Friday, March 23, 2012

Adventure #49: The Krug Room

It was truly an adventure to dine at The Krug Room at The Mandarin Oriental.  An adventure of sight, smell, touch and of course taste.  The private dining room is situated behind the Chinnery and has a view of the kitchen.  Created by the House of Krug, this is one of only three Krug Rooms in the world.

Upon entering the beautiful dining room (too at awe to take a photo of the whole room but found a great one taken professionally from the net), I was immediately drawn to the decoration above the long marble dining table. 
  
The Krug Room

This was inspired by the river that ran through the Krug estate in Champagne - I think it is called Reflection of the Dishes


Apparently, the wood on this wall is imported and is the same oak used to ferment Krug champagne.
View of the kitchen from the dining room

There is no menu for the Krug Room, guests are served whatever Chef Uwe creates.  And the dishes he created for us this evening were written in chalk on the slate wall by the entrance.


Oak barrel signed by Olivier Krug, the CEO of the House of Krug

Tonight, our dinner consisted of 12 dishes - 8 "starters", 2 main courses and 2 desserts! And of course all "washed down" with Krug Champagne! Can't wait!!


Course 1 - Fruit
We were served a Pear and a piece of brioche

Sliced open the Pear to reveal foie gras - melt in your mouth delicious!
Course 2 - Caviar
Counter clockwise from top left: Olive oil flavoured mock caviar (tasted horrible, like drinking oil), real caviar (yummm), Kumamoto oyster on a bed of lychee flavoured sago (best of all!), another dollop of real caviar, apple flavoured mock caviar (interesting)

Course 3 - Leaves
Different coloured leaves made from mushroom (the brown one), beetroot (the red one) and pumpkin (the orange one).  I liked the beetroot one the best but G preferred the mushroom one.

Even after we finished, the plates all looked like pieces of art.


Course 4 - Benedict
Steamed duck egg topped with caviar and crab meat hidden inside the egg eaten with a mother of pearl spoon. Nice! 


Course 5 - Papillote
Scottish Salmon. This one needs a bit of DIY.

We were to put the salmon cube onto the rice paper, garnish with the sauce (I forgot what sauce, result of too much champagne), caviar and edible flowers. Finally, lift and pop in mouth.


Course 6 - Tea
First a cup with what looked like a gold nugget.

Then hot water was added - and I watched with horror as my gold nugget melted away!

Voila! Morel and porcini mushroom broth with edible gold flakes.  Unfortunately, most of us thought this one tasted a bit like Bovril......

Course 7 - Soap
This was one of the most interesting dishes.  We were first served a sponge, then a bar of soap, followed by a "bubble bath" with blue lobster from Brittany in it.  To make the "bath", we then add the soap to the tub and stir.  To take the bath, we were served a "towel" made of egg white and macaroni. Such fun!


Course 8 - Goose
First of the 2 mains.  Roasted goose served on a bed of pickled cabbage, whole egg yoke and topped with truffles.  The whole dish was served on cider wood that had just been burnt to give off the BBQ smell while we ate! Amazing! G enjoyed this as the egg yoke was cooked to perfection.

Course 9 - Leather
Second of the 2 mains.  First we were served a piece of cow skin made of onion puree (the white bits) and truffle puree (the black bit).

Then came the ribeye steak with sauce.  I am not a steak fan but this one really is melt in your mouth delicious! Never thought I would use "melt in your mouth" to describe a piece of steak but that's what it was!

Course 10 - Vacherin
Mont D'or with potatoes and walnut bread.  I think this is to prepare the pallet for dessert but I think we were all rather full by now and have no interest in any unnecessary carbs.  Besides, the Mont D'or was very strong leaving behind a rather bitter taste which didn't go down well with us.

Course 11 - Light Bulb
Dessert number 1.  A light bulb made of sugar and filled with coconut cream and served with a bed of ginger flavoured ice-cream. This was most innovative and was such a delight to eat. 

Finally, course 12 - Krug on the Moon. The finale. 
The waiter rolled out a mat onto the marble table and brought in a tray of equipment. This dessert is a piece of art made entirely of chocolate!







The black ball was made of chocolate and filled with berries.  When hot melted chocolate was poured over it, the black ball started to melt and mix with the berries.  My favourite part of this dessert.

Master piece done and we are ready to eat!

It took us a long long time to eat through this dessert but we were no where close to finishing it.  We were told that this dessert had never been finished..........

The Krug Room
1/F, Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong
5 Connaught Road Central
Central
Tel: 2825 4014

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Adventure #48: The Pawn

I am not a fan of The Pawn. Been there a few times and thought that the food was acceptable but nothing great. So when I was asked to lunch at The Pawn again, I wasn't very enthusiastic.  As it turned out, the food from the set lunch menu was better than I had expected (maybe coz my expectation was very low) but still not out of this world.

The spinach salad with walnuts, bacon and Stilton was surprisingly nice

This is the first time I ordered Fish n Chips here - I think this is their best dish - fish is soft though a bit oily

The apple parfait with wild berries was ok

The Pawn
2-3/F, 62 Johnston Road
Wan Chai

Tel: 2866 3444


Monday, March 12, 2012

Adventure #47: Good Forture (Chai Wan)

Every year the girls' ballet school put on a formal concert.  This year, the venue was in Chai Wan.  To us, Chai Wan is just the last stop on the Island MTR line.  We have never been to Chai Wan.  Anyways, today we found ourselves in Chai Wan.  After dropping the girls off at the theatre, we went round looking for pre-show dinner and we came across a restaurant by the name Good Fortune.  The name is a bit "leong" but we don't have a lot of choices.......


