M&C Duck 美中鴨子 - Chic Peking Duck

Partly curious about the food and partly appealed by its fame, 美中鴨子 M&C Duck at Harbour City turned out to be a nice choice for a girls dinner.

Forgive my superficialness for being easily impressed by nice looking food :P The sliced pork in garlic and chili sauce (蒜泥白肉) was one of them~ and the taste was stimulating too. Every slice was a perfect combination of thin sliced pork and cucumber, crispy garlic and subtle spiciness. I like the efforts they put in the presentation~ it's already appetizing by the look :)

Their famous Peking duck was okay, with light-flavored and lean duck meat, which was good. Probably a bit more seasoning of the skin would be better.

 <-- comes with a duck bone broth

Duck slice with osmanthus pudding (桂花糕凍伴鴨件) was a fun dish~ can't say the two ingredients match very well but not bad to experiment. Let me further explain the anatomy for better judgement - duck skin + mayo + cucumber + osmanthus pudding + Pringles chip --- like it or not it's totally subjective :P

Chicken thick soup with vegetable（翡翠雞茸羹）- delicious soup with flavorful chicken broth, don't remember tasting any vegetable, probably it refers to the splash of green soup on top? 

Also had xiao long bao and minced beef cake~ not bad

“M&C Duck” is Maxim's Chinese Cuisines’ latest brand created under a youthful and minimalistic concept. It offers young customers an innovative experience of the Barbecued Peking Duck and a chic, relaxing go-to in town.

美中鴨子 M&C Duck
Tel: 2347 6898
Address: Shop 3319, level 3, Gateway Arcade, Harbour City, 17 Canton Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

Spoil Cafe - spoil yourself with no guilt feelings

Star Street Precinct in Wan Chai is famed for restaurants and gourmet. Going further into the neighborhood, you could find even friendlier eateries - Spoil Cafe is one of them. Situated at a little lovely corner on Sun Street, diners could have themselves spoiled by some seriously tasty food.

The ambiance
Spoil is a small restaurant with no more than 20 seats. Despite the small seating area, the high ceiling and full height glass walls create space and make the room look and feel relaxing.

Tiger prawn pasta with Thai style cream sauce
I highly recommend this personally, the sauce resembles the texture of carbonara but with an overwhelming taste of shrimp instead of bacon..absolutely delicious!

 Grilled spring chicken with orange citrus seasoning
The spring chicken was juicy and scrumptious, marinated with an appetizing citrus mix with lemon peel and orange juice.

Their bread loafs were homemade too! Like ciabatta bread but more moist and cake-like, not bad!

Desserts!! Spoil is famous for its crunch cake, but it's so popular that advance reservation is a MUST in order to get a piece...obviously my friend and I didn't due to our impromptu visit >< anyway, the desserts we ordered were delicious too :)

Signature rich chocolate cake & New York cheese cake
New York cheese cake was good, not disappointing, we know it's easier to make tasty NY cheese cakes than awful ones ;) In contrast, the 75% chocolate cake was extraordinary - very rich (didn't get to ask which chocolate they used, Valrhona?), not too sweet and has a lovely texture.

Spoil Cafe, like some of its counterparts in the Star Street Precinct, is good for diners with a quest for good taste, and for those who'd appreciate a relatively quiet neighborhood to take a stroll after dinner.

Spoil Cafe
Address: Shop A, G/F, Shun Ho Building, 1 Sun Street
Tel: 3589 5678

Contemporary Japanese Cuisine at 0.5°

When the city's Japanese restaurants are close to coming to an excessive level, and the food are more or less the same everywhere, people would start looking for restaurants where something different, or something a little more special, could be experienced.

Tai Han is always a neighborhood for experiencing. As suggested by its name, 0.5°Japanese Contemporary Cuisine + Bar is an izakaya restaurant that serves contemporary Japanese cuisines.

It has awing interior designs, thick hemp ropes, instead of paint or wallpapers, were hung to decorate the ceiling and walls, oval stones were placed in the hand wash basin where I felt guilty running water through (don't ask me why :P), and the dim lighting all came together to create the ambiance of its own. I believe its Japanese yen priced menu (1HKD=10¥) was intented to part of the design too!

 

 

Naming itself "contemporary", it sets certain expectations for customers to anticipate special details in each dish regardless of the seemingly ordinary names. Here are some which really did impress me and my friend :)

Sweet shrimp tartar 甜蝦他他

The presentation looked fun! - a bamboo steam basket arrived at our table, the server opened it to reveal some purple chips (purple sweet potato chips) and a glass egg, I am sure at that moment we looked so confused you would laugh at our faces :D when we saw the shrimp tartar inside the eggshell, we were even more confused, how were we supposed to eat? I guess the server was used to being asked this question a thousand times and must have been cursing the creator silently haha - but easy on this, here is the demonstration-

The shrimp tartar with fish roes mixed in was seasoned right to bring out the natural fresh taste of the seafood. Despite the cotton-like texture of the tartar, chunks of shrimp meat could still be enjoyed accompanied by crispy salted sweet potato chips in beautiful purple color.

