Lunch was one of the most interesting experiences I have had in Hong Kong to date.  For 6 of us, we had a table meant for 12.  Cuisine Cuisine is in a word LARGE.  It may only seat about 80 people but there is enough space for 200.  The decorations are a nice modern touch of off-white with large chandeliers strewn throughout the venue and an air-conditioning system that is second to none.  Finding the bathroom is a difficult ordeal since they used to be concealed in the walls but since I’ve been there before, I luckily knew where the doors were.  The space has a breathtaking view of the west side of central as well as the construction of reclaimed land leading up to the Star Ferry pier.

The food at Cuisine Cuisine at lunch time pales in comparison to dinner but they focus on providing solid Chinese flavors, their own natural Canadian soy sauce, fresh seafood, and natural produce.

It isn’t a chinese lunch without the classic roast pork dish: Char Siu.  At Cuisine Cuisine, their Char Siu is a decently sweet variety which lends itself well to balance the saltiness of the pork.  The pork is also tender and decently streaked with fat in order to create a soft and chewy texture in your mouth.  Small bits of carmelized meat which look completely carbonized are actually really tasty and provide a little crunch with every bite.  The more interesting and luxurious component of this combination dish is the suckling pig: Siu Yuk.  Siu Yuk is literally translated as roast meat.  It’s the perfect pork dish for me since it combines a crispy layer of skin which is normally crisped with hot oil.  Below the crispy layer of skin is a very thin layer of fat.  This is achieved normally by poking tiny holes in the skin before roasting.  The fat from the inside oozes out during the cooking process and helps to crisp the skin.  Below the layer of fat is a wonderfully cooked layer of pork.  The pork is marinated and then cooked with the rest of the entire pig.  This gives the meat a lot of depth and flavor.  The end result is a marriage of the 3 most important parts of the pork: the skin, the fat, and the meat which is currently unrivalled anywhere in the world.  If there is something the chinese got right in this dish, the suckling pig is the epitome of chinese cooking.

Chinese cuisine is normally about opposing elements which in the western world are just downright contradictory.  If you’re looking for simple food, chinese food is definitely not the way to go.  The perfect example of this is this dish which is a Crispy Eel with Sweet and Sour Glaze.  The eel is lightly breaded and deep fried until crispy.  This leaves the skin somewhat chewy and the meat still springy and what italians would call Al Dente.  This is a great texture for eel that most restaurants don’t provide.  The eel is then lightly sauced in a sweet and sour glaze.  One thing that I’m not too keen on is how the chinese feel it is necessary to sauce a fried dish.  Execution of the dish must be perfect to sauce a fried dish since the sauce can essentially ruin the crispy texture of the fried item.  Cuisine Cuisine does this by creating a glaze which sits on top of the crispy eel and prevents it from being too soggy.  At most americanized chinese restaurants and poorly executed chinese dishes, you normally get oversauced fried dishes which are just a soggy mess.  This crispy eel dish however is perfectly balanced but dangerously executed.  Keep in mind, I’m also not a fan of cornstarch based sauces due to their focus on some odd misplaced sense of texture.

The next dish is Pork Short Rib Cubes.  There’s not much to say here.  The short rib cubes are perfectly seasoned, perfectly cooked, and perfectly executed.  It’s all about the timing and the skill of deep frying.  As Tony Bourdain would say: “The fry cook is a master of the fryolater arts”  The short rib cubes are moist on the inside with a slightly crispy exterior.  This dish isn’t for the lazy though because the bone is still left in.  I do have to say however, if the bone wasn’t there, it wouldn’t be very chinese.

I’m not a vegetarian but this dish really makes my mouth water.  In fact, I really dislike poor substitute vegetarians that refuse to eat healthy.  This dish is delicious and is balanced well for a vegetarian so there should be no excuse to eat starches all the time or eat veggie junk food.  What you see in the picture are NOT scallops.  I thought they were deep fried scallops at first but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they were silky tofu.  The wood ear fungus gives a little crunch and depth in flavor while the corn starch based sauce (ugh) actually provided some nice flavor.  The dish would have been fine without the corn starch but it is so ingrained in chinese cooking now that it’s tough to break bad habits.  The tofu is soft and sliky so it explodes in your mouth with a lot of clean flavors.  It was a very surprising presentation and the creator of the dish should be very proud of this dish.

