The best dishes I had in 2020

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The year 2020 is one that many people in the world would like to forget, and that includes yours truly.  On top of the global pandemic which halted travel and confined many of us to our own cities/countries, there has been personal loss on our side.  There has been sadness all around.

Having said that, we have found occasion to dine out and meet friends, to try to inject some measure of joy into our lives in this depressing year.  Other than my two trips to Taipei in January when I mostly ate at home, I haven't been outside Hong Kong the entire year.  Coupled with social distancing measures imposed or recommended by the government, we've dined out a lot less in 2020.

As in previous years, I have put together a list of the dishes which I thought were "the best", in the sense that they elicited the most amount of positive emotions from me. They are listed in chronological order here:

Pineapple bun (菠蘿包), from Dang Wen Li - I love that Dominique Ansel and his team created items inspired by the local dining culture, and what looked like a 菠蘿油 with a slab of butter turned out to be nothing of the sort.  The tropical flavors just worked together really, really well.

One last (last) star

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It's New Year's Eve, and none of us can dine out after 6 p.m.  So the same crew from Christmas Eve, when we also were barred from dining out, re-assembled for another quite evening at home.

Tonight, though, Hello Kitty decided that she wasn't going to cook.  Truth be told, she's cooked more in 2020 than the previous few years combined, so she certainly deserved a night off.  We chose to pick up different goodies from around town.

We started with these baked puff pastry with crab roe and cheese (蟹粉芝士燒餅) from China Tang (唐人館).  Kinda interesting, I guess.  Not a combination I would have imagined.

We also nibbled on some mortadella and prosciutto.

Last star of 2020

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It's Little Rabbit's last day in Hong Kong, and we were helping her check off stuff she wanted to eat before leaving.  When we weren't able to get a table at Seventh Son (家全七福) for lunch, we figured that Fook Lam Moon (福臨門) would do just as nicely.  Unfortunately, we were unable to satisfy two of our friend's requests today, but dim sum here seldom disappoints.

Pan-fried minced pork and lotus root patties (香煎蓮藕餅) - I sometimes forget how tasty these are, and they're actually a favorite of mom's.

Bling-bling Sunday

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As this crappy year slowly comes to a close, we find ourselves once again gathering with friends at home due to the government's ban on dine-in service after 6 p.m.  Chef DaRC very kindly hosted us at home and whipped up a series of beautiful dishes.  

We started with some caviar, and thankfully it was a smaller can than the one DaRC brought a couple of months ago.

As it turned out, Goldfinger had very kindly given me a box of goodies a few days ago.  Among the various tasty treats was this pack of Japanese gold foil... which I have no real use for.  I did, for a moment, consider putting some on my face...

Supporting restaurants: Christmas lunner

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It's Christmas Day, and we're kinda recovering from a quiet night at home.  I had been planning to take things easy and spend most of the long weekend at home, but seeing that we (clarification: Hello Kitty) would be cooking most of the week, I kinda wanted to see if we could pick a restaurant to support at the last minute.  As it turned out, Godenya (ごでんや) had seats for us today, although thanks to the government's ban on indoor dining after 6pm, meals are now scheduled at 4pm instead of dinner.

I was glad to see Goshima-san persevering through these tough times for the F and B industry, and glad that I could do my very small part to help them.

Ankimo, thousand-year old egg, persimon, monaka (鮟肝  皮蛋  柿  最中) - very happy to have this again, and nice to see additional ingredients in the dish.  The taiyaki (鯛焼き)-shaped monaka (最中) shell contained a layer of smoky paste made from the liver of monkfish caught off Yoichi (余市) in Hokkaido.  This time, though, there were chunks of sweet, seasonal persimmon buried inside.  The gelée made with dashi (出汁), mirin (味醂), and sake on top was the same, but tonight we had curry leaves on top.  I have to admit, though, that I didn't taste much century eggs (皮蛋)...