Fung Shing Restaurant

Though casting itself as a classy Chinese restaurant, Fung Shing Restaurant does not pay too much attention to its appearance.  To me, it's an old-folks' restaurant.   My parents love the restaurant a lot because the restaurant make what old folks, like my parents, eat at home - nothing heavily seasoned, nothing fancy, never taken by surprise.  Still a twenty-something, I am too young to be able to appreciate the food.  

I do not know why my girlfriends suggested to have our monthly gathering there.  Strangely enough, I wanted to give the restaurant one last chance to impress me and did not oppose to the suggestion.

The first dish we had was Jellyfish and chicken shreds served with sesame oil, a very traditional Chinese appetizer.  This cold dish was very delicate.  The jellyfish was very crunchy and chewy.  The ratio of the sesame oil was just right.  Some restaurants are too generous on the seasoning, making the chicken and jellyfish too greasy.

Then came the stir-fried milk, which I once thought was a wholly-foreign dish.  It was a very authentic cooking idea and perceivable a very difficult dish to make.  The milk and egg white was smooth and delicate.  The addition of pine nuts gave the mixture its rich sweetness and interesting texture.

The steamed luffa was fine... well, you can never go wrong with this dish.  Luffa is tasteless.  The chef only needs to give a generous helping of minced garlic and take care not to put too much soy sauce.  

The Pan-fried lotus cake was their signature dish.  My friend stressed this is a must-have item of this restaurant.  Nothing surprising again.  It tasted like the boring meat cake my mom pan-fries at home.  The cakes came with a very strong odor of meat, a smell which I dislike most.  yuk.  I guess it is a love'em or hate'em dish.

This pork chop with orange sauce was abysmal.  It's like... a failed attempt to resurrect some pork leftover with orange juice.  It was the only dish we could not finish.  

After the evening, I still regard Fung Shing a restaurant for the old folks. No plan to go back in the near future.  But I may want to go back when I grow older Lolz.

Fung Shing Restaurant
2/F, Pearl City, 24-32 Paterson Street,
Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

In Sa Dong Korean Restaurant

Tokwawan may not be the first place you think of when you want to have Korean food.  Tsimshatsui is.  Korean establishments sprouted like mushrooms in the area.  You can find a lot of groceries, restaurants and general merchandise stores there.

In Sa Dong Korean Restaurant enjoys the benefit of low rent of the Tokwawan district and therefore can dedicate all its effort (and capital probably) to its food.   I can't find any other Korean restaurants that offer better cheap eats.

I had lunch in this restaurant when I was running a few errands in the district.

Their mixed rice was mightily awesome.  The waitress poured a lot of the spicy-sweet chili into the bowl, stirring and mixing the rice, the shredded vegetable and the minced beef until all the ingredients were coated with the interesting sauce.  Just look at the delightful color of red, yellow and green.  It tasted even better than it looked.

My friend ordered Ojingeo Bokkeum, i.e. Spicy Stir-fried Squid.  The squid was bathed in the very interesting Gochujang sauce, sprinkled with some sesame .  Ahem, the sauce was a bit too spicy for me.  My friend liked it a lot and said it was very 'korean'.  To be fair, I think it is an acquired taste.

I definitely want to go back and try their barbecue sets too.

In Sa Dong Korean Restaurant
Wei Chlen Court Wyler,
335 To Kwa Wan Road,
To Kwa Wan

Happy Together

Not quite a sweet tooth, yet, I cannot resist chocolate.  I like visiting Happy Together once in a while to satisfy my chocolate craving. Molten Chocolate Cake is a mainstay on their sweets menu.  I dare say, their Molten Chocolate Cake is one of the best in town!  Their cake has that slightly crisp shell, and inside it's practically molten and never too sweet.  It is paired with vanilla ice-cream which helps toning down the sweetness.  Simply decadent!

This evening, I decided to try out their Chocolate Souffle.

The Chocolate Souffle came to the table pipping hot, delivered straight from the oven.  It's very chocolaty but light and fluffy at the same time!    Its lightness made it an even better finisher to dinners than Molten Chocolate Cake, which is usually very heavy due to the molten chocolate sauce. Unlike Molten Chocolate Cake, the Chocolate Souffle was pleasantly moist too.

