Caviar Lunch

I have recently spent quite a large amount of money medically and am quite depressed. I have therefore decided to spend my hard earned money to entertain myself rather than sending them the doctor's way.

Today I have treated myself a lovely caviar lunch in order to please myself. Here's the menu. My main course was Lobster with Risotto.

In fact Caviar House and Prunier has a retail shop at Pacific Place, but they have a small restaurant attached to it. They have only four 4-person tables, but I want the fifth one which is towards the entrance of the shop so I can see more products and people. The have also a coffee bar so you can simply go there and enjoy a cup of coffee. 

Seafood Chowder 海鮮周打蜆湯

For the entire lunch, presentation is perfect, service is friendly, I am fully satisfied. But for individual dishes, I still got some comments. 

As for the soup, there were different descriptions between English and Chinese. English says "Seafood Chowder" but Chinese says  "海鮮周打蜆湯". First, 50% of the soup was potato. I don't mind adding potato to chowder but not to that extent. Second, I could sense something from the sea but unable to tell what they were. Finally, the Chinese version says "蜆", but I didn't think there were any.

Prunier Caviar (10 gr.) served with Parmesan cheese new potato

法國普尼耶魚子醬(10克)伴芝士新薯

Caviar is the super star because I came here for it. I liked it and I enjoyed it, especially in a very nice fine dining restaurant. Potato was also fresh, soft and well done, no complaint at all. But what about cheese? I didn't see or smell any? Something wrong with me or with the dish? Well, I don't know!

Garlic Gratinated fresh Boston Lobster served with Risotto in shell fish sauce

蒜蓉牛油火炙波士頓龍蝦(半隻)意大利飯

Now, here comes the main course - my very favourite lobster and risotto. Making risotto and lobster at home is very time consuming and requires good cooking skills, so I'd rather eat them at restaurants. The risotto is cooked with lobster sauce, very very very well done and delicious! And of course the main super star - the lobster is very fresh, delicious and nicely presented. It's simply perfect!!

The lunch set was wrapped up with coffee of my choice (Latte) and served with a piece of chocolate. 

Perfect lunch! It made me much happier after spending such a big amount of medical expenses. My motto: always spend money to please yourself rather than spending money medically!!

Cost: HK$590 (US$75.6)

15% Early Bird discount (place order before 3pm)

10% service charge

I went early, so my bill was HK$560 (US$71.8 after discount)

Caviar House and Prunier

Level 3, Pacific Place II

Hong Kong

Hong Kong Food Blog - Caviar Lunch

Meat Lover Lunch

If you're a meat lover, then you would love my lunch today - Grilled Chicken Fillet, Bacon, Cumberland Sausage with rice and vegetables. The lunch set includes a coffee/tea/soft drink (free to refill). Soup is free, but only when supply is available.

Wanchai Stadium is a sports bar in Lockhart Road.  I live around this area, so it's easy for me to do lunch at the bars.  In fact most of the bars in Wanchai are just like any ordinary restaurants and serve lunch sets during lunch hour. As they are bars in the evening, the restaurants usually have bar tables and high chairs. For Wanchai Stadium, they have both sofa booths and bar tables, up to your choice.

Some bars in this area serves regular lunch menu. Some changes their menus daily. For Wanchai Stadium, they change only occasionally.  Recently they serve 9 sets of lunch ranging between HK$78 and HK$128, without service charge.

In terms of quality and quantity, I am totally satisfied. Waiters are also friendly. I have a big thick piece of grilled chicken fillet, two slices of bacon and a thick sausage, although I would appreciate to have more vegetables. Out of my expectation, the soup today is quite Chinese style, however delicious!  

Looking around, the two ladies next table had a big big bowl of chef salad, and the meatball spaghetti had 4 ping-pong size meat balls. My dish is exceptionally delicious as all these meats are my favourites. Although the dish size is relatively big, but it's fine for me as this is my breakfast, lunch and dinner as well.  If you are my blog follower, you should know that I eat one meal a day. So a relatively big portion is fine for me.

