The backup

Pin It

The Man in White T-shirt pinged and asked whether we wanted to join them for dim sum, which is something we haven't done in a while.  Unfortunately it was too late for us to grab a table at Seventh Son (家全七福), so we made do with Fook Lam Moon (福臨門).  I have only been back here once since a particularly poor dinner 3 years ago, but I guess dim sum would be OK...

Crispy pork belly (脆皮燒腩仔) - OK, so it was at least at the right serving temperature today... but it still tasted like it's been reheated since there was plenty of fat that had soaked into the crunchy crackling.

Second chances: ordinary by day, zesty by night

Pin It

It's been a while since Hello Kitty and I were able to go out to a nice dinner, so I asked her to pick out a restaurant we can patronize and support.  Much to my surprise, she chose ZEST by Konishi - where she had visited for a weekday lunch and came away unimpressed.  I did tell her, though, that it was unfair to judge a fine dining restaurant based on a "business lunch".  So I guess she decided to give them a second chance.

When I made the reservation yesterday, I was asked whether the restaurant should send me a copy of the tasting menu.  I declined and told them to "surprise us".  I did tell them about the ingredients that Hello Kitty and I prefer not to eat when I was asked.

First came a selection of bread made in-house, and the brioche was certainly very tasty.

Supporting chef friends: a very gout dinner

Pin It

Six months ago the Peanut Gang decided to support one of our favorite chefs and gathered at Neighborhood.  After weeks of not being able to dine out for dinner due to government restrictions, we decided to go back and visit The Man in White T-shirt for a socially-distanced meal.

Fergie was responsible for booking us tables, and then he surprised the boss this morning by asking for omakase... with virtually no advanced warning.  The boss kinda went into shock, but thankfully managed to pull it off.

First came some butter for the wonderful sourdough, but tonight there was also a pâté spread.

Greater amberjack / preserved lemon / chili - the greater amberjack (勘八) was caught locally by rod.  Served with diced preserved lemon and pickled chili peppers, there was some nice acidity here to go with the fragrant olive oil.  Very delish.

Supporting chef friends: back at dinner

Pin It

The Compatriot wanted to hit more of his favorite restaurants in town before he flew out, and Ta Vie 旅 is definitely one of them.  When the government announced that dine-in restrictions would be relaxed starting today to allow dinner service until 9pm, I immediately changed my booking from lunch to dinner.

I didn't tell Sato-san who I was coming with, so when the Compatriot showed up Takano-san was very surprised to see him... and immediately reminded my friend that he had left a bottle of white wine here from his last visit - which would have been more than 2 years ago, surely!

As I had been here for lunch a couple of weeks ago, Sato-san very kindly designed a different menu for me so that I wouldn't have to repeat dishes.  In fact, there was only one dish that was a repeat.

We started with the usual...

House made butter

House made ricotta

Nukazuke bread - I don't think I'll ever tire of having this house made bread with nukazuke (糠漬け).  That beautiful thin crust...

There IS such a thing as free lunch... kind of

Pin It

This meal was about 3 years overdue.  I normally BYO so it's rare that I even pick up the wine list at a restaurant.  But some time ago I noticed that a couple of vintages of a very rare wine were "mispriced" at Petrus - by that I mean the prices on the restaurant wine list were lower than the prevailing retail prices.  This is something that one usually only finds in certain restaurants in Europe or the U.S. - where wines are often purchased direct from wineries upon release, and any adjustments to pricing thereafter are "reasonable" and do not catch up to the crazy secondary market.  This rarely happens in Asia, however... as most restaurants don't have direct allocations from wineries, and need the mark-up to help with their rental costs.

It's an itch I've been waiting to scratch for 3 years, and I found out recently that I had waited too long... one of the vintages of this wine is no longer available.  But seeing that the remaining vintage was still priced about 50% below retail, I decided to round up a couple of people to pop open this baby.

With government mandated social distancing rules still in place, we were seated at adjacent tables with sufficient space in between... and had to talk a little louder than I normally would at an establishment like this.  I didn't give any instruction to chef Uwe Opocensky about how hungry we were, but I kinda expected him to revert to his old habit of trying to kill me...

Cheese gougère - the cheese filling was still there, but now we've got shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano on top.