Cinq années

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Five years ago today, our dear Bro Bro crossed the rainbow bridge. In the immediate aftermath of this devastating loss, Foursheets asked to have dinner at Nikushou because she couldn't be bothered cook, and couldn't think of anywhere to go eat. So we had a few cut of beef at our favorite yakiniku (焼肉) joint and washed it down with a bottle of wine.

We returned to Nikushou for the next 4 years and established the tradition of just having simple, delicious food with a bottle of wine. Unfortunately, Nikushou closed its doors days after Bro Bro's 4th anniversary. Tonight we needed fo find an alternative venue, and I defaulted to La Maison - another place whose food we enjoy without too much fuss. And they don't charge corkage.

I was late to dinner due to a work call, and when I stepped in to the restaurant, every single table was occupied. The space was very lively, unlike the few quiet evenings I have spent here in the past. There was even a singer on stage entertaining the guests.

I've always liked the bread they serve here. It's never anything fancy, but it comes out warm and generally tasty enough.

Simple dinner for two

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Foursheets didn't feel like cooking tonight, as we were on the eve of a public holiday. I was in the mood to pop open a simple bottle over dinner. With the last-minute decision to find somewhere to eat out, it was natural that we would end up at La Maison. I've been there a couple of times, and sometimes the combination of simple food, casual atmosphere, ease of booking, and zero corkage (important to some friends) just makes it a great place to go.

We always start with some bread that is piping hot, and we slice it up ourselves and spread with some butter.

Shrimp toast - this is always a good idea.

B's detour day 3: Macanese family-style

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One of the main items when I convinced B to make a detour to come visit me was a visit to Macau. While Hong Kong has always been a great destination, I've always felt that fine dining in Macau is a better deal - and it's easy to understand why. So I booked us a car to cross the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and, thanks to some unscheduled stops, checked in to the Grand Lisboa Palace more than an hour later than expected.

Which is how we arrived at La Famiglia on Taipa around 1½ hours later than the time of our original reservation. I had asked for recommendations for restaurants which are more Macanese and not just serving Portuguese cuisine, and I decided to check out this one.

Pastéis de bacalhau - these were pretty decent. On the dry side but still tasty.

Chamuças de porco - these samosas were also pretty decent.

Bday in Macau 2023 day 2: wandering in Taipa

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Foursheets woke up this morning and decided that she would like to take the breakfast at Mesa by José Aviliez. We are normally not the type of people who go for hotel breakfasts, especially when we know where to get tasty alternatives. But this is her birthday and I am happy to do as she wishes.

It's a semi-buffet style breakfast, where we are offered a "main course" we can order. I take an omelet that comes with a pre-set number of fillings, plus a hashbrown and some almost-burnt bacon on the side.

Bday in Macau 2023 day 1: living the suite life

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It's Foursheets' birthday this weekend, and she has decided that she wants to spend it in Macau this year. While I have already made 3, albeit short, trips across, it has been 4 years since her last trip. So I contacted our friend to make some special arrangements, only to have her insist on arranging the accommodation for us. We're so grateful for her kindness, because it is really going to make this a special weekend.

I was already getting excited on our way to catch the ferry. A friend had very kindly helped me buy the very special Nissin Cup Noodle laundry bag and carried it back for me, in time for me to use it as our weekender bag. I was getting some looks at the terminal, and eventually the bag got its own seat on the ferry.

Michelin HK / Macau 2023: buffet, gala, and supper

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After holding the revelation events online for the last few years during the pandemic, the Michelin Guide is once again making the announcements for the Hong Kong and Macau Red Guide in person. The title sponsor for this year has changed to the Grand Lisboa Palace Resort Macau, which has very kindly made all the arrangements for us. I got up bright and early this morning and headed to the Hong Kong Macau Ferry Terminal to catch the ferry to Macau.

But first, traditions are traditions. I stopped by McDonald's at the terminal to buy breakfast for my ferry ride. Sausage McMuffin is just what I needed.

Bromance dinner

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I needed some time to catch up with V after being separated by a border over the last 30 months or so, and we made plans to grab a simple meal together. We had no plans about where to go eat, and we putzed around until we were seated in a moving car in need of a destination. That's when I came up with the idea of going to La Maison.