Grilled chicken fillet, bacon, Cumberland sausage with rice in onion sauce

Soup is free of charge; drink is refillable at no extra charge

Huge TV screens for sports lovers

Meat Lover Lunch Set - HK$98 (US$12.5)

no service 

Wanchai Stadium

72-86 Lockhart Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong

Hong Kong Food Blog - Meat Lover Lunch

Japanese-Brazilian Fusion Food

Japanese-Brazilian Fusion food? Quite an unusual combination. Isn't it? Well, there is one newly opened in Wanchai, Hong Kong.

It is situated in a newly renovated area in Wanchai, where the Government pulled down all old buildings and re-build the area.  Now it becomes quite a hot tourist spot.  Even I live in Wanchai, I'd really love to take a walk there.  And there are lots of sitting and resting areas on the street, making it very visitors friendly.  And that was why I discovered this new restaurant.

It first caught my attention due to its colorful design. We rarely find a restaurant so colorful.

During weekdays (Mon-Fri), they offer set lunch ranging from HK$88 to HK$118. The first time I went there was full, although the waiter said walk in will be fine.  There were four sets for us to choose.  Mine was BBQ skewers with coconut rice and seafood rice.  There were a balance of vegetables as well.  I would say the rice balls are Japanese and the BBQ Skewers are Brazilian.  And among the four sets, one was vegetarian. The menu was all in English, but the waiter was very kind to explain what each set was.  Apart from the food, the lunch set also included a Jasmine tea, adding some authentic Hong Kong flavour.

In fact there aren't too many seats on the ground floor. I believe most of the seats are upstairs as well as the kitchen, making it quite dangerous for the waiters to bring the dishes down via some long and steep staircases.

The interior design is very colorful and unique.

Even the lamps and wall papers were well designed.

My BBQ set was HK$118, my friend's pork & beef stew was HK$98, and the vegetarian one was HK$88.

Djapa

Lee Tung Street, Wanchai, Hong Kong

German Dinner in Wanchai

There aren't many German restaurants in Hong Kong, but King Ludwig has several branches and the one in Wanchai is where I usually go.

When talking about German food, everyone would think of knuckles and sausages, me too. I generally come here for buffet because this is the only place I know with quality knuckles on the buffet table.  

Recently I went there twice for a la carte and here is a summary of our foods.  The food portion is relatively large, not quite ideal for small groups like us having two persons only.

The knuckle says for 1-2 person on the menu, but unless you have an "Adam Richman" kind of stomach, or it would be too much for one person.

Pork Knuckle (HK$225)

The waiters usually show the full knuckle to the guests before breaking into small pieces for easy eating. The meat is always juicy and delicious, the skin is generally crispy which I really like, although some parts were just too dry and hard. I do like the thick layers of collagen as well. 

Apart from knuckles, sausages is another 'must'.  As I said, I went there twice, the first time, we had a small sampler of sausages which is good for two people. My friend said if you order for a family size one, every sausage would be double in size. I like the sour cabbage too.  There are some other restaurants serving knuckles but won't come with sour cabbage.  I was told that it requires time and skill of the chef and hence only German chefs will do so.  Others simply serve with chips.

Sausage Sampler (HK$170)

 

The second time we tried the white boiled sausages. It says 'beef' and 'pork' on the menu, but we were not sure whether each sausage has two kinds of meat or one kind of meat per sausage.  So we had half of each sausage and simply found that they both tasted the same.  I like the smashed potato as well.  Not too soft, not too hard, the consistency is just good.  Together with their house mustard, lovely combination.

Boiled White Sausages (HK$110)

Note:  If you love sausages, you need to go a la carte.  The sausages on their buffet table are never attractive!

In one of our meals, my friend suggested to start with salad.  Well this assorted mushroom salad looks lovely as well as delicious, with very fresh vegetables.