This dish above is crispy chicken.  It’s so simple, yet so easy to mess up.  This dish focuses on cooking the meat inside of the skin first by either roasting or boiling.  The chicken is then doused with hot oil in order to crisp the skin.  When done correctly, the chicken is perfectly cooked and the skin is very crispy.  This is the same concept as the suckling pig and the dish is in my opinion excellent.

Cuisine Cuisine’s fried rice is excellently done.  The rice is not too sticky and the shrimp, eggs, and scallions are all perfectly cooked.  This dish focuses on wok skills which most westerners have no idea of how to handle.  I’ll be writing more on wok skills and cooking in a wok in a later post.

Dessert is not always a necessity for me but for many chinese, it’s their lifeblood because they can’t seem to get enough sugar in their diet.  This dessert by Cuisine Cuisine is not too sweet but just sweet enough to be a nice elegant dessert.  The chinese have a hard-on for gelatin and anything jello like.  This dessert of gwai fa (an edible flower) jelly and what seemed like milk pudding with red bean on the bottom.  It’s elegant jello in nice molds.  The flavors are deep and penetrating so be prepared to taste some very floral flavors.

I’m about to go somewhere tonight that will be in a completely different context from when I first went.  The experience is different this time around.  Same me, same restaurant, same chef, different city.  It’s not so much unlike a lot of other restaurants that now span globally like a vast network of what is universally called “the best”.  Who was it that said “Hey this is a GREAT restaurant, we should have multiple locations worldwide!”?  Why bother opening up the same place with the same name and the same chef?  Is it really “the best” at anything?  These are all questions I ask myself when I think of “chain” restaurants.

I’m originally a New Yorker.  I’m familiar with “the city” in a way that most others read in books.  I see the good, I see the bad, and I see the imitators.  I once made it in the great city of New York and I’ve now transplanted myself to a place that is considered the New York of Asia: Hong Kong.  I figure, if I made it in NYC, I should have no problem making it in Hong Kong.  Is it really familiar?  Not at all besides my previous travels here.  It smells different, it looks different, and it IS different.  It’s a whole different world from New York and I would have to say that to imitate NYC, would be an effort that would be both futile and stupid.  Why would you want to imitate NYC of all places?  Gray Kunz of Cafe Gray understands the same thing since he’s like me: a transplant from NYC to HK.  We’ve seen it all in NYC.  We’re just not sick enough to want the same thing here in HK.

I remember it was fall and shades of yellow, orange, and brown covered the sidewalks around Columbus Circle.  In front of me was a monument to the rich: Time Warner Center.  It had it’s own shopping mall and grocery store just like Times Square in Hong Kong.  The apartments in the Time Warner Center were some of the most expensive in NYC and this monstrosity would be where Cafe Gray would first open.  Back then, I remember having champagne in the front bar where important food and wine people would mingle.  In the back of the bar, a dining room with a fantastic view and an open kitchen.  This was the image I remember of Cafe Gray.

Cafe Gray Deluxe now is on top of the Upper House: the luxury hotel of the top floors of the Marriot Hotel in Admiralty.  Up on the 49th floor, you could see most of Central and across the harbour to Tsim Sha Tsui.  It’s a fantastic view that really takes your breath away.  The dining room is beautifully decorated with modern fixtures and high ceilings creating a very weightless, contemporary design, that is warm, inviting, and lush.  On the left, a semi-open kitchen works diligently to perfect your meal while on the right is a beautiful bar with a stunning view of the Hong Kong skyline.  Even the bathrooms share this view and are quiet.  Let’s put it this way: it’s VERY comfortable at Cafe Gray.  I sit down with Sammy and prepare for a somewhat familiar meal.

As I sit down and look out at the view, I think to myself: What am I in store for today?  Knowing the mind of Gray Kunz, I am ready to receive a very comfortable yet amusing meal.  My allusions to my mind’s illusions of this meal quickly fade as I order.  Make no mistake, this is cafe food albeit upscale cafe food.   I order Caesar salads for both of us to start and then for myself, Cafe Gray’s own version of steak tartare, for Sammy, a chardonnay and truffle risotto.  Total cost for the meal: about HKD$1450.  Was it worth it?  I would say yes if you’re looking to contemplate your food after you eat it.  If you’re going for direct and forward flavors, you’ll have wasted your money.