Wagyu Konbu maki 炭燒布包和牛

I'd rather say it's a painting than a dish. The stone slate was layered with black squid ink bread crumbs resembling soil, and flower petals were pitifully scattered around rolls of mundane wagyu flesh...I am not an art person but I had a feeling this dish was inspired by art pieces of Vincent van Gogh's or some other impressionist masters'. The slow cooked wagyu beef tasted very nice in terms of the meat itself, the balanced taste of the fat which seemed to be totally absorbed back by the meat and the seasoning. The 'konbu' rice paper wrapping the wagyu was just right in thickness that managed to balance the overwhelming taste of the meat.

Deep fries lotus root slices and minced chicken 炸蓮藕片免治雞肉

This supposedly simple snack was surprisingly successful in winning my heart. Maybe it's the creative combination of these two matching ingredients that impressed, lovely!

0.5° Style paella

The contemporary touch of this dish was a Spanish seafood paella served in a hot stone bowl, fair enough? But that wasn't the point, haha! The highlight of this paella was the rice, which was cooked with lobster broth and it was super yummy. My friend and I were full but we insisted in finishing it till the bottom.

There are so many more items on the menu we wanted to try, yes next time. To enjoy the most out of trying new restaurants with special concepts, there is a golden rule I'd suggest following -Don't walk in with too high expectations, let the surprises surprise you - it's sometimes better to just be happy fools than serious nerds :) cheers

0.5°Japanese Contemporary Cuisine + Bar

Address: Shop B, G/F, 12-13 Shepherd Street

Tel: 2504 2777

Yokozuna vs Shugetsu - A Japanese Ramen Battle

Yokozuna Ramen Restaurant in Yau Ma Tei is famous for its red cherry shrimp ramen, marinated soft-boiled eggs, and pan-fried pork belly. As it's even better-known for its constant long queue, I've been discouraged many times to try. Thanks to my friends, I finally got to get in after an hour and a half of waiting (by them) on a Friday night.

Shugetsu, the rival ramen shop in this battle, is located in Sheung Wan, which is an overseas branch of its original shop in Japan’s Ehime prefecture. As introduced in my previous post, Shugetsu - Ramen full of love, it is famous for its homemade thick soba, and the broth made of a  special savory soy sauce from Ehime.

Here is the battle, I am going to compare 3 signature dishes from both with a 5* rating scale (the more * the better of coz). Since I haven't decided to write this post during my visits to the two stores, some pictures are missing. Anyway, hope you could imagine by the words.

Round 1 - Ramen
Yokozuna Ramen (miso base): ** The soup was light and ordinary, none of the ingredient stood out. The soba was okay but not too impressive, a bit too soft though.

Shugetsu Ramen (intense soy broth): *** I liked the broth, though it was a bit too oily, the bamboo shoot and the spring onion were loud on top of the already strong taste of the soy sauce broth. Good? can't really say. Bad? not at all. The soba was ideally chewy without being too thick/thin.

Round 2 - Tsukemen (Dipping noodles) 
Yokozuna: *** The soul of this dish - the dipping broth lacked character, it tasted nice but seemed missing something. The clear broth adding to the dipping broth suggested a taste of water with unintended seaweed flavor. The highlight was the pan-fried pork belly though, which was well flavored and tender.

Shugetsu: **** The soup, its signature soy sauce based broth was too much on the oily side, but I appreciated the taste of the sauce and it's added with vinegar, marinated bamboo shoots and spring onion, which made the dip such a bomb. I still think its taste was too strong but it's yummy as a dip for the perfect thick soba. The downside was the pity amount of kurobuta pork belly soaked in the broth that made it even saltier. There's a lovely clear chicken broth to add to the dipping soup after you finish the soba, I'd suggest you take the chicken broth by itself, or add the dipping soup in the chicken broth instead of vice versa.

Round 3 - Marinated soft-boiled egg
Yokozuna: ***** Need to order separately. It's claimed to be germ-less and more importantly it tasted good! The yolk was in perfect equilibrium between the liquid and solid state, nice!
Shugetsu: ***** Comes with the ramen. The egg well absorbed the tasty soy sauce during the marination, delicious! The only thing was the slight over-cooking, pity

Personally, I prefer Shugetsu better. For those who pursue excitement and details in the taste, I think Shugetsu outdoes Yokozuna in this way. Though both are good ramen restaurants in Hong Kong for a reason and it would be great if restaurants and food vendors take an effort to listen to customers' opinions and advance or maintain high standards.