I had been to the restaurant only once, which was a few months ago when I needed to open a particular bottle of wine and wanted some simple bistro food. The decor was very "Kong girl (港女)" although the service staff are uncles... The food is simple "Western" fare with French/Portuguese bent, and reasonably tasty. Pricing is very reasonable, and best news of all for some - they charge no corkage.

So two guys showed up on a whim and ordered some simple dishes to go with a nice bottle of red...

Shrimp toast - this looked distinctively different from the shrimp toast I enjoyed here last year, but I'm not complaining. Always nice when there are sesame seeds around.

Mom's HK Michelin tour day 3: noodles and congee

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I received text messages just before midnight last night, informing me that the PCR tests for the Parental Units returned negative results. So just after 9 a.m. this morning, their vaccine pass turned blue. This meant they could now enter all premises in town and are able to dine in at restaurants.

Our first stop today was Ho Hung Kee (何洪記), as I figured dad would like to have some congee and other local goodies. We managed to get dad to successfully use the Leave Home Safe (安心出行) app and get mom checked in, too.

Deep-fried yam puff (蜂巢炸芋角) - I was surprised to see a waitstaff walking around with a tray of these while trying to find takers. This reminds me of the old school restaurants with carts loaded with dim sum as the "dim sum ladies" pushed them around trying to get people to order them. I had never seen it done here before today.

In any case this was pretty decent, and I didn't taste any baking soda.

Piggy lunch

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Fat Donkey had recently gained access to Club Lusitano and has been trying to introduce me to their Portuguese cuisine. We couldn't get ourselves a last-minute booking a couple of weeks ago, but given the current widespread fear among the general public regarding the pandemic situation, restaurants and clubs are suddently pretty empty. So I found myself in the Sala Leal Senado, the club's fine dining room.

A half-portion of the roast suckling pig had already been pre-ordered, so we decided to order just two starters. We also made the decision to order only the dishes which are exclusive to the fine dining room, as some of the other favorites are available in the Pastelaria Lusitano in a more casual setting.

Choquinhos à algarvia - can't go wrong with ordering seafood like this, and I really enjoyed these. Kinda surprised at the liberal use of coriander but I like it. The squid ink was so tasty that I happily used the bread to soak up some of it.

10 days in 3 cities day 2: the elegant Dragon

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It was morning and Hello Kitty wanted coffee.  And Portuguese pasteis.  That was a sign that she was showing improvement from her condition last night.  So I rounded up The Dining Austrian and headed for Lord Stowe's Cafe in Coloanne.

I know it was only just after 10 a.m. but I felt like having a Bailey's latte... which came with a sprinkling of ground nutmeg.

The three of us ordered a half-dozen pasteis, which was just the right amount.  I can never get enough of these, and I think my friend liked them, too.

Hits and misses in Macau

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We've been attending events associated with Asia's 50 Best Restaurants over the last few days, and it's very tempting - for someone like me, especially - to stick to the fine dining establishments inside the casino hotels here.  Apparently The Great One felt the same way, so we made plans to escape and explore the rest of Macau a little...

While I did sample some of the finger food being served at the party after awards ceremonies last night, The Great One spent some time filing her article right after the announcement and Gaggan's press conference.  So she came back to the pool deck starving, and as lots of people were going out for supper, we figured we'd go and grab a bite, too.

I had long heard about mud crab congee (水蟹粥) as one of the famous supper items in Macau, but I have never had the stomach space for it when in Macau.  So I was pretty determined to get me some tonight.  After consulting KC's Macau dining guide, the 5 of just jumped into taxis and headed for Yat Gor Gourmet (一哥美食).

I was in the second taxi to arrive at the restaurant, and I found myself facing this...  They were filming the cook who was making steamed rice flour rolls (腸粉).

(Gre)GohGanDen

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I'm back in Macau on a day-trip (my fifth trip in 2018) for a very special lunch.  Ahead of the Asia's 50 Best Restaurants awards in Bangkok last year, I attended the first four-hands collaboration between Gaggan and DEN (傳).  Subsequently I also attended the two GohGan collaborations between Gaggan and Goh-san from La Maison de la Nature Goh - in Seoul and Bangkok.  All three have been very interesting dinners for me.

