Cheesess (Hong Kong)

Hoping to satisfy my chocolate craving, I walked from one end of Causeway Bay the other end in search for Awfully Chocolate. Little did I know that their location has been moved recently but the group still runs the same spot. No more chocolate, it now sells nothing but cheesecake hence the name Cheesess. With only 4 choices of cheesecake (New York, Sydney, Kyoto Raspberry and Kyoto White Cheesecake), it a sign of great confidence or over-confidence, depends how you see it. Similar to Awfully Chocolate, there was no display of any cake whatsoever, only images of their selection. As recommended by staff, I picked one of its favorite items, the New York Cheesecake. Between small and large, I selected the small which set me back HKD138. Why do I mention price so early in my article? It is because it is an important element of my experience. For HKD138, you get a small-sized New York Cheesecake just slightly wider than a quarter pounder or perhaps Filet-O-Fish. Any cake with 4 inches in diameter seems to be reasonable but don't forget about its height!!! Value vs worth is a very personal matter which I cannot be the judge for all but for HKD138, I do expect getting a slightly bigger if not taller cheesecake! Did I mention the berries sauce cost you an extra HKD38 for a small jar?

Liber Pater Winery

It is no news that I am not an expert in wine hence the lack of wine coverage in most of my food-related posts, however as a dedicated foodie or more appropriately, a food lover, it is no doubt that wine knowledge or more accurately the appreciation of it plays an important role in many culinary cultures. I have decided recently to be more proactive in learning about wine, one small step at a time. By chance this evening, Uncle KK invited me for dinner at Fortune Room at the Hong Kong Jockey Club to try some new wines he got. It turned out we were trying the different collection of wines from Liber Pater, a boutique winery in Grave, Bordeaux. Did I mention the owner of the winery, Mr. Loïc Pasquet, was here as well. It was hard not to take this rare opportunity and harassed bombard him with questions I have regarding wine making.

Kaiko Teppanyaki 鐵板燒‧海幸 (Hong Kong)

I just realized this is my first teppanyaki coverage in my blog. In other words, teppanyaki is apparently not something I frequent yet quite enjoyed mainly for the watching how the chef skillfully maneuver around the food in addition to the food itself of course. Based on my humble research (thank you wikipedia - apparently there are more details in the Japanese wiki for the same entry for those interested and know Japanese), tappanyaki was introduced around 1945 as a way to cook Westernized food on iron plate. However, this concept was poorly received among local Japanese yet greatly welcomed by foreigners and tourists mainly due to how diners can watch the chefs do their magic in front of them. I do think it is a main part of having teppanyaki, at least to me, but here at Kaiko Teppanyaki, there wasn't much of a show yet you will get a great view overlooking the Victoria Harbour Hong Kong. To be fair though, the chef we had was very friendly, initiated various chit chats and very attentive to our needs, more attentive than the wait staff to be honestly.

Hainan ShaoYe 海南少爺

There are quite some buzz on this place recently in various food publications in Hong Kong and I actually went during the first week of their opening a a few weeks ago. I guess it is time to share my experience. First of all, many foodies usually visit a new establishment after at least a couple of weeks or sometimes months of operations to ensure quality consistency. While it is understandable for a new resto to require time to "settle in" in terms of operations, it is not an excuse for inconsistency with food quality and etc. As long as you are open for business, day 1 or day 1000 should not make so much of a difference in my opinion. My experience at Hainan Shaoye fell into the disappointing category.

Chez Moi Private Kitchen

After many years of operations, Chez Moi moved out of the walk-up building in Causeway Bay into a relatively more modern building and changed its name to Chez Moi Private Kitchen. I suppose adding the "Private Kitchen" to its name would make it ... trendy? I am not sure about that. There are so many new restaurant establishments nowadays attaching themselves with this label which to me is rather meaningless.

Cafe Match Box 喜喜冰室

Cafe Match Box has been the new kid on the block for a while offering so-called traditional Hong Kong style cuisine with a bit of a fusion twist and I finally got the chance to give it a try. The retro decor was interesting and great for pictures.

Applegreen

I really enjoyed my meal here and already am looking forward to my next visit. I should have visited this place earlier so I would have another casual dining favorite in the Causeway Bay area. There were hits and misses but my overall experience was a very pleasant one. Atmosphere was causal, bright with very spacious seating arrangements. Service was excellent particularly to diners who takes pictures of the food. How so? I will explain later.