Hot Dogs are going gourmet!

Trend Watch: Hot Dogs | By HK Magazine

Hot diggity! Love ‘em or hate ‘em, hot dogs are having a moment right now. Typically thought of as sustenance for the undiscerning; a go-to solution for when you’re low on cash, time or both, these traditionally greasy, sodium-laden treats are being reinvented as (relatively) classy snacks by foodies around the city. Hungry hordes are flocking to gourmet hot dog stands like they’re going out of fashion.

One of the first hot dog specialists to arrive in Hong Kong was Hot Dog Link (Shop C, 67D Waterloo Rd., Ho Man Tin, 2624-4002), which has been in business for a formidable 20-plus years. Founded by master German sausage maker Konrad Pschorr, the extensive menu features imported sausages grilled to perfection accompanied by buns of your choosing. Calorie counters rejoice: you can also skip the buns and go for just the wieners solo. The décor may be homely and the surroundings cramped, but the long queues outside this shop are here to stay.

Fast approaching its 10-month anniversary is Wonderdog (12 Haven St., Causeway Bay, 2886-8052), created by radio DJ personality Tarzan. The space itself assumes an air of quirkiness, with colorful chalkboard menus, pop art illustrations and dangling light bulbs aplenty. Wonderdog’s intriguing toppings selection includes wasabi, Japanese seaweed and prawns. Challenge yourself to the hot-as-hell, sauce-drenched Devil Dog if you dare.

Then there’s Brat (7 Elgin St., Central, 2549-3088). A two-year-old monochromatic space on tranquil Elgin Street, Brat serves top-quality American sausages made from chicken, turkey, beef or pork, containing delectable ingredients such as lemon, portobello mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes. Presentation matches the décor, with hot dogs arriving in front of you on a nifty wooden chopping board. Their gourmet sausages are also available for retail, so hardcore frankfurter fans can go ahead and stock up.

Having just opened in November last year, Yonge Piggies (1 Jervois St., Sheung Wan, 2104-7218) may be the new kid on the block, but its crowd of devotees isn’t any less sizable. Get a taste of authentic Canadian street meat with YP’s choices of hickory-smoked, honey garlic, picante pepper and cheddar sausage—and don’t forget to pair the dogs with chili fries and an awesome milkshake. Complete with bright red ventilation pipes, steel counters and pinup girl and piglet wall art, the space is retro-cool and allows for casual street-side dining.

The Frank (Lab Concept, Queensway Plaza, 93 Queensway, Admiralty, 2640-9111), the brainchild of the group behind Triple O and Yo Mama, is another newish establishment that opened its doors last year. The design is clean and bright, almost European-chic, and their frankfurters come in generous portions. Try the Korean (kimchi on a chicken frank) for an interesting departure from your classic ketchup/mustard combo, or go all out and down the Suicide (fear not, you won’t actually die from the spice).

Way on the other side of town but worth a visit is Pi Hot Dog Gallery (Shops 44 and 49, 1/F, Waldorf Centre, 170-184 Sai Lau Kok Rd., Tsuen Wan, 2417-9363), opened for a bit over a year. Expect a fully customizable and lengthy selection of hot dogs here, including cheese-filled cheddar dogs and jumbo deluxe dogs.

Weekend getaway - Lake Egret Nature Park

What's in your mind looking at this picture?

 

The picture above is not from my Swiss travelogue...indeed it's a local nature park in Tai Po, N.T. - The Lake Egret Nature Park.

I wouldn't have imagined so much fun in this place when my friend Gary told me what I could do with my group of friends there are boating, water cycling and having dinner at the restaurant...I thought, in a remote location (yea it's pretty remote anywhere beyond walking distance from the MTR station) and calm environment like this, I wouldn't expect anything more exciting than a chillaxing hang-out.

But I was wrong.

Walking in, the beautiful view from the restaurant's patio overlooking the lake, and the perspective of the curved patio itself wowed me. The first thing coming into sight usually makes an impression, and that surely made a good one.

Towards the end of the patio smelled my favorite cheese of all time, the chèvre goat cheese? Wondering why, a herd of black goats appeared right away :) Goat-feeding is one of the park's many activities, the goats are kept right by the lake, they are just like gatekeepers of the dock and watch every excited visitor going out for boating or water-cycling simply with indifference. They only concern how much hay you have in hand to feed them~ funny :D

 

Just now I mentioned there are many activities for individuals and families, children to adults at Lake Egret, what are there to offer? Some available activities include sand painting, reed weaving, bread making, leather craft making, sand-filled bottle craft, paper clay...there is also a Museum of Ethnology to satisfy the most curious and fun-loving minds. Reservation is required for most of the guided activities.

