Cucina Harita - Tokyo, Japan
Having had an awesome eating trip so far in Tokyo, I happily obliged when a friend made reservations and invited us here.
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| menu - they don't give you the prices here, until the bill is served up |
Sunday, 12 July 2015
Saturday, 27 June 2015
Sushi Masuda - Tokyo, Japan
This six-seater sushi restaurant was awarded one michelin * at the back of 2014, after only 12 months of opening. Only having received training from the best, Jiro-san, Masuda san went on to open this basement sushi joint which also has a very serious atmosphere. We arrive at 12.45pm with 3 others having already started, and we get seated before the chef asks us if there's anything we don't eat....
Sunday, 14 June 2015
Yoroniku - Yakiniku, Tokyo, Japan
I had heard through the grapevine Yoroniku was one of the better yakiniku places. With a mighty 4.2/5 rating on tabelog, this was definitely a popular destination for locals too. We made our booking a week or so in advance, and they were definitely full on a Friday evening.
We were served by a friendly waitress who spoke perfect English - they grill your meat here for you so you don't overcook anything!
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| menu |
Thursday, 4 June 2015
Aikawa 愛川 - Old school unaju in Tokyo, Japan
I read about this place from Tokyo's Timeout magazine. And after walking off our lunch we decided to check out the place before dinner, a slight trek from the metro.
Whilst we wait for our food we have some edamame and senbei i.e. fried eel bones to snack on. Whilst we've had plenty of edamame, senbei is really a for us. Quite addictively crunchy but it gets quite salty after a while, which makes it perfect with beer.
senbei (fried eel bone)
the glossy box
After a 15 minute wait our glossy box arrives, with a eel liver soup to go with the unaju. The unagi is grilled longer here - katayaki style - so the meat is firmer, and crispier, not very sweet which I enjoyed. The fillets are very large and meaty, and this was only their medium! What if we ordered the largest? The rice beneath is plump and very delicious too.
Medium large eel
Aikawa does serve up an eel quite different from that you would normally have, which is steamed and then grilled making the meat rather soft. The unagi here is not meltingly soft, and has a slight chew and crispiness on the more grilled bits, which I quite enjoyed.
Overall, if you're looking for eel prepared in a different manner, this is a good place to check out ;-).
Food: ♥♥♥ 1/2
Service: ♥♥♥
Price: ¥4,200 for the unaju box, katayaki style (extra grilling, to make the fillets more firm)
うに虎喰 - Tsukiji Itadori Unitora Kurau, Tokyo, Japan
Our first breakfast in Tokyo was na sea urchin specialty store to satisfy our sea urchin cravings... we went to this place by the Tsukiji market and avoided the queues at the popular sushi joints as we were going to get top sushi later.
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| catch of the day |
Monday, 1 June 2015
Tapas Molecular Bar, Tokyo - Fun, interactive molecular gastronomy cuisine
The few months leading up to my Tokyo trip was almost torturous. The moment I booked my tickets I started to research where we would spend our main meal times knowing reservations would be tricky. I know molecular gastronomy isn't everyone's thing but N and I happen to be fans and generally open-minded on food, and so we decided to do a non-Japanese meal at the 1 Michelin starred Tapas Molecular Bar. I'm not too sure how they coined the name as it's not so much tapas than a degustation menu, with no choice but their current seasonal tasting menu. You can of course let them know in advance if you have allergies but generally there's no room for choice.
Compared to the sushi restaurants around town, TMB wasn't too hard to secure bookings at, you simply have to do it early as they only take 8 seatings per night. I made the reservations for the night we landed, so this was our first meal in Tokyo (if you don't count the matcha swiss roll from cha no wa or the ice cream macaron sandwich from Pierre Herme we had 2 hours before dinner ;-).
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| Tool box - essential part of everyone's meal tonight |
Monday, 18 May 2015
Sra Bua by Kiin Kiin - Fine, Modern Thai food in Central Bangkok
Located inside the Kempinski Siam hotel (next to Siam Paragon mall) this restaurant is easy to reach and food and atmosphere amazing. I know they were previously on Asia's 50 best restaurants although for some reason it is no longer on the 2015 guide. That aside, a friend who visited both this and Nahm highly recommend this over Nahm and I took their advice.
Soul Food Mahanakorn, Bangkok - Many expats, but definitely an excellent place for modern Thai eating
Apologies for such a long hiatus! Blogging definitely requires a lot of effort and I admire those who hold a 10+ hour job and can still make time to post their foodie excursions.
I'm currently on a long holiday break and hence have found some time to post my travels of this year. I definitely regret not posting anything whilst away in London, Madrid, Berlin, Paris, Singapore and Philippines in 2014 as I've maintained this blog as a way to remind myself what I've eaten in the past and share with the public pictures of my meals and thoughts for reference. Going forward I'm going to do my best to post blogs on my meals during my travels, and for photos of my meals in HK you may visit gastronomerr.tumblr.com!
