Peanuts for me next time

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The Compatriot is back in town for a couple of days, and we had originally planned to dash over to Macau for a special dinner. Unfortunately our designated driver was facing a crisis, so I made the executive decision to cancel our daytrip and stay in Hong Kong. Well, the Compatriot and I still gotta eat, and somehow we ended up at Whey.

I had never had the chance to taste Barry Quek's cuisine. I wasn't much interested in Beet, and I'm never one to rush to a restaurant in its opening phase and risk stepping on landmines. Over time I have heard some interesting and mixed feedback about Whey, and I did manage to congratulate Barry the day Whey received their first Michelin star. So I guess this visit was somewhat inevitable.

I was surprised to see Dino, who I first came across at Caprice. He was quite surprised to see that I hadn't brought along any alcohol, and even more surprised when I chose to stay dry for the evening. Not wanting to see me drinking just their Nordaq water all night, he very kindly poured me a glass of sparkling jasmine tea.

The restaurant offers just one set tasting menu, with a choice of dessert. We were informed about some optional toppings of truffle and sea urchin, but I turned those down as I feel those "add-ons" are often unnecessary.

Scallop - the crispy tartlet came bearing cubes of diced scallops, with kaffir lime, finger lime caviar, and elderflower.

Meaty Friday

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It's Friday night and Foursheets has a hankering for some meat. Rather than going to a steakhouse, she decided she wanted to check out Rosita, a collaborative effort by the Bromance Twins. Most of our close friends have checked out the place long ago, but yours truly takes a long time to visit new restaurants, per SOP.

As this is meant to be a "casual" spot, the attraction for us is the ability to order à la carte, according to our mood and our appetite. We swiftly shut down our server as he suggested the "menu del chef".

Rosita signature ceviche - with splendid alfonsino (金目鯛), spot prawns, Hokkaido scallops, strawberries, chayote, and watermelon radish. As the leche de tigre was poured on top in front of us, this meant there wasn't a lot of "cooking" time.

Three long years

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After a self-imposed isolation of more than 8 days as a result of me finally catching Covid, I emerged from my cocoon to head to dinner in memory of our beloved Bro Bro.  Over the last few days both Foursheets and I have been looking back at our memories with Kuma, and while it's been 3 years since he left us, tears do still well up at the thought of him.

We returned to Nikoshou once again. We love the simple and tasty food there, and that was exactly what we needed on the night we lost Bro Bro. We eagerly embraced the comfort of familiar dishes, which were a little more fancy tonight compared to three years ago.

Seasonal vegetables tempura (野菜天ぷら盛合せ)

Is it 53 or 54?

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It's the Parental Units' anniversary again, and it's a day worthy of celebrations because, as I like to tell people, I wouldn't exist if they hadn't gotten married all those years ago. So for the last 20-some years I have tried as much as possible to spend the day with them to commemorate that momentous occasion. After not being able to do this for the last 3 years since their Golden Anniversary, I was so, so happy to be able to fly back to resume the annual ritual.

After trying out a few other options over the last few trips, I decided to take us back to Tutto Bello. I wanted to be able to order à la carte to cut down the amount of food, and needed somewhere that could handle the precious bottle of old wine. This seemed like a good choice.

Even though we could choose the number of dishes to order, I was still greedy and wanted a primi piatto between antipasto and secondi piatto. Having a pasta course in the middle isn't too much, riiiight?

We started with some bread, and as both mom and dad were pretty hungry by now, we cleaned this out pretty quickly.

Putting the sommelier to work

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My final meal with the Compatriot is, once again, at a Cantonese restaurant. Seeing how much he enjoyed his last meal here, I chose to go back to Forum Restaurant (富臨飯店) with him and roped in a couple of others.

Since sommelier Jacky Luk had just won the Michelin Guide Sommelier Award two weeks ago, we decided to ask him for suggestions on which dishes to order that would pair well with the wines we brought.

Chilled chicken paw in Shaoxing wine (花雕醉鳳爪) - kinda surprised that Foursheets requested this. Very springy but nothing out of the ordinary other than the flavors of the wine.