Occupy Amber: vegan.brown.butter

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Another year has passed and we once again find ourselves back at Amber. It's a vegetarian day for us, and after the lovely time we had last year, we were very much looking forward to see what Richard and his team have on offer. As was the case last year, we chose to go "light" and took the 6-course menu, but of course Richard wouldn't let us off so easily...

Our host generously started us off with a complimentary glass of Champagne.

2013 Legras Présidence Vieilles Vignes - a blanc de blancs meant this delivered a good hit of acidity, lively and full-bodied, with marmalade on the palate and some bitterness on the finish.

Our first amuse bouche was sliced asparagus and asparagus mousse with watercress purée, topped with pomme soufflé and Australian winter truffle. The asparagus was nice and crunchy.

Occupy Amber: All plants day

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We're going meatless for the whole day today, and Sankala wanted to do something nice for dinner.  It turns out Amber has had a vegetarian menu since Amber 2.0 started, as they move towards becoming more sustainable as a restaurant. On our last visit more than 2 years ago, Richard Ekkebus told us that he himself had been moving towards a more plant-based diet with reduced meat intake. So we decided to return to one of my old haunts for this occasion.

I still hate that the fluorescent lighting here causes banding on my Sony A9, but I've gotten better at dealing with banding over the last 2 years.

Love, love that they still insist on serving Nordaq Fresh. There's absolutely no reason to be forced to drink bottled water that's been shipped from a different continent. I have water filtration systems both at home and in my office, so why would I not want the same thing when dining out?!

We were taking it easy and took the 6-course vegetarian menu, but who were we kidding?! Richard was never gonna let us have "just" 6-courses and have us complain about leaving the place hungry...

But first, some Champagne. Richard very generously sent us a welcome glass of lovely bubbly. It's always nice to be pampered, of course... and we are always grateful for his hospitality.

2002 Moët et Chandon Cuvée Dom Pérignon P2 - very toasty and nutty. Sooo elegant and beautiful.

Our amuse bouche was wakame (若布), girolles, and pickled shallots with vichyssoise, wakame oil, and tiny croûtons made of potatoes. The acidity in the girolles was nice and worked well with the refreshing vichyssoise, and the wakame oil was very, very tasty.

Occupy Amber: 2.0

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Without a doubt, the most highly-anticipated restaurant opening in Hong Kong in 2019 actually isn't a new entrant.  It's the re-opening of Amber at the Landmark Mandarin Oriental after almost 6 months' of renovations, and the team at Amber has taken to calling it Amber 2.0 - much like the much-lauded Noma 2.0 that has taken the foodie circle by storm.

While I'm a big fan of Chef Richard Ekkebus' and was eagerly waiting for the 2.0, there was inevitably a huge rush to try out the new digs by chef friends, media, and "influencers" who want to show the world that they were there first... so I took a laidback attitude and decided to wait until the hype died down somewhat.  Meanwhile, I fielded a lot of questions from friends asking me whether I had been to "the new Amber"...

Then I received an email from the PR agency working on behalf of the restaurant, and an invitation was extended to me on behalf of Richard.  This is not the kind of invitation one should turn down lightly, so I gratefully accepted in spite of an upcoming busy eating schedule.

The room was markedly different, and the whole vibe was different.  Lighting was better, as they took note of the need for those of us who feel the compulsion to photograph every dish.  Unfortunately for me, the florescent lighting caused banding/flicker issues with my Sony A9, and I was such an amateur that I didn't remember how to deal with it...

Hello Kitty and I got an introduction from Richard about what they are trying to do with 2.0, which of course has already been covered by food media.  Friends had already told me how delicious everything was, and it was time to see for myself whether the removal of dairy and refined sugar would make a difference.

But once change is immediately apparent: the restaurant now serves Nordaq Fresh - water that is filtered on site.  Gone are the bottled water which had to be imported from far-flung locales.  I love that restaurants are moving towards sustainability, but of course Richard has been advocating that for years.

Home made silken tofu ° heirloom tomatoes ° salted sakura ° virgin almond oil ° - Richard told us how the team had to learn how to make their own tofu, since no Chinese tofu "master" was willing to share the secrets of their craft.  Paired with four types of Amela tomatoes including Amela Rubins (アメーラルビンズ) - which have long been Richard's favorites as they come in at more than 10°Bx.  This also came with cold-pressed tomato juice, almond oil, sakura (桜) salt, and sakura petals.

The home made tofu definitely had more depth of flavors, and the texture was more akin to tofu pudding (豆腐花).