On to the good stuff, earlier in May my first stop was Bangkok. I was there mainly for spa and relaxation however did manage to book two restaurants I had read about and wanted to try - desperately! I picked one casual and one fine dining place to see what Bangkok had to offer. Both turned out great, and below is my experience at Soul Food Mahanakorn, which I had read to serve excellent Thai food with small twists to the traditional ingredients/methods.
Saturday, 4 January 2014
Catalunya - Sunday brunch with a lot of spectacle and excellent service
Catalunya was definitely one of the hottest restaurants to open in Hong Kong last year - so for a Sunday lunch I gathered my folks for a stuff-yourself-silly meal...
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| menu |
Tim's Kitchen
Admittedly this is a very belated post, a visit made last October, but a post nonetheless! Happy New Year everybody - the holiday period was definitely enjoyable for me, being a glutton and all....hope all of yours was too!
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| Braised pomelo skin with shrimp roes ($80/pc) |
Really good - not to get into the whole cooking process but the soaking of the skin to remove its bitterness alone takes around 3 days... since this is something I wouldn't bother doing, this is one dish I like ordering. The shrimp roes were fragrant too and seasoning was just right.
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| Chilled marinated goose meat roll ($54) |
Not a big fan of beancurd skin but I liked the filling - different textures and flavours made for a delicious bite.
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| Choice of 2 BBQ meat: BBQ pork and roasted crispy baby pork belly ($118) |
BBQ pork (char siu) was mediocre at best, lacking both sweet and salty flavours, charred bits and wasn't quite tender enough; but that clear five-layered roasted pork belly was as glorious as last time.
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| Double-boiled winter melon soup with shrimps, yunnan ham, crab meat, fungus ($550/7 servings) |
In line with the end-of-summer heat, we pre-ordered this bad boy to share. Luscious winter melon meat with fresh seafood and quality ham... lovely!
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| Deboned Eight Treasure Duck ($500) |
This was fall-off-the-bone tender, one can easily cut through the meat with a spoon. Well-seasoned and something worth ordering in advance for.
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| Barley, chesnuts, green beans, lotus seeds, gingko nuts, egg yolk and various offal including liver. |
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| Two barbeque selection ($118) - BBQ pork and roasted baby pork belly |
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| Oven-baked chicken with preserved vegetables wrapped in lotus leaf ($450) |
This chicken was one of the better Chinese-style chicken dishes I've had. Very tender chicken with basically no fat between the skin and meat, and full-on flavours coming from the bird itself and saltiness from the preserved vegetables. I'll be ordering this again.
Tim's Kitchen deserves its popularity. I have yet to try the taro puff with sliced duck and the fried glutinous rice, and will definitely be back for those!
Food: ♥♥♥♥1/2
Service: ♥♥♥
Price: About HK$300-400
G/F & 1/F, 84-90 Bonham Strand,
Sheung Wan
Hong Kong
T: +852 2543 5919 (bookings highly recommended, many dishes require at least a day's notice)
Tuesday, 8 October 2013
Chicha in pictures - one of my favourite spots in town
I've been to Chicha several times now and each time the food (well, almost every dish) is executed well and I love the intensity of flavours in the dishes...
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| Pisco sours |
Sunday, 6 October 2013
Best pastrami in NYC?
Guess where I am?
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| that queue... all day, every day. |
I'm at none other than the famed Katz's deli, which is known to have queues at any time of the day. However, I don't think they are anywhere comparable to the queues of Hong Kong's Ichiran... yes my home city is some crazy queue-loving place.
Anyway, my belief is that one cannot have truly "eaten" NYC without visiting a proper deli... and since I've heard too much about this place it was only righteous that I paid a visit to Katz's.
Kishoku
I think I just might have found my new favorite sushi heaven. I won't waste your time by giving you a full-on intro on Kishoku, but if you are interested in a little background information, just read this article. We came just before last order and sat at the sushi counter. Our sushi chef came and introduced the menu and recommended we try the deluxe sushi platter... This was what we had come for and so we happily went along.
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| lunch menu |
Saturday, 5 October 2013
Other delicious bits and pieces of NYC
Other eats I'd highly recommend and would revisit on my next trip to New York:
Wafels & Dinges
Bouchon Bakery
Eataly
Big Gay Ice Cream
Wafels & Dinges
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| Belgian waffle |
topped with Speculoos (caramelized cookie butter), strawberries and banana... best breakfast/snack EVER.
Bouchon Bakery
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| Big macs... |
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| Raspberry lemon macaron |
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| Dark chocolate macaron |
So freshy and flavours so balanced, hands down better than any macaron I've had in Hong Kong.
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| Cappuccino |
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| Drip coffee |
La Colombe and Blue Bottle Coffee are must-visits for coffee aficionados.
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| Vegetable station menu |
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| Pinzimonio - bagna cauda dip with a range of raw and cooked veggies |
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| Italian seafood soup from the seafood station |
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| Cappuccino |
Even the coffee at Eataly is really good!