Mushroom Salad (HK$95)

In the other meal with another friend, we decided to wrap our meal with dessert.  But everything were so big (family size).  The tiramisu was the smallest, but still a little too big for the two of us.  Anyway, we just wanted to give it a try.  There were lumps of chocolate chips on top.  And underneath there were far more ingredients than any usual tiramisu, fruits, syrups, I simply couldn't tell all, but it was simply delicious.

Tiramisu (HK$95)

In one of the meals, we ordered cold drinks at the beginning of the meal.  My friend had a glass of red wine, and I had a glass of mocktail.  Both were nice and sold at happy hour rate.

Emerald Mocktail (HK$50) happy hour rate

In the next meal, we wanted something hot, so we ordered the drinks towards end of the meal.  Fortunately that went beyond 8pm when the happy hour ended, and we had to pay full price.

Christmas Warm Drink (HK$58) regular rate

Anyway, having a warm drink in a cool day is really enjoyable, although we paid a little higher.  Ginger Lemon Honey Longan drink.  Perfect to wrap up a meal on Winter Solstice day.  We went for western food on Winter Solstice just to avoid the crowd at any Chinese restaurant.

We just walked in but still got a table.  There was a bar area. We heard some noise but not disturbing at all. 

King Ludwig

Queen's Road East

Hong Kong

Hong Kong Food Blog - German Knuckles and Sausages

Summer Solstice Teppanyaki Dinner

Few people celebrate Summer Solstice. It so happened that we did it last night.  Two of our team members, including myself, have our birthday in June (16 & 25), our boss took us to a Teppanyaki dinner, which was also to celebrate her promotion.  So one dinner, trio purposes.  We were amazed by the wonderful view when we arrived.  It was already 7.30 pm, but we still managed to take this photo.  See our lovely longest day light on Jun 21, 2016 - Causeway Bay, Hong Kong.

Teppanyaki is usually expensive. Going through the menu, almost all sets go beyond HK$500.  However we managed to find some cheaper sets, which were half or even 1/3 the price.  Reason being cheap is that we had to DIY.  It was fun anyway.  So we ordered 2 sets of cheap ones and 2 sets with service.  As the restaurant is a crab restaurant, they have already crabs in most of the sets.  We order 2 sets of cheap seafood and 2 sets of beef (thin/thick).  

Although teppanyaki is cooking on hot boards, the DIY version is with a little stove. We were given the utensils such as scissors, forks, tongues etc. to do our own cooking.

The thin beef came with vegetables.  Quite healthy.

Japanese food generally come with various kind of sauces.  But I would say the foods themselves were very delicious, we didn't really need those sauces.

Thick beef also came with vegetables and deep fried garlic slices.

Each of the sets came with salad and tofu. And you see, there were crab roes and crab meat on these dishes.

Tempura Soba is from a la carte.  My favourite deep fried chicken nuggets were sold out. We wanted to try some desserts, but there were only 5 choices on the menu.  When we came to order, there were only 2 options available.  Very unacceptable.

We also had foie gras toast, fried rice and miso soup, but forgot what food came from which set.  Anyway we were happy playing around cooking and eating.

The Crab Restaurant's Menu

If you don't like crabs, this may not be a good place for you, as they have crabs in most of the dishes.  On the other hand, if you love crabs, then this place is heaven.  Together with the wonderful harbour view, crab lovers must love this place.

DIY Seafood Set - HK$188

Beef Set - forgot price

Total bill - don't know (boss paid)

Kani-Ya Crab & Teppanyaki

9/F World Trade Centre

280 Gloucester Road

Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

Hong Kong Food Blog - Summer Solstice Teppanyaki Dinner

French Dinner

My friend took me to a French dinner last night.  It was my first time having French food in Hong Kong.  I only know couple of very expensive Michelin Star French Restaurants within 5-star hotels, but never been there. The one we went last night was situated within a service apartment in Wanchai. The place was relatively small with low ceiling, so I felt it was quite noisy, although the restaurant generally looks nice.