Occupy Amber: Classic prima donna

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It's that time of the year again, and Hello Kitty is treating me to dinner.  We had talked about going back to Amber to try their Amber Classics Menu before the restaurant closes for renovations later this year, and this seemed like a good occasion for a visit.  After all, it's been way, waaaaay too long since I last had Richard Ekkebus' signature Hokkaido sea urchin dish...

As Hello Kitty had made the reservation under her name - which now requires credit card guarantee thanks to "no shows" - the staff did not realize that Prima Donna was coming tonight... so Richard was pretty surprised to see me.  It was good to see him, and for some reason he seemed 10 years younger compared to when I last saw him early this year.    He must have been refreshed by his holiday back home.

We had told the staff that we were taking the Amber Classics Menu, but Richard was very kind as always and asked whether we were willing to let him make some arrangements for us.  We ended up getting a few extra dishes from the current degustation menu.

Occupy Amber: No roo on the menu

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A couple of months ago during the whole World's 50 Best Restaurants shindig down in Kangaroo Land, the Aussie PR machine went into overdrive and arranged a bunch of outings for some of the attendees.  One of those outings was to Brae, the restaurant run by Chef Dan Hunter out in Birregurra - described by Google Maps as "high-end locavore menu in chic surrounds".  While the restaurant is sometimes associated with the city of Melbourne, the reality is that it's kinda in the middle of nowhere...

I had seen series of pictures and videos taken by The Great One and  Chef Richard Ekkebus from their trip, so I wasn't too surprised when I got the announcement that Dan Hunter would be doing a series of four-hands meals with Richard at Amber.  As is my practice, I put my hand up for a table at #AmberHKxBrae within minutes of seeing the announcement, then proceeded to syndicate out the extra seats at my table.  I gotta say, though... it was noticeably more difficult this time around compared to previous 4-hands or pop-ups.

Two out of the six of us were actually flying back from New York City today, and one actually touched down just as dinner was supposed to start - so we were especially grateful that the restaurant had offered us one of their two private rooms for our little party.  We were able to relax in the privacy of the space while waiting for everyone to arrive - and browsing the restaurant's wine list trying our damnedest to dig for bargains.  We would eventually start our dinner just about an hour late...

We started with two "snackings" from Brae:

Sea urchin and bitter bread pudding - the macaron was pretty dense and chewy in terms of texture, and the cookies were sweet as expected.  The sea urchin tongues were certainly creamy and sweet, and kinda oozed out from the pressure being applied by taking a bite.  Didn't taste any of the bitter bread pudding that was supposed to be in the 'ganache'...

Occupy Amber: Amber x Central

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About 2½ hours after our flight from Singapore landed in Hong Kong, we had freshened up and gotten dressed up for dinner at Amber - a meal I have been eagerly anticipating for the last two months.  The reason?  Virgilio Martinez from Central is back in town to do a 4-hands dinner with Richard Ekkebus at Amber.  This was not a dinner I was going to miss.

After meeting him at his pop-up last year, we discovered that we shared a mutual friend.  As I plan ahead for a possible trip to Peru, I figured it would be good to catch up with Virgilio again.  Of course, Hello Kitty and My Favorite Cousin were only too happy to see the "handsome chef" again...

Occupy Amber: Amber x André

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A mere two hours after a very interesting session with the two chefs, I'm back in the very same private room at Amber for the "four hands dinner" with Richard Ekkebus and André Chiang of Restaurant André.  I was privileged enough to have snagged a table, and unlike a few hours ago, my stomach was now rumbling and I was ready to eat!

We started with a series of snackings, and I was pleasantly surprised that the person introducing them to us was none other than Sudarampai (otherwise known as 'Pam') - André's wife.  Quite a nice change from the rude Singaporean girls André brought with him two months ago...

Foie gras, raspberry and ginger bread chupa chup, by Amber - this was a classic snack from the restaurant that had already been retired... and only brought out of retirement on special occasions.  Richard felt it would be nice to have the lollipop and the Hokkaido sea urchin on the same menu one last time.  Obviously this is something very familiar to many of us, with the coating of raspberry providing a nice dose of acidity to work with the smooth and very fatty foie gras in the middle.  The gingerbread adds a little crunch, as does the thin wafer of beetroot.

Occupy Amber: an afternoon with André and Richard

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In conjunction with the publication of his book Octaphilosophy, Chef André Chiang has embarked on a tour with the publisher Phaidon to promote the book.  Hong Kong was the last stop on the Asian leg of the tour, and two "four hands" dinners were planned - where both Restaurant André and Amber would contribute dishes.  I had the good fortune of snagging a table for tonight.

