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