So let’s start with the bread and dip.  The bread is a caraway seed/sourdough tasting bread.  It’s sliced and made available for dipping into the spiced yogurt olive oil dip that I would only call a liquid Labneh.  Even worse, the server can’t pronounce most of the food correctly and we’re stuck guessing at what the stuff in front of us is.  The bread is OK.  It’s not fantastic bread and it’s not the worst bread I have had.  It’s made decently but isn’t like some of the bread I’ve tasted at other establishments with a quarter of the resume that Cafe Gray has.  The dip however is possibly the most over-processed dip I have ever encountered.  There’s nothing to it.  With a tapenade or hummus, you would get texture and flavor.  This labneh is close to flavorless except for some slight twinge of sourness.  The texture is smooth like mayonnaise and I thought that some simple olive oil with black pepper or some good butter would have been better compared to this.  If it was the intention to whet the appetite with a white tasteless smooth mayo-like dip, I would say the flavors failed to produce such a result.  Was it a necessary risk to success: no, not at all.  First impressions are made the first time food comes to a customers eyes, then their mouths.  Failing to produce this initial impression made it very tough to consider Cafe Gray a great restaurant instead of a good restaurant.

The Caesar salad came next.  I didn’t know what to really think of it then and I still don’t know what to think of it now.  The dish was obviously envisioned by a man with execution of a woman.  No, I’m not sexist but if you order a Caesar salad at Cafe Grey, you’ll understand what I mean.  What you get is a rather large heart of romaine that is doused in what looks like a store bought Caesar salad dressing with mustard seeds.  On the butt end of your romaine heart, you’ll find a pickled anchovy fillet.  It’s a simple and whole romaine heart which takes about 10 seconds to slap on a plate.  This all comes on a long rectangular plate that is quite challenging to eat out of.  First thing that came to my mind was “WTF?  Did the Garde Manger take the day off and nobody in the restaurant is capable of preparing a romaine heart or even dress it properly?”   Obviously, that couldn’t be the answer but it was a first reaction.  The second thing that came to mind was “Was the Garde Manger following the simple rule ‘customers pay to have us NOT fuck up their food’?”  Lastly the third thing that came to my mind was “Is this a time saving dish since Caesar salad is normally a compulsory item on menus?”  To this moment, I still can’t decide what was going on with this Caesar salad.  Caesar salad in my mind is a staple item that even though is boring, represents the lengths of quality that the kitchen staff would go to, to ensure that a favorable impression is made.  Again, this isn’t what I was expecting.  For around the same cost, I could have gone to Simply Life in the IFC and gotten an AWESOME Caesar salad.  I don’t know whether I should slap the Garde Manger for this insulting dish or hug him for not tearing apart the heart of romaine.  The two views of this dish are quite disparate and the menu description just isn’t enough to describe the dish accurately.  Essentially, they should call it for what it is:  Whole heart of romaine drizzled with mustard caesar dressing and garnished with a pickled anchovy.

Sammy’s risotto was also a little confusing.  The menu description was adequate but the dish lacked full depth of straightforward flavor.  The risotto was prepared using chardonnay, butter, cheese, and two types of truffles.  Supposedly this would be a very fragrant dish but when it came to the table, the risotto was a little stiff and the aroma of fresh shaved truffle was gone.  They probably should have had a server shave the truffle as to not destroy the scent before it reached the table.  The shaved truffle was also on the very weak side and provided little flavor to the dish.  It had the correct amount of truffle, it just wasn’t very good truffle.  The diced black truffle in the risotto helped to retain most of the truffle flavor and some of the aroma.  In more discerning restaurants, the dish probably wouldn’t have left the kitchen in it’s current state but with the high ingredient cost and a HKD$500 pricetag, it was a good gamble to send it out.  Most people wouldn’t send back a truffle dish.  I’m also not in the business of destroying restaurants even though I do review them from time to time.

