More than 10 Euros a head

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Thanks to our respective travel schedules, we haven't been able to catch up with the couple in the Tiny Urban Kitchen for a few months. I left the choice of venue up to my friends, and in they end they wanted to try Écriture. This gave me a good reason to return, as it's been more than 6 months since my last visit.

I was a little shocked when I was handed the menu. There was... only one option available. Sankala and I had discussed trying the now-defunct vegetarian menu at some point, but oh well... I guess we were in for a stuffing.

The meal started with some of the premices:

Gougère, hay cream and caviar - the panna cotta hay cream inside the gougère was under-seasoned, and really needed the salt from the caviar. Unfortunately I didn't mix them well enough in my mouth, so the first hit was salty and then the rest of it was... well... bland.

The secret ingredient is...

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There's a dish at Ta Vie 旅 I've been wanting to try. Sato-san pinged me about 2 months ago regarding a new dish he was developing. It turns out he was trying the new recipe with something I had given him earlier this year, and he wanted to know where he could get some more. Unfortunately, said item is no longer available for sale in Hong Kong, but I happened to have a supply at home thanks to a recent shipment from Taiwan. So I quickly dropped some off for him a few days before I left for our trip to Taiwan.

I followed various social media accounts in the days that followed, as Sato-san and others posted about the new dish. I was either out of town, or locked up in quarantine after our return to Hong Kong. More than a month after the dish first appeared, I was still waiting for my first taste.

When I heard that Sato-san would be returning to Japan for a few weeks, I decided that it was time to find out for myself how much I would enjoy this new creation. We were happy that Fergie could join us on short notice, as he was at the recent special event I could not attend, but did not get to taste this particular dish.

As always, the meal started with their signature nukazuke (糠漬け) bread. This always disappears quickly, along with some of their house made butter and ricotta. Someone ate so much of the ricotta that a second serving magically appeared at the table.

Stuffed like a pig, again

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I'm catching up with the Tiggers over another meal, and this time we ended up at Imperial Treasure Fine Chinese Cuisine (御寶軒) in the Crowne Plaza Hong Kong. We were originally meant to be enjoying a roast suckling pig at another restaurant which is relatively new, but we had to switch after finding out that they use peanut oil in the kitchen (as do many Chinese kitchens) and one of us is severely allergic to peanuts. Well... they do a pretty nice stuffed suckling pig here, so I figured we'd still be pretty happy.

Marinated duck's tongue (鹵水鴨舌) - pretty surprised that Bear actually ate - and liked - this. I wonder whose tongue he also liked to play with...

Casual Valentine

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I found out this morning that it's Qixi Festival (七夕) today, which is the traditional celebration of the myth of a romantic couple who are only allowed to meet once a year on this day. Since we didn't have a proper Valentine's Day this year, I proposed that Sankala and I should at least have a casual dinner out with a bottle of wine. At her suggestion, I booked at table at ENVY Restaurant and Bar, a cozy little place in Tai Hang (大坑).

The menu is kinda eclectic, with lots of Japanese influence along with some Indian. Since there were only two of us, we couldn't order too many dishes.

Japanese sashimi jellyfish - not as exotic as it sounds... just jellyfish head served with various raw seasweed in a marinade. A refreshing start to dinner and rather aromatic with dill.

A tea house feast without tea

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It has been just about 6 months since the MNSC boys got together for a formal tasting, as we waited for some of us to return from our various trips out of Hong Kong. Lord Rayas finally got his chance to play host, and I wasn't the least bit surprised when we were asked to show up at Woo Cheong Tea House (和昌飯店).

Deep-fried homemade turnip puff (日本手作蘿蔔千絲酥) - this was... meh. The crispy shell was rather powdery, and the dough just inside was kinda soggy, almost as if it wasn't properly cooked. Didn't expect to see shreds of carrots inside along with radish.