Both of us don't read French, so we had to rely on the English description of the foods.

Mussels in White Wine

Although I never had French food, but I do know this is a very famous French dish.  I personally don't enjoy shell foods and I thought the meats were really tiny.  However my friend like it.  And it was served with chips.  

La Piano (HK$118)

Spinach, smoked salmon, egg, cream, salad, lemon.  This was my main course.  Well for someone who doesn't eat much, this is just the right portion.  And it is indeed healthy and delicious.

Le Four (HK$138)

Duck confit, emmental cheese, bell peppers, piment d'espelette jelly, salad.  This was my friend's main course.  I shared a tiny bite and it was nice too.  When we observes the main courses of ours and the other guests', it seems they all had the same presentation - wrapped inside a thin layer of soft pancake.  Not sure if it is that restaurant's specialty or a general French presentation.

Ice Cream Crepes (HK$98)

Coffee Ice Cream with pineapple, raisin and rum.  We were a bit excited about the flame when the rum was added.  Again the pineapples were wrapped with pancake.  My friend was not happy with the canned pineapple.  Indeed for the price they charge, it would worth using fresh pineapple.  I trust that's going to be far more fragrant.

Including my friend's daily soup, we ended up paying around HK$610 including service charge. Quite affordable, I must say.

La Creperie

1/F, 100 Queen's Road East

Hong Kong

Hong Kong Food Blog - French Dinner in Hong Kong

Easter Seafood Buffet

My Easter Seafood Buffet is free.  In fact I haven't had buffet for sometime, due to my eating problem.  However I won some free coupon by luck draw, so I have this free buffet dinner.

Coupons usually have blackout dates, but I was lucky that hotel allowed me to book on Good Friday. The seafood buffet dinner is only served on Fri, Sat and Sun.  At the Garden Cafe of Conrad Hotel Hong Kong, the place is really nice.

There were I think at least four types of mini lobsters together with some crab claws.  Very fresh, but need to eat with hands and fingers.  But our table was pre-set with tongs, scissors and moist towel, everything we need to deal with the prawns and crabs.

Prawns and clams, but where are my beloved oysters?

Sashimi - well I'd love to have more choices.  So as the sushi rolls.

After all, these are my seafood collections.

It seems all the seafood were cold cuts.  Hot dishes were limited to pan fried Barramundi and a steamed Mandarin fish.  The stir fired mini lobsters were nightmare - the meat was somehow decayed! I wasn't able to find some hot vegetables, so I went on making my own Caesar salad.  Not bad at all, at least having some balance of diet.

The cold cut dishes are not bad at all, but I rather prefer more hot items.

There was an outdoor BBQ counter, serving sausages, chicken wings, lamb racks and some spare ribs.  May be this was the best hot items I could find.  I love sausages, so I had a big one.

On Easter holiday, I was expecting the restaurant to be full of people, but it turned the other way.  May be many people went overseas for their holidays.  As there were not many guests, we could get food and eat very relaxingly and of course with very intensive customer services. 

Finally, I manage to find out the cost of the buffet - HKD558 per person on regular days, HKD638 on holidays.  That means the one I had was HKD638 per person and 10% service charge.  I'm happy with everything, except I would want more choices of seafood, especially oysters as well as some more hot dishes.

Easter Seafood Buffet Dinner

Garden Cafe, Conrad Hong Kong

Christmas Eve Lunch

Christmas Eve lunch is not always possible for me. Although people enjoy eating at festival seasons, but eating at high season may not be an enjoyable experience.  First, restaurants are full of people, you are running short of the normal service standard.  Second, restaurants are full of people, your are running short of a decent eating environment.  Third, restaurants set prices abnormally high as they have too many customers.  The list goes on.  After all, I still want to enjoy a Christmas Eve lunch, because our company offers a holiday today.  In fact, the entire company closes between 24th December to 3rd January.  We get 12 days off without applying our own annual leave.