My steak tartare was a real shocker.  It’s a non-traditional steak tartare that I wasn’t really expecting.  Normally most steak tartare I have had in the past are served and assembled table-side with add-ins such as egg yolk, capers, hot sauce, mustard, onions, worcestershire sauce, olive oil, salt, and pepper. This makes for a taste that is somewhat salty, sour, spicy, and slightly bitter with a bite.  While that is very tasty to me, the asian palate is very different.  The asian palate is completely against those flavors and this steak tartare was designed for the asian palate since it is slightly sweet, savory, and with a small amount of acid.  I also thought that this was one of the most amusing dishes to serious steak tartare addicts like me.  This specific recipe is made with Kunz’s very own “ketjap” which is a great sweetener to savory dishes.  It also helps kill off the acidity from the capers and mellow out the meat which I believe was hand-cut fillet mignon.  While this variation is the antithesis of what I believe to be steak tartare to be, it doesn’t make it any less enjoyable.  I personally found it very amusing to have the steak tartare taste like a McDonald’s double cheeseburger without the cheese.  The commingling of the ketchup, mustard, and pickle on a double cheeseburger is replicated excellently with Kunz’s ketjap and capers.  It’s a flavor that is deep and satisfying that I think asians will come back to eat again and again.  If you’re asian and you want to enjoy a good steak tartare, Kunz’s take on the dish is your key to the finer things in life!

Overall, my experience at Cafe Gray was great due to the view, the interesting food, and the amusing antics of our server.  If you’re shopping at Admiralty’s Pacific Place mall and want a great tasting experience, go to Cafe Gray.  I promise you’ll get a great view, a comfortable seat, an excellent but non-traditional steak tartare, and a funky heart of romaine (to contemplate when you’re bored).  Is it close to the New York version?  No way but this is Hong Kong.  If you don’t walk and talk like a asian, you’re missing the fun of being in such a great city.

Holly Brown's Ristretto Macchiato

It’s a great day in Central, Hong Kong today.  The sun is shining, the  air is warm, and my tummy is growling.  What am I craving?  What have I been craving for over 3 weeks now?  It’s Pho and a great cup of coffee.  Where would I go to find such delicacies in Hong Kong?  Close to anywhere in Hong Kong but for today, I want something a little more special.  Enter Nha Trang and Holly Brown.  No, they’re not my ethnic friends, they are 2 establishments in Central sandwiched between the 2 neighborhoods of SOHO and the Financial district.  It’s all pretty much Central but the location is a no-mans land per se.

Nha Trang

Nha Trang is a chain… yes, they may be a chain but they make damn delicious Pho.  For those of the uninitiated, Pho is noodle soup.  A savory, sweet, spicy, sour, umami noodle soup that cleanses the body of toxins and fulfills the longing of your soul.  Who else is in my ranks of agreeing with me, tons of chefs, foodies, and bloggers.  Just search for Pho in food blogs in the blogosphere and you’ll undoubtedly find craptacoloads of posts.  So why am I writing about Pho?  I’m writing for my own journal because 80 years down the line when cows are extinct, the planet is whithering, and I can’t remember where I left my pants, I can then reminisce about the taste of the Pho from Nha Trang.

So here’s some of what Anthony Bourdain calls food porn for you readers:  Nha Trang’s Pho has 3 major components: the noodles, the broth, and the toppings.  The broth is in short a delicious alchemy of beef bone marrow,  beef tendons, beef brisket, and a blend of spices.  The natural flavor of the marrow and tendon comes through as a savory yet sweet liquid with a long, body warming finish.  Even though the consistency is light, the flavor boldly presents itself as you sip it.  So what of the noodles?  The rice noodles are a flat, slightly firm, silky texture that have some bite to them.  They aren’t paper thin like some other Pho that I’ve had but they are thick enough to be substantial on the palate.  They absorb the flavor of the broth as well as the toppings.  Why do I divide everything else into the toppings category?  It’s because I’m a nutcase who likes to separate flavor components from textural components.  Sammy calls me somewhat obsessive compulsive when it comes to food.  The toppings for Pho Tai Nam are divided into two categories: meat and non-meat.  The meat is a delicious slow boiled brisket which melts in your mouth as you chew.  The flavor is sweet just like the broth but the fat taste like the animal that it came from and that is what I call character.  The other meat in the Pho would be the thinly sliced raw beef shoulder which is lean and cooked only slightly by the steaming hot broth.  The raw beef, creates more character in the broth the longer it stays in the broth but I’m a bloody carnivore so I eat them quickly to savor their full flavor.  The texture of the raw beef is a soft and slightly juicy due to the blood.    As I eat the raw slices, they develop into a very savory yet mineralic taste on my tongue.  The non-meat toppings consist of fresh, crunchy bean sprouts, a freshly sliced onion, lime wedges, basil leaves, coriander leaves, a nuclear looking but mild chili paste, and some sliced vietnamese chili peppers.  The combination of the non-meat toppings creates the multiple flavors in the ending broth that not only aide in digestion but taste like the best savory, sour, medicinal, spicy broth you have ever tasted.  I like to steep the non-meat toppings in the broth until they release their flavors and brings some more depth to the entire dish.