The white chocolate ice-cream was fantastic.  It came with a very rich egg yolk flavor, not very sweet, but complemented well with the heavenly airy parcel.  I am pretty sure the ice-cream was homemade because it tasted like none of the scoops I had in my life.

My friend ordered this very exotic dessert - fried mango ice-cream!  A gigantic mango ice-cream ball was enveloped with a thin pancake; and the whole chunk was deep-fried for a few seconds.   My friend generously offered me a bite.  The ice-cream was good, but not spectacular.  It offered what you expected from a fried ice-cream - the outer was soft and melting, the inner was hard as rock.

But be warned, anytime in the evening period would be very full.  The waiters diligently cleaned your table  when you just barely finished your dessert.  They even left the bill on our table (as a gesture) to shove us out the shop.

Otherwise, the evening here was perfect.

Happy Together
Shop 2, G/F, 5-6 Hau Fook Street, Tsim Sha Tsui

China-T Restaurant

To surprise you, I was first drawn to the restaurant because of its elegant Chinese name, not because of foodies' positive reviews it received on openrice.  小雨天 refers to light shower in Chinese.  Its current English name "China-T" makes no sense.

China-T may not make the best bowls of noodle in town but it is the only restaurant I know in central that serves yunan spicy noodles.

It also serves the spiciest noodles in the central business district.  When most of the world is getting home for the evening when I am just starting my third shift of the day, i.e. the evening shift, I definitely need to stay wide awake and be energized.  Spicy noodles is a very good energizer.

photo courtesy of openrice

Probably inspired by cart noodle, China-T let you custom make your own bowl of noodles.  You may start off by choosing the spice level of how hot you want it.  Then, you can pick your favorite toppings and noodles.   This time, I chose chicken wings, dumplings and enokitake.  The chicken wings were nicely marinated.  The delicious soy sauce permeated the wings thoroughly!  Yum!   Dumplings were boring.  Their skins were a little too thick for my liking.

I have little fear of spices and wanted to rock the spiciest level.  The waitress stared at me sternly as if I were crazy.  She insisted that I should start with "medium-hot".  Turned out she was right - "medium-hot" can already bead my forehead with perspiration.  To be more exact, the spice was not tongue-numbing, but lip-tingling.  I suspect my lips were swollen after the dinner.  If not the spice, the "pork bone broth" would be very bland.

China-T Restaurant Co. Ltd.
G/f, Won Hing Building,
74-78 Stanley Street, Central

The Sweet Dynasty

In this very hot and sizzling night, my friend and I were dehydrated.  I felt very thirsty, groggy and weak all over.  Chinese cold soup maybe a great remedy for this hot heat.

The Sweet Dynasty was a great place for us to rest and whet our appetite.  I heard everything related to Mango in this restaurant is particularly good.  So I ordered my favorite Chinese soup - Mango Pomelo Sago.

The soup was very creamy, bursting with freshness and sweetness of ripe mangoes.  The citrus / pomelo pieces lurking in the depth of the soup were a bit sour, but when contrasted with the tangy sweetness of mango cubes, they shined on their own and brought pleasant surprises to my taste buds!   I really want to know if they made the mango-flavored ice cream themselves too.  When the ice cream melted, it blended very well with the soup and added extra bit of smoothness.

My friend ordered mango-flavored ice-cream serving with fresh fruit.  I didn't try it.  He said it was very good.

The Sweet Dynasty
100 Canton Road,
Tsim Sha Tsui

Cooking 101 - baked stuffed mushroom

Although i have read Pride and Prejudice at least 10 times, I am not that starry-eyed to be led to believe that men are attracted to confident, independent women.

I believe, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.

I had spent most of my life working or studying hectically, with little time to cook.    So, my recipes are not very sophisticated, but the flip side is instructions are easy to follow.   I assure you that 9 times out of 10 the dishes are quite pleasant. 

Last week I baked some stuffed mushrooms.

Ingredients:
Giant mushroom
Mozzarella shreds
Bacon (with fat)
Garlic slices
Duck breast

Steps:

1. You first cut the bacon into little pieces and fry them in a stick-resistant pan;  (Tips: you don't need to add oil before you put in the bacon.  Bacon is already very fatty.  Its fat will be rendered down when heated)
2. Pre-heat the oven for 5 minutes;
3. Put the fried bacon, garlic pieces and  Mozzarella shreds on the mushroom;  (Tips: Mozzarella cheese are easy to melt.  Plus, its taste is not too strong.)
4. Put everything into the oven and bake them for 5 minutes;
5. Sauté the duck breast with the bacon oil.  (Tips: this is to render down the fat in the duck breast)
6. As the finishing, you can add some herbs / pepper to flavor the mushrooms up.  

