The best dishes I had in 2021

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Five years ago I decided to browse through my posts for that year and recount the "best" dishes I had eaten during the previous 12 months. I have kept it up each year since, and this year things would be no different. I've certainly dined out more this year compared to last year, as social distancing was no longer as strict thanks to vaccination.

The "best" dishes are the ones which elicited the most excitement, the largest outpour of emotion (usually accompanied by something along the lines of "FUCKING GOOD!!!" in my notes), and the ones which I wish I had endless stomach space for ("I'll have 3 of these"). So here they are in chronological order:

Tuscany veal rack, from MONO - a beautiful bone-in piece which was grilled with glaze from tendons, which made it crispy on the outside along with flavors from herbs. And that was before lathering it up with mole. Chomping down on it on the second day of the year, during my first fine dining meal of the year, made me so, so happy.

Late seating

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Ever since the Compatriot moved to Rosbif Land with the family a few years ago, the restaurant they missed the most has been The Chairman (大班樓).  While he's in town for a short couple of months, and I'd been pretty diligent in booking restaurants for him to taste what he's been missing, the one place he lamented about not getting to was the one at the top of Asia's 50 Best Restaurants in 2021.

Knowing there were only a few weeks left to my friend's stay in town, I resorted to something I never did for myself but would on rare occasion do for friends - I asked Danny for a table for my friend. Danny knows I don't ask him for this favor unless I really need to, and I'm grateful for him accommodating me on those rare occasions. So here we were.

It's been more than 2 years since I last came for lunch, and first time in a while where I could choose what to eat, so my friend and I each picked half the dishes for the meal.

Pickled mid-summer ginger root (大班樓子薑) - I actually didn't have time to dig into this before the next dish arrived. But always happy to have this with our meal.

Fermented tofu with chili and bean sauce (大班樓臭豆腐) - it's been a while since I last got to taste this, and I'm glad my friend chose it. I had never willingly eaten more than 2 bites of stinky tofu before trying this version a few years ago, but I find this tolerable - although I wouldn't go so far as to call it delicious.

Old school winter feast

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Luk Yu Tea House (陸羽茶室) is, without a doubt, one of the most famous restaurants in all of Hong Kong. But somehow I've never been enamored with it. It's always gotten the reputation that if you're not a regular, you don't get shit. In fact, you get told to sit upstairs in Siberia. Food-wise I've never really found their dishes to be anything special, and service-wise I'm lucky if they don't piss me off. So why bother?

But when my friend KC decides to organize a dinner here featuring some classic dishes, I knew that this was an event I shouldn't miss. Here's a guy who knows the restaurant and chefs well, so I can't go wrong putting my trust in him.

Barbecued gold coin chicken (鳳肝燒金錢雞) - it would seem I've been having this on a pretty frequent basis over the last few months, and I'm happy to try another version.

Chinese for Christmas

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Another year of not traveling during Christmas means I am, once again, able to accept Pineapple's kind invitation to his birthday dinner.  MNSC hasn't had a gathering for a few months now, so it was a good opportunity to meet up and taste some good wines together.  As a break from tradition, dinner was at the brand spanking new Woo Cheong Tea House (和昌飯店) instead of the I-Hate-the-Handover-Club.

Pineapple tells us that this is one of the few places in town where no MSG or chicken powder (which usually contains MSG) are used in the kitchen. Apparently they asked Chef Edmond Ip and the team to create the stocks without those key ingredients found in most Chinese kitchens, and factored the extra effort and cost into the pricing.

We started with a trio of appetizers:

Marinated clam, soy sauce (醬油花甲)

Homemade daikon puff (手作蘿蔔絲酥餅) - stuffing was made with Japanese radish. Kinda mushy.

Christmas sushi

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A mere 12 hours after the end of our Christmas Eve shindig, our foursome met up again for lunch - this time at Sushi Saito (鮨 さいとう). We happened to book this lunch the last time we were here, and these days it takes a wait of 3 months or more if one is to book a Saturday lunch at this establishment. Very happy that the Compatriot could also join us today since, after today, I may never invite My Birdbrain Cousin to have sushi ever again...

We start with a few otsumami (おつまみ):

Salmon roe (イクラ) - very light and elegant. The dashi (出汁) the eggs were marinated in imparted a small amount of smokiness, and as usual there was a little bit of yuzu (柚子). The membranes were certainly thin and delicate.