Two months ago, in between bites of roast suckling pig at Seventh Son (家全七福), Gaggan told us about their plan to do a new variation of GohGan - by adding DEN into the mix.  We knew that this would take things up a notch, so we were pretty ecstatic when the invitation came to join the event in Macau.

Hello Kitty and I dragged our butts out of bed early in the morning, and took the ferry to Macau.  We arrived at Wynn Palace a full hour before lunch started, so we strolled around for a little lèche-vitrines before becoming one of the first to arrive at Mizumi (泓).

The three chefs were still busy doing their thang, so I waived Vladimir Kojic over and handed him the bottles of wine that I had brought him and Gaggan - including a bottle of natural wine bong water that I planned to drink with him.  This was gonna be fun!

When enough people had arrived, we took our seats next to The Great One and Sweetheart, plus a couple of other friends of Gaggan we had seen at the GohGan in Seoul.  A cozy group which made for good conversations.

Girls' trip to Macau: a day without Michelin

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I'm spending the weekend in Macau, accompanying Hello Kitty on a "girls' weekend" that somehow turned into a "couple's weekend" for the two of us.  As I'm trying to get my ass back on a diet - and having already had way too many big meals just a week-and-a-half into the new year, I wanted to take it easy on the eating today.

A post shared by Gi (@gi2lui) on Jan 12, 2018 at 10:09pm PST

After getting off the ferry, we grabbed a taxi to our lunch spot - and got dropped off at the junction of Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro and Rua dos Mercadores - since the taxi driver didn't feel like turning into the side street.  This ended up working out fine for us, because we decided to go into Loja das Conservas to replenish our stock of canned seafood.  We also discovered that there's a new shop boss, and while I was busy spending money, Hello Kitty was busy petting her.

Lunch was at Loja Sopa da Fita Cheong Kei (祥記麵家), a local favorite. It's been a long time since my last visit, so I figured I'd get some of their signature plates in my belly...

Signature tossed noodles with shrimp roe (招牌蝦籽撈麵) - I remembered that they like to add soy sauce to tossed noodles here, but I had completely forgotten that in this shop, the flavors of the soy sauce pretty much overpowered the flavors from the shrimp roe they gave us... which was a real shame.  On the plus side, there's not much alkali flavor in the noodles themselves (and those would have been covered up by the soy sauce, too...) and the texture was reasonably soft and supple.

The portion today looked a little smaller than I had remembered, but that didn't bother me much today.

Breakfasts and sweets in Macau

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I've been back in Macau again over the last 2 weekends, and I try not to miss a chance to hit up some local spots for breakfast.  As I'm not exactly local, from time to time I'll look to my friend KC for help... since he does come to Macau a helluva lot more than I do.  So for homework, I do a combination of scrolling through his Facebook page and flipping through the old trusty Macau guidebook that he published a couple of years ago.

Café Nam Ping (南屏雅敘) is pretty old school, and its location not far away from St. Paul's means it gets its fair share of tourist traffic.  The three of us trekked here looking for some coffee and sandwiches.

One for the road

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A couple of hours after we walked around Macau and digested some of our breakfast, it was - strangely enough - time to eat again!  As an alternative to some local Macanese joints, 娜姐 proposed that we lunch at Guincho a Galera at Hotel Lisboa.  After all, we wanted the chance to open another bottle of old German Riesling before we had to leave Macau!

My one and only previous visit to this restaurant was disastrous, as I was totally stuffed and drunk from lunch... and wasn't in any shape to enjoy any food or wine.  I was therefore very much looking forward to this lunch.  As I'd eaten a reasonable amount of food in Macau already, I decided to take things easy by choosing the set lunch for an unbeatable price.

Our amuse bouche was Portuguese cheese balls with ham.

Lisboa tour 2012: Guincho a Galera

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A mere 3 hours after lunch ended, the bunch of us gathered again and headed to the Hotel Lisboa across the street.  The venue for dinner was Guincho a Galera, the Portuguese restaurant occupying the former home of Robuchon a Galera.  This is the international outpost of Fortaleza do Guincho, a restaurant outside Lisbon with a Michelin star.

