Book signing dinner

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The Great One has been globetrotting over the last few months, so we haven't been able to see much of her. As our respective schedules are about to get busy again, we decided to hit Neighborhood together. I did make it known to Shirley that the Great One would be coming with me, so that the Kitchen Nazi would have a free rein for the night. And I got my Favorite Cousin to join us to make it a foursome.

But first things first. The Great One has published a book! The "official" launch date of the Kung Pao and Beyond isn't for another few weeks, but somehow shops in Hong Kong have already started selling it. I managed to grab a couple of copies yesterday so I brought them to dinner to get them signed by the author. My copy is supposedly number 3...

The food started arriving fast and furious...

Smoked red bigeye - four of us shared this red bigeye (大眼雞), which was just as well since the fish falls in the "avoid" category on World Wildlife Fund's Sustainable Seaoof Guide. This was cooked in the same fashion that has now become one of the restaurant's signatures, and bears some resemblance to Chiuchow-style chilled fish (魚飯). The meat was cold and the smoky flavors were very prominent.

Off by one day

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A friend has been eating his way around Japan, and among his social media posts was a picture of conger eel fry (ノレソレ). As the season for this is relatively short, I immediately thought of the first time I enjoyed this delicacy - around a year ago at Sushi Shikon by Yoshitake (すし 志魂). I figured I could try my luck and see if it's available again there, so I quickly made a booking for dinner tonight. As I don't really know Kaki-san, I never thought about messaging him before showing up.

The restaurant remembered our dietary restrictions, and reminded Kaki-san before service started. It's always nice to see this level of service at a restaurant of this caliber.

I took one look at the menu and knew that I wasn't gonna get the item I most wanted. I asked Kaki-san about it, which was when he told me that it will be on the menu STARTING TOMORROW. AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shirako Sea urchin with Japanese buckwheat nut - BABY, THIS AIN'T WHAT YOU CAME FOR! Not only was the first dish NOT conger eel fry, it was originally FISH CUM! Thankfully we did not have any in our bowls, as sea urchin had been used as a substitute. Served on a bed of braised buckwheat and topped with leeks, "baby onion" (I'll assume Kaki-san meant pearl onions), caviar, and a dab of wasabi. This was nice and warm, which is comforting and a great way to settle the stomach before the other dishes come.

C.A.R.B.O.N.A.R.A.

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We know that Juve Fan has been acting as consulting chef for a new Italian joint called Ramato, which took over the old premises of Duocento 208. I love all the pasta dishes from Juve Fan but can't afford to dine there frequently. My love for Spaghetti House is also well-known among my friends, but I could never convince some people - like Foursheets and Fergie, for example - to go with me. So I kinda need a place to enjoy some decent but casual pasta that falls in the range between those two. I figured Ramato might just be that place.

Thankfully Foursheets managed to rope in Ro Ro to try out the place with us. While each of us would be ordering our own plate of pasta, we could try out a few bites and share some other dishes together.

Burrata and camone - the dome-shaped burrata from Puglia looked really cute, and it was pretty tasty. Served with camone tomatoes from Sardinia.

Same same

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Mr and Mrs Locust are back in Hong Kong for a few days, their first visit since before the pandemic started. They had been struggling to come up with places they wanted to hit, and I had kinda not pushed them to choose anywhere beyond 2 restaurants Foursheets and I already booked. Then DaRC asked whether I had interest to take a couple of seats at Mosu Hong Kong tonight as he would be out of town on short notice, and I thought this could be some place interesting for the Locusts to try.

The sad thing for me, though, was that I had just made my very first visit about 5 weeks ago. This means there is virtually zero change in the menu, and I'd be eating the same dishes again... Honestly, I don't find this acceptable for a restaurant which only offers one tasting menu to its diners. It means there is less incentive to revisit often, unless one loves the specific set of dishes so much that one wants to do it all over again. I do understand, though, that the restaurant remains very difficult to book, and the chance of mere mortals getting a table more than once per quarter is pretty slim...

DaRC had booked the private room at the back of the restaurant, and there was a window looking out onto one of the exhibits on the floor below at M+ Museum. That was kinda interesting, I guess.

Our welcome drink tonight was, once again, made with Korean rice wine as a base. Flavored with yuja (유자), whose citrus flavors were front-and-center.

At this time I asked our waiter to "switch channels to TVB Pearl", as we had people in our group who was not fluent in Cantonese and therefore could not understand the introduction of the dishes. Our waiter told us that he is able to do this in Cantonese, Mandarin, or English, so we asked for English.

Yonomoto

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I'm not the most alert when it comes to special events at restaurants, as I often miss the email announcements that come into my various mailboxes while I'm busy at work. I've been lucky a few times in the past, but more often than not I just let these things pass me by.

I was moping around the house on New Year's Day, enjoying a lazy Sunday morning when I saw the email announcing the MONO X Toyo Eatery collaboration. I sent a message to the restaurant, fully expecting that no one would reply on a public holiday. When Hong Kong went back to work two days later, a reply did come and I managed to grab 2 seats for the event.

I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Jordy Navarra from Toyo Eatery before, although he has certainly received a lot of attention over the last few years. So I was really looking forward to seeing what he brings to the table. The good thing is that I knew this would be the kind of collaboration/four-hands that I like, where the chefs actually put their heads together to create each dish incorporating flavors from each team. The dishes are then unique to the event and not previously seen at either restaurant.

We had good seats at the counter for our meal, which allowed Ricardo and Jordy to come over from time to time during service. We also chose the wine pairing, and Mauricio was kind enough to offer me a couple of extras...

Krug Grande Cuvée, 170ème Édition, ID 221042 - more toasty on the nose than I remembered, but that's very, very classic Grande Cuvée. Pretty popcorn. Wonderful.