Have I had Pho in Vietnam?  The answer is yes, in a small shop with white tiles and a non-descript vietnamese crowd.  So how does the broth compare?  It’s about right but everywhere you eat is different and unlike a lot of travel shows out there, I’m the type of person that takes in the food and moment.  You can have excellent Pho in a lot of places in the world but each one will taste different and each one will have different characteristics because the food you eat changes with time, space, and circumstance.  Is it still “authentic” when the food is half the world away?  It’s a judgment call that you need to make for yourself.  For me, authenticity means how close it is to the intended flavor that the chefs/cooks want you to get.  Even if I am eating Pho in Hong Kong, it’s still damn tasty and I have to say much higher in quality than some other places in Hong Kong.  Do I still slurp the noodles and lift the bowl to inhale the broth?  You betcha because that’s my style of eating Pho.  I don’t like getting a little of everything on the spoon like some others.  I like to eat things sequentially to give each ingredient individual attention.  It’s like a religion or a step by step guide.

Alex’s steps for eating Pho:
1.  Taste the broth
2.  Squeeze lime wedges on beef and add chili sauce to beef, noodles, and broth.
3.  Taste broth 2nd time to make sure it tastes right
4.  Submerge non-meat toppings to flavor the broth
5.  Eat raw beef pieces to savor them while still slightly cold
6.  Eat brisket and other meat toppings
7.  Eat non-meat toppings
8.  Slurp and eat the noodles with chopsticks in one hand and spoon in the other
9.  Drink broth by picking up entire bowl

Holly Brown

So where in Hong Kong do I get a good coffee?  Well, there are several places but the first one I’m visiting is the newly opened Holly Brown.  So what makes their coffee superior to Starbucks?  LOTS.  Starbucks isn’t a horrible institution but normally leaves much to be desired especially compared to the Italian Cafes I’ve been to and the artisanal coffee shops I’ve been to worldwide.  I’ll give you readers a run by with step by step basics so you understand coffee and the art of being a barrista along with it.

So the first thing that happens when you walk into a cafe is that you place your order with a cashier who then screams out the order to a barrista to make the coffee.  If you’re drinking percolated coffee, that means the monkey behind the bar pours the stuff out of the percolator or carafe.  Simple right?  Nope, it’s not really that simple.  Coffee is an amalgamation of a bunch of different steps that the general consumer normally never gets to see.  Coffee beans are first grown in various regions of the world.  Each region of the world will produce beans that taste different.  In the case of Holly Brown, they are using Brazilian beans today.  Coffee beans when raw are little yellow looking things not unlike soybeans.  Those then need to be roasted in order to bring out the true flavor of the coffee.  Now while old methods had the coffee roasting where the coffee was picked, new methods are now to ship the raw beans to shops which then use their own roaster to roast the beans.  Holly Brown has 2 of their own coffee roasters onsite which helps to produce a much better flavor than pre-roasted beans.  Why is it so different?  Well, the beans release oils after they are roasted which dissapate and dry with time.  These oils are essential to the flavor of the coffee.  There are different levels of roasting and if you roast too long, you can literally vaporize the essential oils from the coffee.  The same applies if you roast for not long enough and no oil comes out of the bean.  It’s a delicate balance that the master roaster needs to decide.  The roast also determines how bitter the coffee is and how it will taste.  If you fail to extract these oils and include them when you brew your coffee, you get a tasteless, bitter coffee which is a lot like what Starbucks churns out of their stores day in and day out.  The next big factor in flavor is the level of the grind which depends on what type of machine you are making the coffee from.  The finer the grind, the more flavor and the more caffeine you extract from the coffee.  So how do we determine the level of the grind?  Well, that’s up to the grinder.  At Holly Brown, they use a decently fine ground but not too fine of a ground to maximize flavor without maximizing the caffeine or bitterness.  This is all a part of experience and skill of the barista making the coffee.  At Starbucks, it’s now preset from large grinders which means that you’re playing russian roulette every time you order a coffee.  Most times, you’ll get a mediocre shot of espresso from their grinds but at special moments especially for whatever monkey they have as a Barista, you can get a fantastically fucked up coffee which will taste like the bottom of an ashtray.  If you’ve ever gotten a cup with those grinds at the bottom, it means that you got something that even a dog won’t drink.

