Pen Stay(ca)tion: old and new classics

Pin It

A staycation at the Pen wouldn't be complete without dining at the grande dame of French restaurants in this town, so a mere three weeks after our last visit, we were back at Gaddi's for dinner.

As luck would have it, Kung Fu Panda was also in the house tonight.  She's a regular here and seems to know everyone.  But as she was dining with her mom and her mom's friends, we kept to ourselves and only exchanged a few words when she came over.

As I had already gone through the tasting menu earlier in the month, I decided to give it a pass tonight.  It's also a little early in terms of white truffle season, so I also passed up the white truffle tasting menu or any of the truffle dishes.  There was a certain itch I needed to scratch tonight, and I was determined to get it done.  So à la carte it was, then.

Once again, our amuse bouche was a cube of confit chicken with ham in parsley cream sauce, topped with a wafer of Parmesan.

Pen Stay(ca)tion: The 21-year wait

Pin It

When I arrived in Hong Kong in the middle of 1995, I was taken almost immediately to Felix at the Peninsula Hong Kong by my architect friends.  It was new, and designed by Philippe Starck - of whom my friends and I were big fans.  The place had an incredibly cool vibe, and would remain my go-to bar to take visiting friends for that million dollar view of Hong Kong.

But in the 21 years since my very first visit, I have never eaten at Felix.  The reputation of the place has always been as a place for drinks, and no one I know ever raved about its food.  Since there are plenty of places in Hong Kong serving great food, I always chose to dine elsewhere.

That all changed tonight.  As part of our staycation, we booked ourselves a table at Felix for dinner.  None of the tables by the window were available, but that didn't matter much to me.  We ended up at a table on the stage behind the white sheer curtains, which offered me marginally better light for photography.

We decided to go for "The Felix Experience", as a quick glance through the menu didn't yield anything that particularly stood out.  But there were some pleasant surprises coming our way...

Skipjack tataki and poached eggplant with miso dressing, purple shiso and spring onion salad - this didn't look like a very promising start to dinner, especially when the toppings on one of the skipjack slices fell off before the dish got to me.  Not surprisingly, the ponzu (ポン酢) jelly on the side worked well with the skipjack tataki (タタキ), but the slices of eggplant underneath didn't seem to jive with the rest.  Lots of raw Japanese leeks on top of the skipjack, which gave a certain amount of kick that kinda overwhelmed the saffron chips on top.  The puffed rice on the side was on the sweet side, and the baby red perilla leaves and perilla flowers added some nice fragrance to the dish.

Pen Stay(ca)tion: Pink afternoon tea

Pin It

Less than two hours after finishing lunch, we sat down again at another one of the Peninsula Hong Kong's F and B outlets.  Knowing that we wouldn't be able to put any more food into our stomachs, we called for reinforcements for our afternoon tea session at the Lobby.

As we exited the elevator on the lobby level, we saw a very long line of people waiting for a table, and found our friends at the very back of that line.  We quickly pulled them away and marched towards the front of the line.  After all, we were in-house guests who have a confirmed booking... so there was absolutely no need to line up.

Pen Stay(ca)tion: Damn tasty XLB

Pin It

A few days ago, Hello Kitty informed me that she had booked us a couple of night's stay at the Peninsula Hong Kong.  Unlike some of my friends, I'm the type of cheapskate who never splurges money on staycations, so this was a really nice surprise.  So we packed our bags and checked in to the venerable Pen - the grande dame of Hong Kong hotels.

We asked for a lunch table at Spring Moon (嘉麟樓) upon check-in, and this being Sunday and all, they were only able to squeeze us in shortly before the time for last order.  We didn't mind a late lunch, so we showed up around 2pm when quite a few tables had already cleared out.  We would pick a few dim sum items as well as a few classics.

Having been here only once in the last 15 years or so, I had forgotten about the customized chopstick rest.  Such a cute little detail.

Eat with Gaggan

Pin It

I'm a terrible friend.

A group of old friends - all of whom have known each other for 15-20 years - got together for one of several annual birthday gatherings tonight.  The dinner was fixed about a month ago, and I was looking forward to catching up with the boys (and girl) over some delicious yakitori.

Then the Great One pinged me and told me that our friend Gaggan Anand is in town, and he'd like to go out for a Cantonese dinner tonight.  Since a proper Cantonese meal - unlike some of those single-portion tasting menus offered by certain hotel restaurants - require more than a couple of mouths around the table, I decided to bail on my old friends on less than twelve hours' notice to accommodate Gaggan.  I was out of town and missed the opportunity to join the party when Gaggan came to town last, and I didn't want to miss it a second time.  Besides, I figured (perhaps it is presumptuous of me) that my old friends would forgive me for ditching them...

Coming up with an interesting venue for Cantonese food on same-day notice is tough, especially when it's Friday night.  None of our favorite high-end private kitchen could be secured on short notice, especially when there were so few of us.  We tossed out another couple of popular options, and I suggested Kin's Kitchen (留家廚房).  The food there can be interesting, especially with off-menu items that we won't find on many of the high-end restaurants in town.  So the Great One arranged a table with the boss.

I was the last person to arrive at dinner, and I could see that owner Lau Kin-wai (劉健威) was already seated at our table, sipping from a wine glass.  I greeted our guest of honor, plopped my bottle of wine on the table, and waited for our food to arrive.

Barbecued pork with honey glaze (蜜汁叉燒) - these were really, really good.  Mr. Lau is proud of the fact that, unlike many other restaurants in town, they use neither red food coloring nor any tenderizers to treat their pork.  They also use the tips of the pork shoulder (脢尖) - where the marbling naturally makes for a very tender texture.