I wasn't the least bit hungry, and sat at the dinner table with a blank and defeated look for about the first hour while the rest of the gang discussed what to order.  I had just about managed to get rid of enough alcohol from my system as we were being served our complimentary wines…  In short, I was a party-pooper most of the evening...

2010 Bacalhôa Chardonnay Cova da Ursa - big nose of toasty oak, mineral, lemon, ripe, a little sweet with a hint of vanilla.  Not bad at all.

No more Nino

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I haven't been to Nino's Cozinha for a long time, and was thinking of doing something a little out of the ordinary tonight.  My friends very kindly obliged me, booked a table a week in advance, and made sure to reserve a quarter of a roast suckling pig.  I hadn't touched alcohol in almost 3 weeks and was very much looking forward to tasting a couple of bottles.

I arrived to find the couple fuming.  Apparently the restaurant has run out of pig, and insisted that my friend never reserved it.  The waitress had also apparently not followed instructions when it came to wine service.  Looks like we were off to a great start...

A cold night in Macau

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I needed to go to Macau tonight for an emergency board meeting, and decided to visit an old favorite for dinner.  I've been going to Estabelecimento de Comida Portuguesea Porto Exterior for the last few years, and found their Portuguese cuisine to be pretty yummy.  It's reasonably close to the ferry terminal and too short of a cab ride, so we braved the cold weather and trekked over on foot.

The chouriço assadas was a nice way to start the meal.

A date with Joël

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I've been looking forward to today for some time.  I went back to Macau and made a long-overdue visit to Robuchon a Galera.  The man himself was in town and in the kitchen, and I wanted to see what he would come up with for these gala dinners.

After barely catching the scheduled ferry, Froggie and I made our way to Henri's Galley for lunch.  At the launch party for WOM Guide Macau a couple of days ago, Fergus had recommended this as the place he goes to when in Macau, so we decided to check it out.  Actually Froggie flipped a coin, and the other side was Afonso III.

Not wanting to get the same dishes I'd always go for, I left the ordering to Froggie.  She started with caldo verde - which I didn't have coz I knew I didn't have the capacity for it.  Soon the ameijoas a portuguesa came and I dug in right away.  The clams were pretty tasty in the white wine sauce, and the cilantro added the fragrance while red chili peppers provided a little kick.  Yum.

Even though I wasn't responsible for the ordering, we ended up having bacalao à brás anyway! This was such an interesting version... The potato on top were in such thin shreds, then deep-fried in very high heat... making them very fluffy.  The bacalao came in larger chunks, making them extra chewy.  Very delicious.

We asked the waiter for recommendation on rice, and he pointed us to arroz chau chau.  I've always thought this was a hilarious name for fried rice...  Anyway, this was something that I wouldn't normally order, but it turned out to be pretty good.  The rice was fried with minced beef, tomato, smoky chouriço and ham.  Tomatoes in the fried rice... definitely ain't Chinese!

We were stuffed, so walked around a little in the old city center.  I picked up a few jars of shrimp roe at Loja Sopa da Fita Cheong Kei (祥記麵家), and eventually we made our way to Margaret's Cafe e Nata for their famous Portuguese egg tarts.  I managed to try out the "original" from Lord Stowe's earlier this year, and was curious to see what the ex-wife offered.  There were simply too many people around, so we grabbed a couple to go and had them back at the Mandarin Oriental Macau, where Froggie was staying.  The tarts were definitely pretty custard-y, more eggy than creamy - closer to the Cantonese egg tarts than the Portuguese pasteis.  Pretty yummy nontheless.

We met up with our friends for a quick drink at Bar Cristal at Encore - mocktail for me - before crossing the road to dinner.  We ran into SONFA and her hubby, who also had reservations for dinner.

While we waited for our last dinner guest, we started on the 1989 Trimbach Riesling Clos Ste Hune Vendages Tardives.   Definitely petrol, and the nose was very ripe, round and sweet.  Notes of peaches, botrytis, orange marmalade, a little floral... and some butter in the end.  Definitely some residual sugar, something between kabinett and spätlese.  A very beautiful wine.