Men are mostly carnivores.  A BBC news article confirmed this, "duck, veal and ham featured prominently on the male menu".    But feeding solely on meat is not good to health.  You serve the meat with some vegetables.  But usually your men leave the vegetables untouched.  To lure them to finish the vegetables, you need to sprinkle the magic bacon on the dish to make it "edible".  

Cafe Landmark

My best girlfriends from law school and I wanted to catch a breath after a hectic week at work.  One of us suggested to skip our Saturday lunch to try the high tea sets at Cafe Landmark - a gastronomic restaurant frequented by celebrities.  

I never enjoy 3-tiered high tea sets.  Cafe Landmark further confirmed my sentiment.  Obviously the food was done en mass way ahead of time.  None of the savory items was even lukewarm.  

The dim sum tier.  Springrolls were cold and hard.  Abalone Shumais were very bingy - left a bad taste in my mouth.  

Some sandwich tier.  The bread was not very soft and the sandwiches seemed too dry.  The salmon rolls were tiny and didn't look very appetizing.  

The desert tier was slightly better.  The mousse was flavor-wised.  But the blueberry tarts tasted like the chefs forgot to add sugar.   The other pastry items were very odd in texture.  

Thinking in retrospect it was definitely not worth HK$150 / head ... :( Nonetheless, I had a very relaxing afternoon with cups after cups of coffee and had lots of laughter. 

Cafe Landmark

1/F, The Landmark, 

16 Des Voeux Road Central,, Central

Grappa's Ristorante

It's the end of August.  To compensate a whole month of sweat and tears, I decided to splurge on a nice lunch.   My friend suggested we should try the signature squid ink pasta of Grappa's.

I never order squid ink pasta, however delicious, on my dates because I don't want to end up with lips and teeth stained with black ink.  But my friend said it's the pasta that is made out of squid ink, not that it is bathed in squid ink.   I did not quite understand the difference and hesitated...  Oh but you know how easily persuaded I am.... (that is why i am fat!)

After scarfing down the complimentary bread, it was only a short wait for our entrees.

Fettuccine Nere was simply divine!  The creamy sauce was smooth without being overly rich or heavy.  It even came with a tinge of smokiness from some herbs or ingredients which I was unable to identify.  It coated the firm and chewy squid ink pasta evenly.  The prawns were equally good.  They were crisp and fresh, complimenting the pasta nicely.

I'm pretty sure a good amount of basil leaves had been added into our Marghreita Pizza.  We could smell it from a distance before it was served on our table.  The pizza was superb and the fresh sliced tomatoes pairing with Mozzarella were very juicy.   It would be even better if the crust is a bit more crunchy.

After the meal, I felt replenished, relaxed and recharged!  Definitely want to revisit Grappa's in the near future.

Grappa's Ristorante

132 Pacific Place,
88 Queensway, Admiralty,
Hong Kong

Gin Curry

Everyone knows I am a big fan of Japanese curry.

I came to gain a deep appreciation of Japanese curry for its gooey texture and sweet taste when i started preparing my own lunch in secondary school times. The first dish i could make quickly and beautifully was instant curry roux served with omelet rice.

Was particularly delighted to see a small though kinda packed Japanese curry restaurant opened near HKU. It’s dinner time and I was starving. I immediately ventured in and ordered all my favorite food on the menu - burger with cheese, potato wedges, udon and curry! and voila:-

The sauce was not too thick or super watery. It was a really good consistency. But I’d say its taste was a bit too strong for me. The burger was very nicely cooked with a thick piece of melted cheddar cheese on its top. The cheese diffused the slightly-strong taste of the curry and helped flavoring up the curry. Sunny-side up egg and deep fried potato wedges can’t go wrong.

The only blip of this nice experience was the long waiting time. It took almost 10 minutes to receive my food, bear in mind that I was starving! Or else, I won’t be that impatient.

The dishes are pretty reasonably priced in my opinion, given they are pretty large and very fulfilling.

Gin Curry
Shop 2, Hing Hon Building,
63B-F Bonham Road, Mid-Levels