Anyway, let's get back to today's Christmas Eve lunch. To avoid peak hour, we arrived at the restaurant at 11.45am, making us the first customer there.  It is a 6-course lunch, ranging from HK$328 to 368 depending on the main course.


White wine - there are red/white wine and orange juice for us to choose.  Since we chose fish as our main course, so we go with white wine.

Menu - Well it looks attractive and reasonably priced.  But...

Lobster Bisque - it was fresh chestnuts cream soup on the menu, but we were asked to choose between lobster bisque or cream soup of any kind.  Why?  The waiter said the chef had no time to prepare the chestnuts soup. However, I must say this lobster bisque was indeed very delicious!

Smoked Turkey and Baked York Ham - The waiter said 'no turkey'.  We then said this is not a Christmas menu, we better go elsewhere or choose some other regular set.  Well, the Christmas menu costs over HK$328 per person, other sets cost less than HK$100 - the waiter had a quick chat with the chef and come back saying 'yes, we can serve turkey'.  After all, we got our lovely turkey and ham with salad.

Fresh Fillet of Garoupa with Saffron Sauce - almost an inch thick, the garoupa fillet is really fresh and wonderful!  There is cream sauce, but I don't notice the saffron!?

Creme Brulee - we had this in place of the fresh apple pudding on the menu.  The waiter didn't even care to explain why?  Well, it's not bad, but I just don't know why I can't have my favourite apple pudding!?

To wrap up the meal, we had a cup of coffee.

Although I dine at this restaurant quite often, but I don't remember it's name.  As there is a large notice at the entrance saying 'push hard', I just name it as "大力推門".  Indeed we do need to push the door with extra effort in order to go inside. 

大力推門 at Hennessy Road, Wanchai

December 24, 2015

11.45am to 12.45pm

Christmas Set Menu

HK$338 (US$43) per person + 10% service charge

Hong Kong Food Blog - Christmas Eve Lunch

Pink Breakfast at Butcher's Club Deli

The Breast Cancer Fund organized a Pink Walk at the Peak yesterday.  Our company joined the walk and then took us to a "pink breakfast" after the walk.

It is an annual fund raising event.  Once I hopped on the bus towards the Peak, I noticed half of the passengers wore pink.  The organizer allow walkers to take their dogs.  So it was somewhat like a dog show as well.  There were four dogs in our group.

Because we needed a dog-friendly venue which is also private to our group, it was not easy, and after a thorough search, we decided to go to Aberdeen, to have our breakfast at The Butcher's Club Deli.

The restaurant is situated inside a factory building.  In fact many of Hong Kong's manufacturing industries moved to China, leaving many vacant spaces.  In order to maximize the use of land, government allows some of the factory buildings to run other businesses.  So nowadays we can find some private kitchens within industrial buildings.

The roof top breakfast was really relaxing.  Kids and the dogs also enjoyed the setting very much.  I especially like the open view together with the mild weather yesterday.

The Butcher's Club Deli has two floors - the Penthouse and the roof top.  Dogs are allowed at the roof.  30 of us occupied the entire roof.  

The breakfast was in fact a brunch.  Although it looks somewhat simple, there were actually 9 items in the plate - slice of bread, there was an egg and some beans at the bottom, together with two sausages, grilled mushroom, tomato, potato cake and bacon. Personally I don't like the blood sausage, the other items are really well done, especially the giant mushroom.  Coffee and tea were self serviced.  Some colleagues went downstairs to enjoy desserts at their own expenses.

Each dog was served with a tray of water.  Kids were glad to offer them their left-over bacon.

I don't know the price.  But according to their website, a hamburger costs HK$100, so I guess a private venue breakfast would cost close to HK$300 per person.

The Butcher's Club Deli

18 Wong Chuk Hang Road

Aberdeen, Hong Kong

Phone: +852 2884 0768

Hong Kong Food Blog - Pink Breakfast