the milk pudding is dense and smooth, and not so sweet. Does it worth the 100mod cab ride, hell yes!

3rd stop - 海灣餐廳 Restaurant Litoral - I did literally go to A Lorcha everytime visiting macau, for dinner we went to Litoral instead. It turned out all the walking in macau wasn't able to burn out all the calories intake within the day, we couldn't order that much food for our early bird dinner. The african chicken indeed tasted very good, the chicken meat was almost like super tender shredded beef and tomato sauce was a great compliment to the dish. The beef marrow in red wine was just so-so..the homemade quality.

It's not bad to visit macau for a weekend getaway.. especially the food is much cheaper than hong kong although the former generally lacks the entertainment element, but I think I should take a break from it for a short while.. at least to avoid stepping my foot into the city for the rest of the year.

Crazy for Sichuan food

I don't know when it got started. If yawning is contagious, I would argue food cravings can be contagious too. The devil living inside me has an increasing tolerance and appetite for Sichuan food ever since I moved back to Hong Kong. Albeit most sichuan dishes are excessively seasoned and oily, some said spicy food is good for skin but the unfortunate most would be more prone to massive breakout. Luckily spicy food doesn't stimulate acne for me or make my stomach turn, eating too much of it would still make my lover's handles more prominant.

As a typical taurus, I am not very adventurous with restaurant choices and tend to visit the same places incessantly until the restaurants screw up miserably. Whenever my friends ask where to go for dinner, I would always list my 3 choices: yakitori, sichuan food or hotpot.

For sichuan food, my favorite dinner place as gotten to be San Xi Lou 三希樓(滿江紅), even a chengdu born guy would claim this as the best sichuan restaurant in HK, although the spicy level has adjusted down a notch. I went there again, this time not for hotpot but for hot dishes.

Spicy chicken/ "saliva" chicken - chicken was lean and meaty. The sauce was adjusted just right and not too sweet. I always love the peanuts on top of the chicken to give a crunchy texture when combined. A must order item whenever I dined at the restaurant.

The cold dish - fun pai - I wonder if they make the fun pai themselves because these are thicker than the ones at other restaurants. The key is the sauce that's hot and flavorful enough because fan pai is basically tasteless. I just love the sauce that can burn your tongue.

Sichuan wonton in red sauce. Not the best that I have had, I still prefer the wraps to be the kind of dumplings rather than the guangdong wonton. I am still obsessed with the one at sichuan dai ping fou, where the skin is thick and chewy and absorb a great deal of hot sauce.

Dam dam noodles - basically noodles in peanut sauce.

Deep fried tofu cubes - great snacks for beer.

Fish in chili soup - Another must order item at any sichuan restaurant. because the soup base is so oily the fish fillets absorbed all the oil hence become very smooth and slimy. Inside the bowl you can also found the potato starch noodles and lots of beans sprouts.

Tofu and beef - the tofu was silky and smooth and is a great combination with the beef in chili sauce and peanuts.

For dessert, we had the pumpkin soup, red beans jelly and sweet dumplings in rice wine. I have to admit that the restaurant doesn't offer very good dessert. but still something sweet can moderate the flame after a spicy dinner.

I need to convince people that we all can train up our tolerance level for spicy food. I keep lifting my tolerance level for every visit to sichuan restaurant, and I am addicted to the excitment of burning my tongue off after a hot dinner. Call me crazy but that's my devil's calling....

Fook Lam Moon

LT has gone back to US for good. We had our farewell dinner at Fook Lam Moon 福臨門.

I would have never imagined myself dining at FLM since it's one of the tycoon's restaurant and I would have assumed the waiters are stuck up and it would be cheap and awkward to order non-abalone dishes in the restaurant.

I was wrong about the service. The staff there were very professional and didn't give us lousy service even we didn't order the expensive items on the menu.. although they did push for their shark fin soup when we asked for recommendation.

The food was good and delicious... but whether it deserved a rave review I really doubted it. I mean.. other than the more delicate items and extravagent ingredients which we didn't order, other dishes were normal cantonese food which was in par with a normal chinese restaurant. and a lot of the items we ordered I found inferior to many places I have tried before.

Cha siu - bbq pork - I think the one I had at Fu SIng tasted better, the meat was more tender and juicy at Fu Sing. But again, I am not a huge fan of bbq pork, the quality was good enough.

Fried frog legs - I haven't had frog legs in ages.. Chinese don't make good frog legs dishes.. but Thai does. I need this dish to be more spicy.

Sweet and sour pork - it was tasty, no surprise, but I wouldn't rate it high if comparing to the seafood place on lamma island, that one was awesome the pork was juicy and fried perfectly with the perfect sauce. This one was too average.

Vegetable dish - it tasted as normal as it looked.

Chicken - The skin was thin and crispy and the meat was tender and juicy and not fatty at all. interestingly the dipping sauce was lemon juice mixture unlike others which use white pepper and salt.

"Hong Siu" Tofu - The sauce was light and tasty, and the tofu was soft and silky.