IR 1968 - Indonesian Restaurant 印尼餐廳

This review is another long overdue writeup. IR 1968 has been around for a long while but I never really had the drive to walk in and give it a try. Thanks to @coffeemeow @sporbo and @mochachocolata, my chance arrived and we came here for our little tweetup (twitter meetup)! @mochocolata and @Sporbo did most of the ordering since they are more familiar with the dishes while @coffeemeow and I were deciding which wine to order.

The food was alright in general, no surprises in my opinion but it was each other's company that made the meal a wonderful one! I am no expert in Indonesian food so please visit @mochachocolata blog for a detailed review on our visit.

Gado Gado - make sure you pour the sauce over and mix well before eating.

The satay looked weird on the little grilling stove with the candles inside. Taste wise they were rather weak.

I actually likes the perkedel jagung (sweet corn fritters) but as mentioned by @mochachocolata and @sporbo, this dish is a very simple dish that can be made at home very easily. I will give that a try soon. :)

A very decent dish of perkedel, I think I ate most of them ... ooops.

The lontong capgomeh we ordered was a platter of some sort and "longtong" translated to rice cakes. It was alright, many of the side dishes were items we ordered as well.

I enjoyed the beef rendang with the yellow rice we ordered along with it. Texture was good, rather chewy but the flavor was alright, perfect to go with rice.

I love ox tongue so the semur lidah (stewed ox tongue) was a dish that I finished to the last piece! It was soft enough and the sauce was a deep and rich.

The yellow rice (nasi kuning) was presented nicely and we cleaned up the whole dish!

There are not many Indonesian restaurants in Hong Kong to my understanding and I wish there can be more so to give me more opportunities to eat Indonesian dishes!

Likes:

• perkedel jagung (sweet corn fritters) & perkedel - simple yet perfect as snack in my opinion
• Yellow Rice (nasi kuning) which was lightly flavored
• semur lidah (stewed ox tongue) - very tender with a rich and deeply flavored sauce

Dislikes:

• satay - meat overcooked, sauce rather weak
• beef rendang - rather chewy with rich flavors

Avg Spending: HKD 100 - 200 per person (without wine)

IR 1968 - Indonesian Restaurant 印尼餐廳
28 Leighton Rd, Causeway Bay
Tel: +852 2577 9981


View Larger Map

MIST? - Rahmen Fine Dining

Ramen (or "rahmen") and Fine Dining never crossed my mind as two words that can be associated with each other in one sentence; now "MIST?" proved me wrong this evening. This new establishment in Causeway Bay put itself right amongst the fine dining scene in Hong Kong with its specialty: Ramen of course. Ramen to me is something hearty and down-to-earth, just like burgers which is soul food without costing a fortune. Perhaps my belief is already outdated?

The decor was upscale indeed with leather bounded chairs (I assume they were leather) and utensils were hiding inside the drawer in front of each diners. A nice touch indeed.

However, 2 things I noticed which I disliked very much: (1) the menu smells, literally of unpleasant leather smells odor and the staff admits it! & (2) with approx 26 seats including bar seats, there were 6 waitstaff around, always one nearby which was kind of intimidating for me. (even when their service was attentive and friendly)

It is a very bold move indeed for it to offer only 5 variations of soup to go with a single type of Ramen (or "Rahmen") noodles. Each bowl came with only one single piece of pork and everything else is extra. There were some cold / hot side dishes but limited choices once again. We ordered the "Rahmen" Sushi to start with and it was lovely in term of presentation with 4 metal spoons holding sushi like pieces made of ramen noodles topped with different items. Honestly, not overly spectacular or extraordinary at all, the flavors + textures were very predictable in a sense.

I ordered the ume shio "rahmen" (plum) with an extra boiled egg which looked very pretty. The noodles were relative thin and soft compared with those I tried before. According to the information leaflet provided, three types of flours were used to make this special noodles and over 25 ingredients for the soup as well. Personally I prefer the more chewy and thicker types of noodles. The soup on the other hand was wonderful with the right level of saltiness to it and hints of citrus flavor from the ume (plum). Two Thumbs up on the soup!!!

Thanks to my brother who held up the noodles for me to take this picture.

The one and only piece of BBQ pork was semi-fatty in a delicious way and the boil egg was good with yolk flowing out.

Likes:

• Great soup base, not too salty, just the right amont.
• (semi-dislike) very unique noodles but rather too soft and too thin for my liking
• Attentive service

Dislikes:

• Rather costly for a bowl of hearty ramen.
• Although service was great, too many waitstaff within the limited space, privacy was a concern in my case.

