Three Burg night

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We've caught up with the Fergies a few times this year, but haven't dined out with them too much.  After discussing a few options, we ended up choosing Roganic for dinner tonight.  I've had two pretty good meals here before, so I felt pretty good about coming back.

Both my previous visits saw us take the short testing menu, and I felt pretty comfortable about the amount of food we got.  I was ready to do the same again, seeing that this was a cheat meal while I'm on my diet.  But Fergie had other ideas... so the long tasting menu was what we got.

Citrus cured salmon and seaweed tartlet - the nori (海苔) shell carried citrus cured salmon roe along with some yuzu (柚子) gel.  Pretty tasty.

Disappointing Bastard

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For all the buzz around Bâtard ever since it opened, I was never eager to go check it out for myself.  The dishes which helped the restaurant become popular were, primarily, dishes first created by others or seemingly popular and available elsewhere.  The cold angel hair with caviar starting showing up in Singapore more than a decade ago thanks to Gunther Hubrechsen, and over the last few years more than a handful of fancy restaurants in town served up roast chicken - sometimes with rice as accompaniment.  Every time a friend asked me whether I had been to the restaurant, I always replied that I didn't see anything that would draw me there - in terms of food.

Of course, the restaurant is operated by the people behind The Fine Wine Experience, who wanted a venue to enable them to sell more wine.  The real attraction here, at least for someone like me, was the pricing on the wine list.  The wines were priced just about the same level as the retail shop, which was just like the way I used to buy a bottle at Vinum and have them serve it to me at Les Amis in Singapore.  For people who, myself included, insist on BYO because they don't want to pay ridiculous markup on wines at restaurants, this was music to our ears.

So I finally got around to booking a table, which entailed a wait of just about 2 months.  Meanwhile, Belo and I spent some time browsing through the wine list to pick out a few bottles.  Unfortunately for my friend, I am too cheap and ended up removing the more pricy bottles she had chosen...

Beef tartare Cannelloni - the crispy tubes were stuffed with minced beef "from Northeast France" seasoned with olive oil.

Big Seven night

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Chocolate Ball has been helping me with some sake purchases over the last few months, and it may be a while before I get to see DaRC over a meal again, so I figured we should take this opportunity to open something nice together.  One thing led to another and, before we knew it, this impromptu dinner morphed into an occasion to taste a couple of premium sakes.

Once again we relied on RAW Yeah to rescue us, and to be honest, we're always happy with the food at Nikushou.  I have noticed, though, that we seem to be getting less and less beef at this so-called yakiniku joint...

Chilled Japanese snow crab, vinegar jelly - tons of meat from Japanese horsehair crab (毛蟹) coming from Hokkaido, including whole sections of crab let. Acidity from the jelly always helps to balance out the savory flavors of the ocean.

More than meets the eye

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Thanks to the ongoing pandemic, it's been a long, long time since we organized a social event for the team.  In fact, only half of us are currently in Hong Kong... and we look forward to the day when borders reopen and we can, once again, travel without quarantine.  However, we figured it was time to have a night out and just do some bonding away from our desks, and so a team dinner was planned.

With the pandemic still with us and not everyone fully-vaccinated, a private room was preferred.  It also made sense that we chose somewhere close to the office.  I figured China Tang (唐人館) would be a venue which fit our requirements, and thankfully Chef Menex Cheung (張嘉裕) was able to help us secure a room.  I left the menu up to him, hoping there would be some surprises. After all, the chef has a repertoire that includes flavors from Sichuan, which is rather unusual for what people see as a Cantonese restaurant.

First came the appetizers (唐 ∙ 拼), which were served in individual bamboo steamers with dry ice underneath, releasing a light scent of chrysanthemums and roses.  Everything came in bite-size portions, on a rather thick and fluffy bed of hydroponic greens.

Fresh abalone, Chinese rice wine (酒糟凍鮮鮑魚) - nice and crunchy texture. A little smoky, which was a nice surprise.

The hidden sushiya I never knew

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Last month I made two bookings at Godenya (ごでんや) in quick succession, once Goshima-san confirmed to me the approximate dates for the very short season for sansho flowers (花山椒).  This is why, 3 weeks after my last visit, I'm back in the private room with a few friends.

Sakura masu, hotaru-ika, warabi, kinome (桜鱒 蛍烏賊 わらび 木の芽) - I was so, soooo happy to have been served this. A variation of a dish I had last year, this showcases some of my favorite seasonal ingredients. What hasn't changed from last year was the presentation, which was pretty with lots of green from sansho leaves and sansho flowers. We've also got eagle fern (わらび) on top.

Underneath the green canopy we have some of my favorite firefly squid from Toyama Prefecture (富山県), cherry salmon from Aomori Prefecture (青森県), and some miso made with mashed sansho leaves. The squid was full of umami but also tasted pretty strong, and Hairy Legs didn't quite appreciate that. The fern was pretty crunchy.