The bread trolley was rolled around and we chose from the wide selection.  Bread at Robuchon has always been a serious affair, and it was not different here.

But the real excitement tonight was the butter.  They finally got around to getting themselves some from Bordier!  Waiters came and used a dinner spoon to scrape butter from these two big lumps... very impressive indeed.  Robuchon bread + Bordier butter... heaven!

We started with tarte fine croustillante aux cèpes de sous-bois.  Cèpes are in season, and shrooms are always yummy when you sautée them.  Nice layer of finely chopped cèpes in between thin layers of crispy filo.

Le gazpacho de cerises avec un lacté de brebis givré aux éclats de pistaches à l'huile de basilic - interesting to see that this was made with some cherries, which gave it a deeper color and slightly higher acidity.  The goat's milk sorbet was really milky, and the interplay between savory and sour flavors was fun.  We also saw the first appearance of the gold foil...

We ran out of the white wine but weren't ready for the red, so we asked for the wine list to get ourselves another bottle.  We must have looked like tech retards, because they didn't give us their new, cool iPad-based wine list...which my friends at the other table got to play with.  We got the traditional big book instead.  Pout.  OK... so the wine list is impressive in its original form, too... It is, after all, pretty much the largest and best wine list in Asia!

The 1992 Henri Clerc Batard-Montrachet took a bit of time, but we had a fine bottle of wine in front of us when it finally opened up.  The nose was pretty funky at first, with a hint of straw, wheat and definitely camphor - smelling like some kind of Chinese medicinal tonic that one rubs on oneself to relieve muscle aches...  From the second pour, some toast emerged along with ripeness and sweetness, with corn and almost nutty nose.  Very perfurmed on the palate as well as the finish.  Not bad at all!

Le duo de foie gras d'oie et d'artichaut violet en salade mêlée aux copeaux de parmigiano reggiano - nice, but honestly I was disappointed in the quantity of foie.  For the first time that I can remember, I actually thought artichoke was delicious - which is kind of an achievement.

Le crémeux d'oursins tremblotant sous une émulsion mousseuse au wasabi - very interesting dish, except for another appearance of the cursed gold foil.  The sea urchin was creamy and sweet, while I was surprised by the light flavors of the wasabi emulsion.  Underneath it all was a delicious lobster mousseline.  The most interesting dish of the evening.

Le homard des Iles Chausey Rôti au beurre salé et un bouillon épicé de riz nacré aux pistils de safran - a very yummy dish, flavor-wise.  Soooo full of lobster flavor... I couldn't help but lap up the bouillon.  The young peas were not peeled, and I found a couple of them with pretty thick skins.  The lobster was unevenly cooked, and I found a couple of pieces to be a little overdone.  Downright disappointing in this respect.  An opinion which SONFA expressed and I concurred.

Le poulet fermier ivre de Château Chalon mitonné doucement en cocotte, fricassée de craterelles et de girolles au jus - Froggie just about flew off the handle when we received the menu by email.  Initially it was "poulet de Loue", which is nothing special and one can buy in any Froggie supermarket...  It did turn out to be an interesting way to do chicken, broiled in a cocotte with fragrant shrooms like girolles and black trumpets.  The use of Château Chalon was pretty interesting, and the fragrance somehow reminded me of Taiwanese sesame oil chicken (麻油雞), where rice wine was used.  Chicken itself was pretty tender and juicy... The famous Robuchon mash was as divine as ever, but I was already too stuffed to be able to finish it...

1985 Dominique Laurent Latricieres-Chambertin - we pre-ordered this bottle, and the sommelier decided to open it as we were running out of our first bottle of white - without realizing that we would be ordering another bottle.  It was a while before we got to taste the bottle, and we were concerned that there would be too much aeration.  Nose of mushrooms and grilled meats.  Pretty muted at first but developed well after a while.  Light and elegant.

Les baies noires de Bourgogne glacées, lait d'amande douce, caramel Bourdaloue, paillettes de cassis - the kitchen redeemed itself somewhat with the first dessert.  Lots of cassis around, which I love dearly, and the sweet almond cream was pretty rich and yummy.  But the killer was the Bourdaloue - a mini version that was simply awesome... especially the caramel on top.  Wow!