A few weeks ago, I received a separate invitation to join the chefs this afternoon.  The publisher and the hotel were inviting members of the media for an afternoon tasting session, as well as a Q and A session with the chefs.  This was a pretty good opportunity to get up close and personal with the chefs behind the restaurants that took the #3 and #4 spots on the list of Asia's 50 Best Restaurants, so I was only too happy to accept this invitation.

Since this was a book tour, André started by showing us his copy of the limited edition box set - with the book encased in 8 separate layers of wood, and where each layer would have to be removed by pulling in 1 of 4 different directions.  This was produced in an edition of 50.

Occupy Amber day 3: another first-timer

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It's Babu's birthday, and time for me to take her out for another dinner.  I was somewhat surprised when I found out that she's never been to Amber, so I took Mrs. Tigger's suggestion and got us a table there.  Chef Richard Ekkebus is away doing a guest chef stint in Seoul, but I figured Chef Maxime Gilbert would have no trouble holding down the fort...

I chatted with both Maxime and Hector a little, and in the end I decided to leave the choice of dishes up to Maxime - with the proviso that we must have the signature Hokkaido sea urchin dish... and that it comes in a bigger portion than what we got at my last dinner.  I also let Maxime know that we wouldn't want to stuff ourselves with so much food tonight.  As it turns out, what we ended up with was essentially the spring menu with a couple of extras...

First came the nibbles, which are now completely different...

Even the welcome tea has changed, and is now basically a liquid ratatouille.  Kinda interesting.

Buckwheat toast with avocado purée, fennel, lettuce, seaweed, and edible flowers - very pretty.  The toast was a little hard and crunchy.

Occupy Amber day 2: the virgin experience

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I have been remiss.  It's been more than four months since my first (and previous) #OccupyAmber session, and that is no way to get a movement going!  So when Hello Kitty suggested that we go somewhere nice for dinner tonight, I knew there was no better place to take her... PLUS, it would appear that she's never had the famous Hokkaido sea urchin dish that Chef Richard Ekkebus is threatening to take off the menu at Amber!  This needed to be rectified ASAP.

So the two of us walked in, got seated, and it wasn't long before Richard very kindly came to greet us.  We had looked over the menu and found the current degustation menu pretty interesting, but as I follow three of Amber's chefs on Instagram, I've been seeing a bunch of delicious-looking dishes on my feed lately.  After getting the nod from Hello Kitty, I asked Richard to send us whatever he fancied, without "a foot on the brakes" in terms of quantity.

Our welcome drink was the mushroom tea I had on my last visit, with a mushroom steamed egg custard at the bottom, some chiffonade of seaweed (わかめ?), and a mix of Pu'er tea (普洱茶) and mushroom consommé.

Mushroom macarons with pumpkin purée and orange zest.  Love the pickup from the citrus zest.

Occupy Amber day 1: when 2 becomes 4

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During one of my visits to Amber last year, I was chatting with Chef Richard Ekkebus when he brought up the idea of taking his now-signature Hokkaido sea urchin dish off the menu.  Upon hearing this possibility, I apparently jokingly threatened to start an "Occupy Amber" movement if it ever happened.  Of course, I promptly forgot about my joke after I left the restaurant.

But Richard remembered, and when he decided that he would pass on the recipe for the dish to Corey Lee (so that it would be on the menu of In Situ, Corey's upcoming restaurant at SFMOMA) and finally take it off the Amber menu after 8 years, he spoke about this impending move to a few journalists and mentioned my "threat" as an anecdote.  Without mentioning any names, of course...  Heck, it even made it to the Wall Street Journal!  O, the irony!

Having been reminded of my threat, and shocked that he's actually going to take it off the menu, I decided to follow through with my threat and "occupy Amber".  But I did ask for Richard's permission first, and he was more than willing to let me show him what I've got.

So that's one of the reasons why I'm here today.  The other reason is that my friend had read my post about the game menu I had last month, and really wanted to have some of those dishes.  So the two of us showed up for my first Occupy session, although my friend was blissfully unaware...

Having eaten quite a lot lately, I decided I wanted a light lunch... and was going to order only 2 dishes.  However I encouraged my friend to order whatever he fancied, as it seems it's been a while since he was last here.

Our welcome drink today was mushroom tea, which came with a mushroom custard at the bottom of the cup, and what seemed to be wakame (若布) seaweed in the "tea".  I just love the fragrant mushroom flavor coming out of the cup.