Avg Spending: HKD 100 - 200 per person


MIST? Rahmen Fine Dining 創作麵工房
G/F, 4 Sun Wui Road, CWB
Tel: +852 2881 5006
http://www.mist.com.hk/


View Larger Map


Update 23 Feb 2010:
After my months of ramen quest in Hong Kong, there are only a few that I would return and (1) Noodle House Ippei-An 麵屋一平安 @ Miramar Shopping Centre remains to be one of my favorite joints despite the recent setbacks. I am yet to try its Elements outlet and will update the experience here accordingly. My other favorite ramen joints are (2) Sapporo Japanese Restaurant 札幌元祖北海道拉麵 @ Forum, (3) Yachiyo Ramen 八千代麵坊 @ Noho. Let the Ramen quest continues!

Chez Moi

There were much buzz about this little private French kitchen hiding somewhere in CWB but why all the buzz? A few of us were here to find out on this lovely evening. There were no hanging signs near the building entrance so it took us a while to find this place. All you will find the little sign on the door, smaller than you would expect. There were nothing overly fancy in the dining area with tables spaciously arranged. The ceiling fan added a touch of colonial atmosphere to the whole decor.



The menu for this evening has several options and we picked one of each so we can try all of them among ourselves. Oh please note that they don;t serve wines here so bring your own bottles with zero corkage fee. Before our appetizer were served, we were given a basket of garlic bread fresh from the oven based on the crisp texture and the wonderful garlic aroma.



(1) Sauteed French Live Mussel with White wine garlic sauce
It was just too salty in general, too much garlic were used. The mussels were unevenly cooked as shown by the several shells which remained closed. There were several broken shells and there were sand in some of them. The sand part was a big No-No for me!



(2) Pan-seared Goose Liver and sliced Caramel Apple with Port white sauce
The size of the Goose Liver Foie Gras was huge! It was too thick in my opinion. There was a thin layer of crystals on the surface, likely a result of potato starch being used to prevent the overcooking of the piece. I personally don't like to crunchy surface. I really appreciate the effort they put into the cooking it (esp the addition of potato starch) but a thinner slice would do the trick right? Plus, the huge piece did not have much flavor to it anyhow. Bigger is not always better.

(Thanks for the smogsblog's clarification, it is indeed a common mistake to describe goose or duck liver as foie gras. I made the same mistake as well. The term foie gras should only be used for goose or duck liver that has been specially fattened typically through gavage (force-feeding) corn.)



(3) Fisherman's Seafood Soup
The flavor was very strong and rich, closer to a seafood bisque. There were plenty of seafood ingredients inside such as diced shrimps, fish and mussels (with sand!!). Good that the next item was the Sherbet so I can clean my palettes.



(4) Homemade Sherbet
Good timing to lighten up my palettes before the main dishes were served.



(5) Grilled Australian Wagyu Rib Eye Steak with Red Wine Sauce
The steak was very nicely done, med rare as we ordered. Flavor of the sauce was adequate not to overtake the beef flavor. The meat was quite tender indeed. Not bad at all.



(6) Grilled US Lamb T-Bone steak with Mashed Vegetables
No surprises here unfortunately. Meat was tender but a bit overcooked to my liking. I still prefer my rack of lamb over lamb T-bone steak.



(7) Pan-fried Cod with Macadamia Nuts Better Sauce
The cod was alright, not as "fishy oily" as I expected it. The sweet potato mash was a nice touch. I actually liked the sauce and it went quite well with lightly flavored fish in general.



(8) Bread Butter Pudding with Ice Cream
That was not a bread pudding at all in my opinion. It was so tough that it was more like a loaf cake instead. Very disappointing.



(9) Japanese Pumpkin Cheesecake
Another very ordinary serving in my opinion. It was the soft kind of cheesecake but the flavors was a bit weak.



To be honest, at this price range, the dishes being served were above average. The chef and his team put in a lot of effort in my humble opinion to provide the guests a wonderful dining experience at this private establishment. A simple use of the potato starch to prevent overcooking the goose liver Foie Gras was a nice touch indeed. It was more a personal thing regarding the dislikes below but I think they do have to work on the minor details such as broken mussels shells and sand within.

Likes:

• A very cozy and homely environment for a casual yet delicate dining experience
• Pan-fried Cod

Dislikes:

• Sauteed French Live Mussel with White wine garlic sauce - too salty, unevenly cooked mussels, broken shells
• Bread Butter Pudding with Ice Cream - too tough, more like loaf cake to me

Avg Spending: HKD 300 - 500 per person

Chez Moi
3/F, 17 Yun Ping Road, CWB
Tel: 2881 1929


View Larger Map

Xinjishi 新吉士

Contrary to the common belief, not all my meals are extravagant! I do enjoy simple dishes and this Shanghainese meal was another good example of how I enjoy simple dishes with good company! Xinjishi 新吉士 is one of my personal favorites not only because of the food but perhaps the environment as well.