Une symphonie chocolatée, compote de mendiants à la liqueur de mirabelles - the chocolate thingy was pretty good... nicely balanced by the slightly sour compote at the bottom.

These were pretty cute, but I just didn't have any room for them...  I was way too stuffed, and just a little buzzed from all the wine...

We were all given bags containing a very love lemon pound cake on the way out.  This moist, fragrant cake made for a great breakfast the next morning...

Joël and his team came out to greet the diners, as was expected.  Just when it was to be our turn, he and the team abruptly ran off somewhere else.  I thought it was gonna be a repeat of what happened to be at Arzak, where Juan Marie Arzak repeatedly dissed my friends and I by running off and not talking to us.  Fortunately Joël did return some time later, and Froggie totally became a groupie by yapping with the man in French.  She got her wish of hugging him and didn't even come close to be tackled by his team of security guards...

Honestly, the dinner was a little disappointing.  While there weren't any "bad" dishes, there were very few surprises - and not a whole lot of creativity.  I guess the premium I paid was for the opportunity to take a picture with Joël...

The wine service was... shall we say... "commercial".  Basically Mathieu Gaignon - the sommelier - and his staff just kept refilling our glasses quickly.  I guess they were trying to sell more bottles of wine... and I find this type of behavior really annoying.  What had me really fuming, though, took place before we even arrived in Macau.  We had asked Mathieu for the evening's menu since we wanted to choose the right wines to match our food.  Mathieu replied that the menu had yet to be finalized, then proceeded to suggest that we "start with some Champagne, have some white wines then a red wine."  OH REALLY.....?!  Is THAT how you're supposed to do it...?  What a revelation....

Anyway... I made the mistake of booking a late-night ferry as I didn't want to stay in Macau overnight.  It was definitely a painful journey back to Hong Kong...

Tokyo 2010 day 2: The birthday party

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Woke up early and jogged/walked around the Imperial Palace.  I was a little dehydrated from being drunk the night before, and I had the wrong shoes.  Nevermind... it was nice to do a loop around the place anyway.  The bellhop at the hotel handed me a towel and a bottle of Vittel as I came in all sweaty... That was a nice touch.

I had ramen (ラーメン) for lunch in Ginza - an interesting experience which will be part of another post just on ramen.

The hunt for Bijofu's Yuzu Liqueur was unsuccessful - for now.  I've got a few more days to hit some sake shops, and let's hope for the best.  I did manage to pick up the ponkan (ぽんかん) version made with shochu (焼酎).

After checking myself into the Mandarin Oriental Tokyo, I rushed over to my friend Brian's house for the big party.  It's a joint birthday party for the couple, and the Cow had just hit the big four-O after recently becoming a mom.  I had to rush over because I was bringing Brian a 5-pound can of hoisin sauce - at his request.  The elves had helped me procure one of these cans from the professional supply side of Lee Kum Kee, and it definitely beats buying lots of those little jars...  The sauce was going to used to marinate meat for the party.

As usual with one of these big parties at Brian's, there was a ton of food.  Besides the usual finger foods like cold cuts, salads, gravlax, homemade dips and pesto penne... there was a ton of meat.  Brazilian sausage was pretty good and juicy, and the Brazilian spicy chicken breast was not bad, either.  I was surprised to see a big pot of feijoada on the stove, and scooped it over some rice.  This was really nice... Chunks of Brazilian sausage and pork among the black beans made for a very tasty meal... and the rice went down easy, even though I was already getting full.

The main event arrived on a big platter - barbecued baby back ribs in hoisin sauce.  The ribs had been grilled and now are dripping in the mixture of meat juices and hoisin sauce.  Very, very yummy and a real crowd pleaser.  The freshly cut coriander sprinkled on top worked very well to pick up the flavors a little.  I had 2, and was definitely thinking about more meat...

The crowd was getting full, so the lamb chops were filled on an order basis.  I had mine, of course, and it was as good as always.  Looking forward for more of them next Friday.

Amazingly, I stayed dry the entire evening.  I'm never sober at one of Brian's parties, but as I was pretty inebriated the prior evening, I decided to just drink tea the whole night.  I guess I'm saving the drinking part till next week...