So now that we know how the flavors are developed in coffee, we need to look at how to make the wonderful suspension that is the liquid form of coffee.  The old method of making coffee was percolated coffee which is basically passing hot water through ground coffee beans to extract the flavor.  While this method is great for standard coffee, the caffeine content is increased when using this extraction method and the flavors don’t come through as strongly as espresso which is a different method of extraction.   The Italians invented the espresso machine which is possibly the best way to extract the flavors of coffee right now.  At Holly Brown, you get a decently experienced Barrista that can adjust the grind, the pack, and the extraction speed to produce a great cup of espresso.  How can I tell?  Well, it took me some time before to do research and see what makes coffee taste so good.  A great espresso always comes out at a particular speed from the machine with an almost syrupy consistency which then turns to a creamy brown from air emulsifying the oils of the coffee.  This topper is called “crema” which is the height of the espresso experience.  If your shot of espresso didn’t have a thick crema, you are not really tasting the coffee.  Holly Brown does this fantastically and I get a very thick crema in my shots.  At Starbucks, it’s rare that I get a crema and about 60% of the time, I get an overextracted shot which makes the entire thing taste very bitter with no characteristics.  That’s either due to lack of care, increase in speed, or just a general lack of knowledge that the shot is overextracted. The second part that most of you latte and cappuccino drinkers will immediately notice is the quality and care taken with the milk or in Italian “latte”.  Traditionally all lattes and cappuccinos are made with skim milk.  Both Starbucks and Holly Brown don’t recognize this fact and normally make their lattes and cappuccinos with whole milk in order to fit the Hong Kong palate.  At Holly Brown, I find that the baristas respect the ingredients and they do not scald the milk like the Starbucks ones that scald the crap out of the milk.  So while it may seem that these nitpicking details are seemingly the obstructions to enjoying a good coffee, the proof is in the cup.  If you don’t believe me, take a Starbucks latte to Holly Brown and compare.  You’ll notice a bucketload of difference.

I really enjoyed the skim latte which was beautifully decorated with 3 leaves.  The decoration isn’t necessary but if you have the possibility for decorating, it normally means that the shot was extracted properly and that the latte was not scalded.  These are the basics.  I then later went back for a ristretto macchiato (which isn’t on the menu) and they were able to pump out an excellent shot with a luscious crema and topped it off with a perfectly textured stain of milk.  Why would I drink such a douchebag sounding coffee?  Because it’s GOOD.  It matches perfectly extracted ristretto shot (that’s a shorter shot of espresso with less caffeine and more flavor)and gives the barista a chance to show off their latte skills.  Is it too pretentious to drink these coffee creations?  For me, it’s about tasting art and skill.  If every day started with a ristretto macchiato, I would be in heaven.

Holly Brown not only serves hot coffees but also cold coffees which also taste the way that coffee SHOULD taste.  Sammy ordered an iced latte which was done Pousse-cafe style with the espresso on the top and the milk on the bottom.  I should also mention that they serve gelato which unlike their real Italian counterparts are mixed with the fix-ins on-site.  Why would such a place do it that way?  It’s called service which is something that I prize very highly.  They take pride in their work at Holly Brown and it’s an excellent thing to see.

If you liked these small mini-reviews, send me an e-mail and let me know.  I may also talk more about the decor in most of these places as well.  Until then, stay tuned for my next exciting post!