(1) Preserved Eggs with Bean Curd
One of my favorite dishes of all times! Many restaurants nowadays tend have less preserved eggs for this dish but I like it with plenty of preserved eggs to go along with the silky smooth bean curd / tofu. I think the sauce was one of the key factors in making this dish so ... addictive. Slightly sweet but not too strong in overtaking the flavors of the preserved eggs. My friends and I were fighting over this dish!



(2) KO-FU (braised wheat gluten with bamboo shoots)
Rich in flavors on every bite but slightly too strong in my opinion. It was soft and chewy, a great dish to start the meal off.



(3) Pan-fried string beans with dried chopped shrimps
It was rather salty! The dried chopped shrimps paste were too salty and it was better to be mixed with some rice to go along with it. Also, the proportion was rather small as well. Disappointing!



(4) Xiao Loong Bao (Steamed Pork Dumplings)
The skin was thin enough but again the tip part of the dumpling was too "dough-y" likely due to the way it was prepared / wrapped. Not much meat juice was found inside but the meat was moist enough with a sufficient flavors. A fair dish indeed.



(5) Fried rice cake with pork and vegetables
It lacked flavors or maybe it was intended to have a light flavors. In either case, I don't like it not just because of the lack in flavors but also the rice cake was overly chewy, took me a long while to finish a spoonful of it.



(6) Mini-rice dumplings in ginger soup
WOW! It was spicy! Spicy in a Gingery way !!! I coughed a few times after the first sip. It was like having a burning sensation in mouth. I love ginger but this was too much! For ginger lovers, give it a try, you might actually like it. I guess my tolerance level for ginger might not be as high as I imagined!

Likes:

• Preserved Eggs with Bean Curd - might have to order two dishes next time to avoid the fight over it.
• Xiao Loong Bao - not the best but meat was moist enough and skin was pretty thin

Dislikes:

• Pan-fried string beans with dried chopped shrimps - too salty!
• Fried rice cake with pork and vegetables - rice cake slices overly chewy
• Mini rice dumplings in ginger soup - extremely gingery to a point it was rather spicy!

Avg Spending: HKD 100 - 200 per person

Xinjishi 新吉士
Shop 201-203, 2/F., Lee Garden Phase II,
28 Yan Ping Road, CWB
Tel: 852 2890 1122
http://www.xinjishi.com/



View Larger Map

Tai Ping Koon 太平館餐廳

I am a loyal diner at Tai Ping Koon (太平館餐廳) not only for its consistency in terms of food quality but also the homely feeling of its environment. It seemed to have the same decor as 5 years ago when I first visited and with the same strong air conditioning blowing right on top of your head! Don't expect top-notch services but do except skilled and extremely responsive services from the team of experienced staff. Tai Ping Koon is very famous for its Swiss Chicken Wings or more accurately the so-called Swiss sauce (瑞士汁). While items with Swiss sauce were good, my favorite item remains to be the ox-tongue.



(1) Tea
I am a coffee person but for some odd reasons, I ordered tea tonight. I am glad that I did because otherwise I would not have the chance to see something I haven't encountered for a long while which is the stainless steel "tea filter"! Of course you may see it in those upscale establishment serving traditional English after tea sets but at local Chinese food joints, it is becoming a rare item. Well, it wasn't the greatest tea but it was comforting especially a DIY cup of tea instead of those Hong Kong styled milk tea with everything added already.



(2) Boiled Corned Ox-tongue
It was salty but it was salty in a very delicious way. It looked plain but not the taste for sure. When I say the salty flavor was very complex, it was very complex indeed. It may sound crazy but I was making the following noises while eating this with spoonful of rice: HUMMM, YUMMM, HUMM followed by another series of HUMMMMs. It was a simple boiled ox-tongue yet very satisfying indeed! Soft and tender: who needs wagyu beef, this ox-tongue almost melted in my mouth as well!

Likes:

• Boiled Corned Ox-tongue - salty but in a good and delicious way.
• Boiled Corned Ox-tongue - soft and tender! almost melted in my mouth
• Boiled Corned Ox-tongue - generous portions
• (ooops, did I repeat my Likes? ... o well)

Dislikes:

• Air Conditioning too strong and too cold!

Avg Spending: HKD 100 - 200 per person

Tai Ping Koon Restaurant
6 Pak Sha Road, CWB
Tel: 852 2576 9161
http://www.taipingkoon.com/home.html


View Larger Map