The victory mountain

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Zhongmeister has been a big fan of the sakes from Katsuyama Brewery (勝山酒造), so when the owner of the brewery came back to Hong Kong to showcase some of their offerings, he quickly rounded up a few of us for a tasting dinner arranged by Berry Brothers and Rudd at Man Ho Chinese Restaurant (萬豪金殿). Since I also like sake from Katsuyama, not to mention Jayson Tang's cuisine at Man Ho, I was happy to put my hand up for this event.

Once I arrived at the restaurant, I was introduced Isawa Heizo (伊澤平藏), who is the 12th generation and current owner (蔵元) of the brewery. Also in attendance was his wife Julie, who is of Malaysian origin and has been responsible for expanding their presence in ex-Japan Asia as well as internaionally. Their son Isawa Heiki (伊澤平輝) is being groomed to take over, and also came along to introduce his new creation. Katsuyama Brewery was established in 1688 so there is a ton of history behind it. Isawa-san also told us a few stories behind a number of innovations the brewery has embarked on, such as introducing premium-priced sakes and using centrifuge.

In terms of the cuisine, I was pretty happy to see a few of my favorite dishes from Jayson.

The amuse bouche was a button mushroom with some kind of sour sauce. I guess it helped to whet the appetite.

The SMD menu

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Now that the Great One has moved on to work for a fashion mag and published her new cookbook on nothing but chicken, she has begun to work with restaurants in town on a series of special menus where she puts her touches to desserts and a fried chicken dish. I had missed out on an earlier round, so when an invitation came to join a tasting for the new collaboration, I didn't hesitate to show my unwavering support for my friend.

This time around, the team featured Menex Cheung (張嘉裕) of China Tang Hong Kong (香港唐人館) and DoBee Lam of SÉP, plus the Great One in her capacity as food columnist for Vogue Hong Kong. The dinner was held at China Tang, as part of the Landmark Tasting Mastery series.

The six-course menu was composed of dishes whose creations involved different combinations of the three chefs, so in that sense this was more interesting to me.

Appetizer: barbecued Iberico pork crispy banh xeo (始•筵 粵食[材]越食[法]: 越醬烤本地黑毛豬叉燒鍋巴), from Menex Cheung and DoBee Lam - the so-called "bánh xèo" was a taco-shaped shell made of crispy rice. This thick shell was designed to carry some shredded pickled cabbage, pickled beetroot, and julienne of pickled cornichons... on top of which was a piece of very tender char siu (叉燒). I have no idea whether the pork itself was ibérico (as stated in the English description) or "local" (as stated in the Chinese description), but I do know that the marinade was made with kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass, and meant to be lighter than the normal marinade so that the flavors of the herbs could show a little more. Having chiffonade of kaffir lime leaves on top also gave it a nice touch.

Supporting Japanese restaurants day 2: help your friends

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While I was trying to figure out which Japanese restaurants in Hong Kong we should be supporting at the start of the silly government seafood ban, it occurred to me that I should be supporting my restauranteur friends. And who better than RAW Yeah, the man behind the "不務正業燒肉店" Nikushou, the restaurant which always has a good selecion of Japanese seafood? I made arrangements to come and deplete some of the restaurant's supplies.

As the boss has very kindly arranged some special goodies for us - radioactive and all - he also asked the Great One to come along. After all, good friends should be able to glow in the dark together!

Chilled female Japanese snow crab (香箱蟹) - Japanese snow crab (松葉蟹) is always tasty, and apparently the boss learned the trick of stuffing meat from another crab (a male crab, no less!) into the shell. Love the ponzu (ポン酢) jelly as always.

Supporting Japanese restaurants day 1: eat more sashimi

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Shortly after the Tohoku earthquake which led to the disaster at Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Plant in March 2011, I met up with friends over dinner at a couple of Japanese restaurants in town. The locals in Hong Kong were in a panic about Japanese produce and Japanese food in general, and Japanese restaurants in Hong Kong were suffering from a lack of business. There were times when mine was the only table in the restaurant, and it was difficult to look at the faces of the chefs and the staff. This was the reason I wanted to issue a call to action at the time, and I made sure to bring out sake from the Tohoku region.

Well... now that the Japanese government has decided to release diluted waste water from the nuclear plant after consultation with the IAEA, and the Hong Kong government has, predictably, taken the knee-jerk and braindead reaction of banning the import of seafood from 10 Japanese prefectures. This was, of course, simply a case of bureaucrats blindly following their masters up north - who had for years banned the import of all produce from the same 10 prefectures. By the way, has anyone told these smartypants that 4 of those prefectures - Gunma (群馬), Nagano (長野), Saitama (埼玉), and Tochigi (栃木) - are landlocked and there's no such thing as "seafood" from there? And have they looked at a map of Japan and realized that Niigata (新潟) borders the Sea of Japan, which is ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE of Fukushima?!

Of course, since the masters up north have now chosen to ban seafood imports from all of Japan, regardless of area of origin, suddenly the guys in Hong Kong look like the more rational ones... SMH.

Anyway, just as braindead housewives in Hong Kong rush to empty supermarket shelves of salt so they can consume enough to turn themselves into Jinhua ham or salted fish, I have decided that it was time again to show my support for Japanese restaurants in town. After all, who's afraid of a little tritium?!

We tried to be smart about it this time and pick out independent restaurants which may not have the resources to weather the storm, and this led us to a place in our neighborhood we have never visited before.

Kiri Japanese Restaurant (桐•割烹) appears to have opened less than 2 months ago, and occupies one of the top floors of a new building. At lunch today we got a great view of neighboring Victoria Park and Victoria Harbour. Meanwhile, we figured it was time for me to order up some sashimi and sushi.

Fried horse mackerel (稚あじの唐揚げ) - I love baby horse mackerel when they're deep-fried. So crunchy and tasty!

Valentine double

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It's Qixi Festival (七夕) today and Foursheets has decided not to cook, so I asked her to pick a place for us to eat out. Koji Charcoal Grill (菊志炭燒) is a place where we've enjoyed some tasty food, and it's simple, straightforward enough. I was pretty happy to go along with Foursheets' selection to make things easy.

In the afternoon we were pinged by Fergie, who announced that they were suddenly free this evening for that get together we had talked about for a couple of weeks. We decided to invite them along and open a couple of bottles together. They had never been to the restaurant, but the menu is self-explanatory and they just needed to know which dishes we would consider "must order". And we ended up ordering a storm, in multiple rounds.

This dip is still as irresistable as ever. My portion was pretty much gone by the end of the meal as I kept shoving bits of it in my mouth, whether it was on top of some food or on its own.