Indian snacks at home

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DaRC and Ro Ro are flying off in a few days, getting out of this city prison for a few months. We wanted to catch up before they left town, and after having Chef DaRC cook us dinner the last couple of times, Sankala and I decided to play host this time. Not wanting to embarrass herself in front of Chef DaRC, Sankala announced that she would not be working the kitchen today. So that meant figuring out where to get takeout from... something that we do seldom.

I threw out a few options, and much to my surprise Ro Ro chose Chaat. I was a little hesitant at first, because I'd have to traverse the harbor for it - and the extended travel time would definitely impact how the food tastes. But I agreed to the suggestion and looked for the takeout options... and only found 3 dishes listed on the "Rosewood at Home" page.

So I pinged PR8, who very kindly offered to help me order from the restaurant's regular menu. I was thinking about asking him to make sure that we didn't get any extra items this time, but stopped myself. After all, who the fuck do I think I am? Why should any restaurant give me free food?!

Well... Turns out the kitchen did pack a few extras, including 2 orders of naan... which kinda ruined my plans of not having any leftovers - not to mention my hope of minimizing the use of disposable containers.

Tandoori beef cheek: hung yoghurt, Kashmiri chilli, cinnamon - these were tender for sure, but not quite moist enough. Nice and flavorful with a little bit of heat.

Not a home delivery birthday dinner

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Once again, our plans for a nice night out tonight was scuttled by the collective of selfish anti-vaxxers, aircrew who flouted quarantine arrangements, and consequently the Hong Kong government. Two months after the government announced a ban on dining-in service after 6 p.m., this is now an all-too-familiar experience that keeps getting stuck on repeat. The original reservation for tonight was booked on December 1st of 2021 for January 9th, which was quickly rescheduled to tonight after the dining ban announcement a few days before the original date. As the dining ban has been extended to April 20th at the earliest, we needed to look for alternative solutions for a family gathering tonight.

We normally stay away from food delivery, as it inevitably ends up generating trash and plastic waste in particular. In this case we didn't have much choice, so we looked for options which were more appealing. Thanks to collective indecision among the three of us, our first choice involving mostly cold dishes became unavailable... and I remembered that I had been tagged in a social media post about delivery from Louise. So it was decided that we would get the Charlotte Menu delivered to My Birdbrain Cousin's place.

I had spent more time than expected rearranging wines in my cellar, so Sankala and I arrived after the food had been delivered. Our query to My Birdbrain Cousin regarding reheating instructions were, apparently, not taken to heart... as she ended up only reading part of those instructions. But I suppose we shouldn't have expected too much.

Bread and spread - the sourdough is tasty and the whipped butter is equally good, although I chose not to add the sprinkling of nuts on top.

Pâté en croûte Louise - gotta say that this was pretty good. Not the same kind of game meats I get from Caprice, but tasty nonetheless.

Pizza Valentine

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I've been kinda feeling down for the last week or two, as the pandemic situation in Hong Kong spiraled out of control and dining out became an increasingly difficult proposition. Sankala kept prodding me about plans for Valentine's Day, but as I've always felt it's a manufactured holiday, and I really wasn't feelin' it, I made it clear that I had no interest in making any plans.

But we did have to have *some* kind of plan for tonight, because Sankala announced that she wasn't cooking tonight, and we couldn't even grab a simple dinner at any ol' neighborhood joint. We did consider taking a set of takeout from a nearby restaurant with a Michelin star, but as it required us to heat up some of the items, we figured it was a little more trouble than we wanted.

Which is how Sankala suggested that we order pizza from our neighborhood Dough Bros. After all, it's only a 3-minute walk from us - so we could be sure that the pizza would still be hot when we bring it back home. We would also be saving a good amount of money on dinner, and perhaps we could spend the savings on a nice bottle of rosé Champagne. I liked the idea, so that's what we did!