Crab shell with crab meat - This is the most surprising item for the dinner. They stuffed the shell with lots of crab meat and covered with a thin batter that's not too oily to taste. It retained the light crab flavor every bite of it was crab meat. It was very nicey done although the presentation was just so-so.

Pan-fried sword fish - I found what my mom made would be better than this. The sword fish didn't come in one piece but in broken pieces. You would have thought the chef was experienced enough to not mess around the fish when it wasn't done yet. I was disappointed.

Fried rice wrapped with lotus leaves. This was the best executed dish for the dinner. The rice was chewy and not mushy, had very heavy taste of soy-sauce with bits of fried eggs inside. There weren't traces of many ingredients inside but the rice was packed with flavor.

Almond soup with egg white - Lots of egg white inside, above average quality.

Well.. I probably shouldn't set a high expectation for my first visit since the press commented it as a tycoon restaurant.. they should have very picky taste buds right?! I still felt the pressure of ordering the more expensive items on the menu, and I thought the pressure was not justified for the quality of food they offered.

Pierre 2x

Have you ever imagine yourself going to a michelin star restaurant twice a day?

Food critics would need to dine at a restaurant more than twice in order to write a proper review...that's how they test the quality and consistency. well.. obviously I am no food critic, I am not gifted with complex palette and profound writing skills... i am just a crazy foodie who is always in search of good food and devoted to places which serve food with their hearts.

It's been months since my last visit at Pierre HK. So when a friend called for a catch-up lunch, I intuitively asked for Pierre. HK restaurants usually have very high turnover rate in terms of staff... much of it because the locals tend not to stay in the business as a career and they easily jump boat for slightly higher salary. I walked into the restaurant wondering whether the old gang is still there, and YES there I saw Herve the manager, Pierre the sommelier, and the rest of the staff was there as usual... I was given the warm welcome and being seated preparing for a great meal.

First came the amuse buche.

I chose 63degree egg as my appetizer. Slow cooked egg with running egg yolk resting on a bed of mushroom cream sauce. I absolutely loved the treatment of egg and earthy flavor from the mushroom. oh forget about the calories.. i just mopped the entire plate with the baguette.

My friend chose the tuna for starter which fused with the asian cuisine, a lighter dish as compared to my egg.

In between, we were given a little treat of polenta with crab meat with frisee green and meringue flavored with garlic and olive oil. I have to note that the foam based creature was absolutely wonderful.. it's exemplified something basic and simple could be so delicate and tasty. It left me wanting more than just a scope...

For main, I chose for the shredded lamb with eggplant. The lamb was really tender and flavorful, it almost tasted like beef. The sauce was rich and intensive.

My friend went for a steak, and it came with a salad and sweet potato mousse. Looked american but with a french twist.

For dessert I had the chocolate ganache. It was the best ganache I have ever had, what an oxymoron of so light but so chocolate rich. The trick was to use both cream and milk to lighten the chocolate sauce... along with the pistachio ice cream... yummy..

My friend had the apricote compote with wafers.

Nicholas was so nice to send us his signature vanilla souffle. Not that I have an unfathomable stomach, just that the souffle was light and fluffy, I actually finished the whole thing.

Petite four: I love raspberry and I love meringue.

I went into the kitchen to compliment Nicholas for his artful skills, wanting to meet the new chef but he wasn't there at that moment. We then paid the bill and left the restaurant... just when we were waiting for the elevator, Herve together with the new Chef Olivier came out to introduce himself.. what a nice gesture, making you feel important. 

After a lavish lunch I returned back to the office to work off the calories by exercising my brain. After work I met up with two other foodies for dinner.. actually I couldn't really eat much as I was still working on digesting my lunch, I had a couple of glasses of wine and decided to call it a day... up until...

My 2 foodie buddies wanted a place for good dessert.. First came to our mind was Caprice as one of BCH's favorite restaurant, unfortunately the restaurant was full house and couldn't seat us for dessert... Our spirit for sweet hasn't just died yet so next we pranced our way to Pierre, and here I was again.. being treated with a parade of sweets in the wonderland.

As a starter for dessert - passionfruit sauce and sorbet, passionfruit jelly, chocolate ganache, pistachio marzipan, cinnamon biscuit with vanilla icing.

I wanted to try something new so I asked for the grand dessert which comprised of orange compote and caramelized apricot tart, tuiles with vanilla cream and fruit candies, pistachio marzipan, macaron and ice cream with olives shaving. Everything was really good.. although I am generally not too fond of marzipan as the combination of sweetness and grainy texture makes it unfinished and unrefined. Love the ice cream with olive shaving.. the tanginess of olive makes an brilliant match.

We came here for a great dessert.. and we ended up having two rounds.

The second round included millefeuilles of strawberry and pistachio ice cream, I believe that's the kirsch sauce alongside the millefeuilles, nougat thins with pistachio and chocolate sauce, chocolate ganache with peach compote, and my favorite pistachio mousse with mixed green in melon soup.

We had a great time at Pierre. We chatted with every single one of the staff and amazed by the diversity of background and knowledge of food and wine. For the amazing people and food I will definitely come back for a degustation dinner.. It seems like I will never get tired of this restaurant.