Seventeen going on eighteen

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Ahleeso is busy going through her birthday month at full speed, being wined and dined just about nightly. Since they were kind enough to take time to help me celebrate my birthday earlier this year, it was only right that we return the favor. Foursheets has been telling Ahleeso about her new favorite Chiuchow place, and taking a Chiuchow girl for a birthday meal out at a Chiuchow restaurant just seemed perfect... so we rounded up a couple of more people for a night out at Noble Imperial (尚御潮滷居). This was, actually, my second visit this month.

Our focus last time out was on the lo shui (滷水) dishes marinated in masterstock, but we had heard that the hot dishes coming out of the kitchen were not to be missed. The task of pre-ordering dishes then went to RAW Yeah, and within minutes of us sitting down, the first dishes started to arrive in rapid fire fashion...

There was a bowl of pickled radish, and I liked the citrus notes coming from the orange.

Chilled razor clams Chiuchow-style (潮式凍蟶子) - very nice and refreshing. Just a little touch of kick from the chili.

Bongwater and old school Canto

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Bong Girl and I wanted to get together for dinner along with her friend who was escaping Paris for the summer, and we had originally planned to introduce a few people to a restaurant I used to love. When I discovered that, for some inexplicable reason, the owner of said restaurant chose to block me on social media, I decided to no longer patronize them and introduce more of my friends. I asked Bong Girl to suggest an alternate venue, and as it turns out, Yung Kee Restaurant (鏞記酒家) is just down the street.

I haven't been back to Yung Kee since the last year of the dragon, as I wasn't too impressed on my last visit. And I certainly don't need to go there for roast goose or anything. But tonight I'm going with a regular, so maybe that makes a difference - as it does in many, many restaurants the world over.

The menu had already been set by restaurant management, so we didn't have to do too much in that department. I did, however, ask for a last-minute addition when I was shown a picture of the dish.

Deep-fried bean curd with special sauce (金鑲脆皮嫩豆腐) - the skin on that tofu looks beautifully golden brown, and I don't think I've ever had this here.

Nippon Italian

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Our foursome has been busy traveling over the last few months, so it's taken us more than half a year to meet up after our last gathering. Ms. Hurricane had enjoyed her meal at Citrino da Yoshinaga Jinbo and suggested the rest of us check it out. I'm always happy trying out recommendations on Italian restaurants in town, as there really aren't too many that I would return to, so I showed up with an open mind and managed my expectations after having spoken to someone else about their experience.

We started with a slight hiccup in service. I brought a bottle of white wine that I placed on our table. For some reason no one came to inquire about this bottle and what should be done with it, while the bottles brought by the others had already been dealt with before I arrived. Of course, by the time someone finally realized that we intended to open this bottle - which, thankfully, wasn't an eternity like what happened here - the wine had warmed up a little too much.

These days it's wonderful to find restaurants above a certain price point that doesn't force diners to take a tasting menu. Not only do we get to choose exactly what we want to eat, we are also able to decide on how much food we take in. I was happy to enjoy this freedome tonight, and we decided to share all the dishes.

Marinated yellow tail carpaccio: avocado and wasabi, lemon mustard - this was pretty nice. Each portion (we added an extra portion on top of the three that came standard) consisted of three slices of yellowtail, including from the belly and the back. While we were told about the wasabi with avocado, the more obvious kick came from the yuzukosho (柚子胡椒) on top. Pretty nice, and pretty, too.

Pizza with birthday wine

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When our Asshole left us 4 years ago, we started the tradition of celebrating his birthday with a bottle of wine from his birth vintage, and we also started to dine out for the occasion during the last couple of years. This year we decided to take our CCDogcow out with us, and Foursheets decided that we should book ourselves an outdoor table at Fiata Pizza. CCDogcow has visited Fiata before, and definitely loved the pizza crust that we fed her.

It rained tonight, but thankfully it wasn't a downpour. We arrived more than 20 minutes before our booking, so we strolled around a little and waited for our table to free up. It wasn't too bad, and CCDogcow was a very good girl - she just sat quietly on the sidewalk while we waited.

We knew we couldn't finish all the food tonight, but we really wanted to have two different pizzas plus a starter:

Caprese - made with mozzarella di bufala Campana DOP, which was pretty decent.

Hikki in Hong Kong

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After seeing Nakashima Mika (中島美嘉) in concert earlier this year and missing Misia later, we were pretty excited to find out that Utada Hikaru (宇多田ヒカル) was coming to Hong Kong. While Foursheets was initially unable to get us tickets in the mad rush, we eventually found another avenue to get ourselves seats tonight, and I have to say that the seating wasn't half bad!

For me, Utada Hikaru is an artist I paid attention to during a period when Japanese pop culture featured a little more heavily in my life, back around the turn of the millenium. She got very famous pretty quickly because First Love was used as the theme song for Terms for a Witch (魔女の条件), a J-drama I was very fond of at the time. Then everything kinda exploded from there. But my enthuasiam for her music kinda faded after Deep River, and I was barely aware of her music after that - other than occasional songs like Goodbye Happiness with the fun video and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence - FYI - the latter because the piece from Ryuichi Sakamoto is one of my all-time favorites.

So I showed up at the concert on her Science Fiction Tour tonight - her very first tour involving a stop in Hong Kong - expecting not to know at least half the songs she was going to sing. But that's OK. It was enough just to be here and enjoy some of the classics.