An evening of wine and cheese

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This evening started early for me, as I brought along a couple of friends to a wine tasting at Hong Kong Wine Vault's newest storage facility.  The Managing Director of Château Montrose, Hervé Berland, was in town on a very short stay and gave us a brief introduction to the property.

2010 Tronquoy-Lalande - oaky, lots of fruit, with plum and cedar.

The king of paella

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Hours after meeting Tigger for lunch, here I am having dinner with him again.  The Tiggers have been hankering to go back to On Lot 10, since Babu really misses the fresh fish that David serves up.  So while we were watching some horsies jump around, I called and made a reservation for tonight.  And not wanting to miss something epic for a second time, I called to make sure we were going to be served a few specific items...

Steamed artichoke - the ones we got today were skinny-ass versions of what I had 2 weeks ago...

We got a stuffed crab shell as a starter.  Of course, this ain't no ordinary crab shell... it's the shell of an Alaskan king crab!  Just look at the lemon wedges on the side to figure out the size of the shell.

Urban farming x charity

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I'm a big fan and supporter of Feeding Hong Kong.  It's not just because Tigger's one of the co-founders, but I really do believe that they're doing great things for this community.  So when Tigger invited me to a lunch where they were introducing their Edible Garden, it was a no-brainer for me to attend and see what it's all about.

I trekked over to the middle of Kowloon to get to the HKICC Shau Kee School of Creativity.  Once through the front gates, I climbed up six floors to the rooftop - and found myself looking at an example of urban farming.  It's pretty encouraging to see the idea of urban farming spreading in Hong Kong, and people are even doing it in my 'hood in the boonies!

I check out the rows of spinach, basil, romaine lettuce, carrots...etc. All seem to be doing well, and I was told some of the veggies are now on their third or fourth harvest.

Meat no fish

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It's Restaurant Week in Hong Kong, and that means many places in town are offering prix fixe menus for standardized, attractive prices.  For some reason, I was never interested when the promotion was put on during the last few years, and kinda ignored all the publicity around it again this year.  When the Wommer invited me to join him for dinner with a booking at Fish and Meat, I was happy to accept the invitation for the opportunity to check out the resto.

I arrived to find the space very dimly lit.  There was no light above our table, and our main light source was a little candle on our table.  I had to read the menu - printed in tiny font that was probably no bigger than 6-point - by the dim candle light.  And I must admit, these days my eyesight ain't what it used to be - especially in dim light.  At this moment, I can fully appreciate what my fellow speaker Kim Walker was talking about at TEDxVictoriaHarbour in 2012.  Why do restos find it necessary to do this?!  Does their food really looks so bad that they resort to keeping it in the shadows?!

For HKD 438 we are offered 3 courses, but the Wommer was worried that we wouldn't have enough to eat...

Soft duck egg raviolo, ricotta cream, burnt sage butter, Pecorino - this was absolutely delicious, and a great start to dinner.

Horsing around at dinner

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I don't know nothing about equestrian events, despite having lived just a stone's throw from a race track for a number of years.  I never had much interest in watching people dressing up and jumping over fences on their horses.  But when Tigger extended an invitation for me to join him at the Longines Hong Kong Masters, I figured it was a good opportunity for me learn something.  It is, after all, one of the events that make up the Masters Grand Slam Indoor.  So I brought out my heavy artillery and rode out on the train to AsiaWorld Expo.

I made a quick stop at the Feeding Hong Kong booth to say hello to Gabrielle, then headed to our designated table so I didn't have to carry my gear around.  We were in a good position to catch the action on the field, and I could see all the obstacles laid out on the course.  I did wonder, though, if the horsies had to jump over the Mercedes station wagon...