So it’s been about 2 months since my tumultuous exit from a dancing career in Hong Kong and I’m now gainfully employed.  A contact of one of my best friends back in NYC hooked me up with a job so I’m not a crazy mess of a human being in this world.  Life has it’s ups and downs and I’m finding myself on a nice upward trend.  So great, now that I have income, I can afford to do what I like to do: eat, sleep, play with techie crap, and enjoy life.  This blog was started not as a dancing blog or as a food blog.  It was my personal blog and remains to this day completely fueled by my own income both as a business owner and also as a techie.  So I’m hoping to write more about what I want to write about in this blog in the hopes that many misguided human beings read this crap and like it.

So what’s my next move?  Well, I’m going to Holly Brown (cool new cafe featuring the 2009 Grand Barrista Championship Hong Kong winner) tomorrow since my significant other is the 100th fan of their facebook page and won a coffee.  I’m also planning on having one of my favorite things: Pho at Nha Trang.  We have a Canon 550D that I purchased as well as my iPad which I should write more about.  I’ve also turned a page and started reading Tony Bourdain’s Medium Raw for kicks since I loved his previous book Kitchen Confidential and I’ve also met the guy in person.  I really enjoy in his books, his twisted, misguided humor and how his wreckage of a life has paved all his futures in gold.  In person, he’s a giant.  I know asian people are short but he is HUGE.  People that know me also know I don’t read books.  I normally read articles in newspapers, blogs, etc… just to keep up with what’s going on in the world.  I do all of this on my trusty iPad now so it’s become a very indispensable tool.  So I’ve boiled down my life to food, tech, and sleep… great, that simplifies things a lot.

Things still haven’t changed with Hong Kong or New York City for me.  As much as I love NYC, it’s still a husk of a city I once knew and I think that more experiences are waiting for me in Asia.  Hong Kong is the new megalopolis of change in the world and I want to be here and be a part of it when it happens.  Even though I’m in Hong Kong now, I’m still a born and bred New Yorker at heart so you (my readers) will get all of my New Yorky goodness, sarcasm, and general disdain for bullshit.  Look out world, here I speed-walk!!!

The second activity Sammy and I did today was take the ferry from Central to Hong Hum, and then to North Point. NYC never had any stable mass transit on the waterside to and from queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx so the ferries in Hong Kong are great ways to get around if you have time. For about HKD$6.3, you can get a scenic ride from Hong Kong to Kowloon. Victoria Harbor was very pleasant today due to the sun so during nice days, a nice ride on the ferry really helps to bring the flavor of Hong Kong to light. For those of you visiting Hong Kong, definitely take a ride on the ferries as well as the trolleys. You will see much more of Hong Kong at a very affordable price. I would also suggest getting an Octopus Card so you can just RFID your way around Hong Kong and Kowloon. The transportation in Hong Kong is affordable, scenic, technologically advanced, efficient, and effective. NYC’s MTA just can’t compete on this level.

Again, thank you to all my readers and I will be back to write more about our adventures in Hong Kong.

The lobster is done in 2 ways: Butter Baked Spiny Lobster or Cheese Spiny Lobster.  Butter Baked Lobster combines the savory flavor of butter with a slightly crisp lobster from the oven.  Cheese Spiny Lobster on the other hand is a baked lobster with a crunchy cheese shell on top.  Both versions are delicious and exquisite.

Next were the soy sauce clams.  They were still moving around only minutes ago and now they are on a plate with delicious soy sauce and garlic.

Tiger Grouper is filleted and then sauteed with spring onions, celery, and garlic.   The springy texture of the Tiger Grouper with it’s slightly chewy skin makes for a very fresh experience when tasting the fish.

Garlic Vermicelli Scallops are served on their own half shell and are steamed until slightly firm.  The scallop liver is pretty much foie of the sea and the silky smooth texture of the scallops are complimented with savory garlic vermicelli and finished with hot oil.  These really are some of the best scallops I have had this year.

Garlic Sticky Rice with Crab Fat is possibly one of the most delicious crab delicacies available in Asia.  The large crab is lightly sauteed first and then added to a steamed garlic sticky rice.  Combining the crab fat with the rice makes for a very rich, melt-in-your mouth sensation that combines the freshness of the ocean with subtle garlic sticky rice.  The dish is something that an Italian Chinese would dream up of and is executed to the asian palate.