The watery Chairman

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This is the first of two nights out that I’m spending with the King. I had promised months ago that I would get a booking at The Chairman (大班樓) so that some of their friends from Taipei could get to try it, so here we are. I had asked the visitor to choose the dishes tonight, with a couple of inputs from me. Some of their choices were a little surprising, but as we would find out later during the meal, the regular customer isn’t always right.

Crispy taro cake with smoked duck (荔甫鴨盒) – flavors from the Chinese celery were pretty noticeable.

Where the mountain meets the sea

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I'm traveling to eat again. Only this time, I'm taking the train to Guangzhou for one dinner and a short, overnight stay. The reason? A collaboration between Jiang by Chef Fei (江 - 由辉师傅主理) - a restaurant run by Chef Huang Jinghui (黄景辉), whose cuisine I really enjoy - and Meet the Bund (遇外滩) - one of the most talked about restaurants in Shanghai which, curiously, serves Hokkien cuisine. I haven't had the pleasure of dining at Meet the Bund, but it receives near universal praise from friends around me. And Chef Yoda Chen (陈志平) is obviously very well-liked. So I figured I owed it to myself to join Mr. Chichi at the invitation of the Mandarin Oriental Guangzhou.

The special dinner tonight was by invitation, and the two of us were the last two to arrive for this event – having taken the train up from Hong Kong at the end of our workday. Everyone else had arrived earlier and started their 2-day program. We apologized to Chef Fei for making everyone wait…

The best biryani I've ever had

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It has been 6 years since Fishball passed, and for the last 5 years we have been visiting Amber and taken their vegetarian menu. While we have been amazed by Chef Richard Ekkebus’ creations, we had also heard about our friend Chef Suveg Kavatkar’s special vegetarian menu served by special order at my beloeved Caprice. So we asked him to do this for us tonight.

Except, of course, that it’s Monday and Caprice is closed. When his lovely wife The Bombay East Indian Girl heard about this, she very kindly offered to cook a vegetarian feast for us at home. I was, of course, incredibly moved by her offer… and accepted the invitation with gratitude.

Khakra, apple chundo – as the person who originally introduced khakra (ખાખરા) to us, of course she had these ready for us to snack on. She made sure to substitute apple for mango in the chundo (छुन्दो) given Foursheet’s allergy.

The sunny mountain

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Now that we're neighbors with the Zhongmeister and Winnie the Chew, I have tried to occasionally see if we could meet up over a bottle of three. I had recently acquired a batch of wines at very affordable prices - most of which were unfamiliar to me – so I was particularly eager to find excuses to pop some open. My original plan was to see if my new neighbors would be up for a casual drink after dinner, but they took this in a slightly different direction…

Dinner at Hiyama (日山) was proposed, and suddenly my friend offered to bring a bottle that cost 10 times the price of the bottle I had envisaged opening. Well, then… I needed to bring something to match! The casual bottle can wait until after dinner.

What we didn’t count on was a typhoon coming our way.

Even though I had never been, I had known about Hiyama in Tokyo being known for their beef. As we were drinking some nice bottles, it seemed only appropriate that we opt for the Hiyama premium dinner set (日山特撰).

Kuruma prawn, sea urchin, baby peach, ume somen, bonito sauce (先付：車海老、雲丹、若桃、梅そうめん、鰹だし) – it’s always so nice and refreshing to start dinner with cold somen (素麺) in warm weather. The green peach (若桃) was very sweet and nice.

Dude, where's my carbonara?

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I got chewed out by Juve Fan. After the closure of Ramato, I (and many others, I'm sure) have been bugging him to re-open a more casual eatery. After all, if I just want a nice place of pasta with an appetizer or two, there has to be more viable options in town between Pici and Estro.

Well... Ninetta opened with great fanfare not long ago, which meant that it was still too early for me to visit. Besides the fact that lots of KOLs were fighting to get the earliest table they could snag, the restaurant itself sent out a marketing email asking people to book tables for August - a call that went out on the second of July. That means "Don't bother trying to come in July!" So imagine my surprise by Juve Fan pings me a week later and asked why I haven't visited Ninetta. HELLO?! You asked us to book for AUGUST then I am the bad guy for not having dined at your establishment by the second week of opening?!

Well, Juve Fan decided I should come sooner rather than later, and found us a table for tonight. So here we are.

Sure enough, we arrived on the same night as a table of KOLs... placed there by B Bestie. Well... Foursheets and I just want a casual dinner and enjoy the food. No need to mingle with KOLs, then...

Sourdough - I was hungry when we arrived, so this was much appreciated.