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| Shack stack burger |
Cheeseburger and a 'Shroom burger topped with lettuce, tomato and shack sauce. Cardinal sin not to try this dish. I went to the Madison Square Park branch, of course!
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| Cut in half |
I loved the fried portabella mushroom stuffed with cheese. Any vegetarians would be very happy eating just this between their buns with the shack sauce and a frozen custard. Ahhhhhhh.
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| really good pizza |
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| "Calzone" ($24/16-inch) - tomato sauce, mozzarella, ricotta, mushrooms, spicy salami, ham, basil |
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| "Tartufata" ($23/16-inch) - tomato sauce, mozzarella, mushroom and black truffle pate |
The closest version to Luzzo's pizza base in Hong Kong would be 208 Duecento Otto's but still Luzzo's was a mile a head and at basically half the price?! Incomparable.
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| Look at the crazy assortment of savoury and sweet spreads! |
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| MINE: lox cream cheese, lox, onions, tomatoes on everything bagel. |
Big Gay Ice Cream
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| My "Salty Pimp" of vanilla ice cream cone, dulce de leche, sea salt and dipped in chocolate |
This ice cream truck turned shop is hugely popular and any time of the day you'll find at queue. We were quite disturbed by a homeless man but we were determined to get our sweet fix.... And was it worth it? Well my salty-sweet-cold-creamy combo was definitely worth it!
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| Cousin's "Mermaid" - Vanilla ice cream, key lime curd, crushed graham crackers and whipped cream |
| This post was incredibly hard to write, mostly because many of the tasty foods on here I can no longer eat... fingers crossed my allergy will go away and get my flights booked for my next trip! ;) |
A truly happy meal... Liberty Private Works
For my birthday this year N kindly booked Liberty Private Works for a few of my best (foodie) friends and myself - this meal was truly unforgettable (the food, the company) and I have no idea why I had waited so long to visit - this will definitely not be my last!
Tuesday, 1 October 2013
Sunday Brunching at Bouchon Bistro
I'm not sure why I hadn't visited Bouchon before but I was pleasantly surprised on a recent visit during lunch time on a Sunday. Despite a rocky beginning (they didn't seem to have taken my booking as the restaurant was full and we had to wait for a table despite me having put in a call a week in advance)
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| Brunch menu |
Wednesday, 25 September 2013
A Taste of Spain - BCN
For a belated celebration of M's birthday, we decided on BCN (short for Barcelona), a Spanish restaurant that does only tasting menus.
On this night we were given a choice between two menus - "Trip to Spain" ($628) and "Summer Chef" ($708). As we were first-timers here and being pork lovers we went with the "Trip to Spain" to sound out their suckling pig...
We began our meal with our own platter of goodies. My favourite was hands down the ham but the Manchego with a drizzle of honey and thinly sliced spicy chorizo were delicious all the same.
Fancy Thai - Mango Tree
When a Hong Kong person thinks of Thai food, Kowloon City aka "Thai town" of Hong Kong often springs to mind. No doubt, there is an abundance of cheap and cheerful Thai eateries there although standards have dropped since I was young - my school was nearby and visits to the Thai restaurants in the 'hood as well as Kung Wo Soybean Factory was a must-do every week... Now that I am based on Hong Kong island, trips to Kowloon City is rare and when I do go it's often for the veal goulash cakes, or "牛肉餅" in Muslim Food followed by a bowl of smooth tofu fa at Kung Wo. (If you haven't been already, what are you waiting for?!!)
Anyhow, I do often make trips to Elements - it being easily accessible and all; and one of my favourite restaurants there is Mango Tree. It's first branch in Hong Kong is in the Cubus building in Causeway Bay, but this place has a slightly longer menu and a floor to ceiling windows giving you a wonderful view of Hong Kong.... This place is definitely pricier than the many Thai restaurants around Wanchai, Causeway Bay and Kowloon City but on my couple of visits here the dishes were executed well and tasty.
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| chicken and beef satays with peanut sauce and pickles (($98 ea) |
Sunday, 22 September 2013
Zanzo - izakaya with vegetarian friendly eats!
Visiting Rakuen recently reminded me of another Japanese drinking/eating establishment I enjoy taking friends - Zanzo in hipster area Tai Hang. They have a lovely bar area and small tables surrounding the bar - whilst I wouldn't recommend this for big groups it's definitely somewhere to check out with a partner or a couple others. Part of the Miramar Group, this Japanese 'contemporary bar' has a short but well-executed menu and several daily specials each night; and although one doesn't often think of Japanese places as vegetarian friendly, this place does have a small but good selection that will make any vegetarians happy. Moreover, the prices are ridiculously reasonable.... probably because of its neighbourhood being not as easily accessible (okay it was a good ten minute walk from the MTR, which, is not bad at all!)
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| guess what's this black and multi-colored dish?! |
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