Sushi to the rescue

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It's lunar new year's eve, and it's just the two of us at home tonight. Sankala doesn't feel like cooking, and dine-in service continues to be banned by the government. So that leaves us with ordering takeout. Ordering hot food is problematic as we discovered last year, since it's unlikely we would be enjoying it at the correct serving temperature without reheating... and likely overcooking it in the process. So ideally it would be something which would not need to be enjoyed piping hot - or perhaps we order something from a place that is a few minutes' walk from our home.

Yesterday, after a few days of me pestering him with requests, Fujimoto Kenichi (藤本健一) - who is still waiting for his Sushi Fujimoto (鮨ふじもと) to be done with the renovations and open - finally announced that they would have chirashi sushi (ちらし寿司) available for takeaway for tonight.　This was exactly what I had been waiting for, so I placed my order immediately.

I went to pick up this afternoon, and got a quick tour from Fujimoto-san. The renovations were definitely not finished, so he doesn't have an exact date when he would expect to open.

Dinner time came around, and we had the perfect setting at home. Our mood lighting was provided not by romantic candles but by the Light Soy by Heliograf. Sankala was really happy with I got this light, and having it on the table next to our sushi could not have been more appropriate.

Another Christmas Eve at home

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Per our tradition, we chose to spend a quiet Christmas Eve at home with family and friends.  This year we got My Favorite Cousin as well as the Compatriot to come over, so no one would need to have a lonely Christmas.  Like last year, we had a combination of simple dishes cooked at home as well as takeout items.

We started with some caviar from Nomad, which was served with some sour cream on blinis. We also got some unsalted potato chips because Sankala seemed to prefer them to blinis. Unfortunately, one of our tins of caviar had gone off and smelled like stinky feet, so we had to make do with just one tin of 100g...

Breakfast with Blåhaj

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Weekends are normally the time for me to catch up on sleep, although with our CCzilla in the house, things don't always work out that way.  This morning, though, I woke up early for a different reason. I had been invited to do a Zoom tasting - something which has gained popularity since the global pandemic started, but something I had managed to entirely avoid until now - with Dominique Ansel. I received a delivery from Dang Wen Li by Dominique Ansel about an hour before the session was due to start, and there would be three different types of viennoiserie for us to taste through.

I set up my notebook for the Zoom session, arranged the goodies on the dining table, and invited Blåhaj to take a seat next to me. She had, after all, already taken a seat at the table, so it was only right that she got to participate.

4 star day: sushi takeout

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Hello Kitty's been cooking at home a lot as we stay in and practice social distancing, and she really deserves a break.  So I figured that ordering takeout for dinner tonight would be nice.  Since I discovered only yesterday that Sushi Saito (鮨 さいとう) is doing takeout, I immediately pinged Fujimoto-san and asked about availability - as there are only very limited quantities available.  Thankfully I was able to reserve some for today.

Barachirashi (バラチラシ) - believe it or not, this was actually pretty filling, and there was a good variety of toppings layered on the rice.

Supporting chef friends: 2-star takeout

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The Covid-19 pandemic has been with us for more than 6 months, and after a lull of more than a month, Hong Kong is now experiencing a "third wave" where daily new cases have spiked up to unprecedented levels.  This prompted the government to impose stringent measure on social distancing, and for the first time in history, restaurants are forbidden to serve dine-in guests starting at 6pm.  DINNER IS CANCELLED.

Faced with a drastic loss of revenue - which is especially devastating for fine dining restaurants which primarily (or solely) rely on dinner service - restaurants around town immediately launched takeout or delivery menus.  Some of them had been doing this for a while, but the one that caught my eye was from Ta Vie 旅 - one of my favorite restaurants in town.

I was, apparently, the first to ask Sato-san about their takeout menu, and placed an order two days ago for pickup tonight.  I managed to rope in Mr. and Mrs. Birdiegolf as our partners in crime, and they would be responsible for the starters for tonight's dinner.

We started with some bread and butter...

Challans duck leg confit with sautéed potatoes - well, the truth is that this was cold by the time I got to it after the starters.  It was still delicious, but I probably should have asked to have it heated up in the oven.  When Mr. Birdiegolf got around to the other leg, I insisted that he stick it in the oven.  I'm sure it tasted much, much better when the duck fat warmed up and liquefied somewhat.