G has been craving for roast goose for some time, so we today we were able to satisfied his craving.  The roast goose was not out of the world but at HK$75, it's OK.

The mandatory vegetable dish.

Don't know why but G ordered the Sichuan 水煮魚.  It was not authentic but tasted OK considering this is a Cantonese restaurant.
The dish of the day turned out to be the deep fried prawns in salty egg yolk.
Not a restaurant I would come back to but if you were in the neighbourhood and looking for a bit to eat, this is not a bad choice.


Friday, March 9, 2012

Adventure #46: Ho Choi Seafood Restaurant (Sheung Wan)

We used to frequent Ho Choi Seafood Restaurant (only the Sheung Wan branch) and then I cannot remember why we stopped going.  G's mum is in town, so we went to Ho Choi again after a long long while.  We ordered our usual plus a couple of different one for dinner. Quality still good.

Lobster cooked in broth with noodle is one of our must eat.  We were asked to choose between Canadian Lobster at HK$8.8 per 両 (16 両 in 1 kati, a Chinese pound) or Australian lobster at HK$23.5 per 両.  Errr, that's a no brainer, of course Canadian! When asked, the head waiter said the reason for the high price for the Australian lobster is because they were all eaten up by Mainlanders! So what's new these days! 


Next came the deep fried oysters.  This is a new dish for us and rather interesting.


Our other must have is steam scallops in soya sauce and vermicelli with lots of garlic and spring onions. Heavenly!


We also ordered sweet and sour pork for our picky little eater.


And finally some vegetable to round up the dinner.


I am glad we went back to Ho Choi.  Good quality food at still reasonable prices.

Ho Choi Seafood Restaurant

287-291 Des Voeus Road Central
Sheung Wan
Tel: 2850-6722

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Adventure #45: Yuen Kee Dessert

One of G's favourite dessert is 白果腐竹. We used to frequent one local dessert shop at Aberdeen but sadly that closed down last year (victim of the ever increasing rent in HK) and we never found out where it went.  So, G has been out of his favourite dessert for some time until a friend mentioned that an old dessert shop at Sai Ying Pun may serve it. 


After dinner one night, we ventured around the area and found Yuen Kee Dessert Shop 源記甜品專家.  It sure look old and very traditional.  Unfortunately, no 白果腐竹.  But we tried their 杏仁茶, 綠豆沙, 芝麻糊 and famous 雞蛋糕 which were all good.










So, our search for a decent 白果腐竹 continues.......

Yuen Kee Dessert
G/F, 32 Centre Street
Western District
Tel: 2548 8687

Mon - Sun: 12:00-23:30

Friday, February 24, 2012

Adventure #44: Posto Pubblico

After 3 days of gym and cereal for lunch, I was really looking forward to today's lunch at Posto Pubblico.  And I wasn't disappointed.  The food quality good and portion large (American Italian!).  At HK$130, the set lunch which included a starter, a main and coffee/tea was good value.

The Veal Meatballs were soft and yummy


The Mozzarella with Cherry Tomatoes and Balsamic Vineger were just amazing!


The spicy Bucatini a'Matricana was a bit different than the usual pastas

The Roast Pork with Pesto was huge, I think it could do with a bit more pesto

Posto Pubblico
G/F, 28 Elgin Street
SOHO
Central

Tel: 2577 7160


Sunday, February 19, 2012

Adventure #43: 麵尊

We stumbled upon this noodle (車仔麵) shop in Sheungwan a few weeks ago and we have been eating there 3 Saturdays in a row.  It's good and the kids love it.

After 3 weeks of trial and error, G finally admitted that for 車仔麵 it is best to have it with yellow noodle 油麵


Mine


Even the older one agreed that the turnip was really very good - very sweet

As usual, the picky one only wanted sausages and instant noodle

Noodle Supreme
Shop 1, 22-24 Jervois Street
Sheung Wan
Tel: 2851 0626

Mon - Fri: 11:00-19:00

Sat: 11:00-18:00
Closed Sun and public hols

Adventure #42: The Bostonian

For our Friday night out, we went to The Bostonian at the Langham Hotel, TST with Amy and Luca.  To start the evening off, we ordered an Australian red called Barrel Monkeys - trust the Aussies to come up with such interesting names!



For starters, we had.......

Succulent oysters (Virginia, Skookum and Irish Rock) - very fresh and juicy

4 different type of salmon - I prefer the oysters

and Lobster Chowder - G had wanted to have Clam Chowder (kinda miss our East Coast Road Trip in 2010) but they were doing a lobster promotion and thought this might be an interesting try. It was different to the clam chowder but very good

For mains.......
I had a Sauteed Lobster with Clams from the Lobster Promotion menu - a rather interesting twist - with Japanese pickle ginger


G too had Lobster Pot Pie from the Lobster Promotion Menu - very good

Amy had a Grilled Lobster - similar to my Sauteed Lobster but with a creamier sauce

Luca had a good old fashion Rib Eye - yummmm

We had so much to eat, we had no room for dessert.  However, to complete the dinner, we ordered 1 desset to share amongst the 4 of us - the waiter recommended a Chocolate Cream Pie.  Unfortunately, it didn't lived up to our expectations.  To sum the night up, the oysters were fresh and juicy - very important as I have a rather sensitive tummy - I was fine after dinner.  Food quality that night was very good, defnitely come back again.

The Bostonian Restaurant

Lower lobby level
The Langham Hong Kong
8 Peking Road
Tsim Sha Tsui
Tel: 2132 7898