Bread making - doughs were ready, what we did was to shape and decorate - this simple but fun DIY workshop made us laugh like kids

Dinner at Little Egret Restaurant was great too. What more could you ask for when you are already sitting out in a beautiful weather, being served attentively, and eating in the spectacular sunset view by the lake? Perhaps a gigantic whole pan-fried dover sole fish (left of the below photo), which was crispy and savory outside but tender and juicy inside :D Another dish that was cheerfully done was the crab meat, mango and avocado salad (right), its mango puree dressing went well with .

I had a great getaway filled with fun and decent food there! Lake Egret Nature Park is designed to house a range of events, venues with different functionality are available, from birthday parties for kids, weddings, BBQ parties, to corporate meetings, banquets and trainings. You can find more details from its website. 

For Easter, there will be a Woodstock outdoor concert and BBQ party welcoming people of all age to join. Details here. Don't forget to stay tuned to their adverse weather notice! Happy Easter long weekend!


Lake Egret Nature Park 
2657 6657
2 Hung Lam Drive, Tai Po Kau, N.T. Hong Kong

How to get there?
MTR Train: Get off at Tai Po Market Station, then transfer taxi (around HK$21) to reach "Little Egret Restaurant"

Shugetsu - Ramen full of love

Shugetsu's homemade ramen noodles are full of love, from ingredients to the perfectly served tsukemen, from production to service, you could feel Shugetsu's pride and insistence in bringing out the best of its ramen. Servers are highly attentive and informative, really impressive to have such service in HK, even during the regular business lunch hour :)

Shugetsu
Address: G/F, 5 Gough Street, Central
Tel: 2850 6009
URL: www.shugetsu.com.hk

Life Cafe - An urban getaway

Feeling stressed out towards the middle of the week? A lunch getaway to Life Cafe may cheer you up. Mushroom pizza and patio seating right by Soho's escalator are suggested, in order to get the most 'life' out of this experience ;)

Life Cafe Restaurant and Bar
Address: G/F-2/F, 10 Shelley Street, SoHo, Central
Tel: 2810 9777
Website: http://www.lifecafe.com.hk/

Zen in Central - Mana! Fast Slow Food

Vegetarian food is an upward trend with more and more veggie restaurants and bistros opening in town. "Lifestyle" is becoming its adjective in recent years, and a broad spectrum of vegetarian food styles is now available to satisfy different taste buds. Veggie pastas, skewers, pizzas, wraps, burgers, even "fish balls", Chinese, Western, whatever food you feel like, you could almost find a veggie version for it.

MANA! Fast Slow Food, located in the middle of the busiest part in Central, lower Soho, doesn't only add a style to the old building housing it, also  provides a famous flat bread with a delicious (seriously delicious!) Zaatar spread (What is Zaatar?), and gives whoever coming in a relaxing yet meaningful veggie experience. Why? cause MANA! promotes veggie, vegan, organic food, Eco-friendliness and community. "Eat like it matters" is its motto, from the time you buy your flat wrap, you are encouraged to lead a healthy and eco-friendly life.

MANA! is pioneering the food waste reduction movement. Very respectable is its waste separation bins - which collect plastic utensils, paper wastes, food compost etc. They do the good of helping customers reduce carbon footprint eating-in, and in my opinion, a generous act to raise the awareness of waste reduction by setting up 5 or 6 bins inside the small restaurant space.

"You go to the back of any restaurant in Hong Kong, and all their rubbish goes in the same bins – glass bottles, food waste, paper etc… It can make me very sad to see this happening, deeply saddened. It took us a long while & great effort to set up a system. There is no government system in place yet" - says Bobsy, the founder of MANA!

I agree with you Bobsy! So I don't have any reservation recommending you to go there, experience it and get inspired :)

MANA! Fast Slow Food - [Menu] - 92 Wellington Street, Central, Hong Kong  2851 1611
  
This is Bobsy-->

Check out his blog posts about humanity, spiritual values, ecology...etc.

Islamic halal food in Xinjiang/Chinese style- this famous halal beef dumpling(清真牛肉餅) is prepared in batches fresh off the frying pan, it would keep you drooling long enough before taking a juicy bite :) yum!

Islam Food
Address: 1 Lung Kong Road, Kowloon City
Tel: 2382 2822

Lin Heung Tea House - Rocking Lotus Bun in Hong Kong

Yum Cha during lunch hour sounds like a group thing - but not at Lin Heung Tea House, where you don't look odd at all sitting along with strangers at the same table, eating lotus seed bun and drinking tea in traditional cup, all alone :p

Lin Heung Tea House
Address: 160-164 Wellington Street, Central
Tel: 2544 4556