Chez M's

Date: 23rd October 2010

Home Cooking @ M's House

B, M and myself decided we'd organize a dinner party, where the three of us would each prepare parts of a five-course meal for a party of six. We went all-out and just cooking took up a day... but was definitely worth it!

Menu for tonight... 

  Mushroom Soup, prepared by M

White button mushrooms, portobellos, broth, cream

Shallots before cooking in balsamic

Mixed salad, prepared by M

Mesclun mix, baby spinach, couscous, balsamic onions, balsamic vinaigrette

Chicken Drumstick, by B

Drumsticks, parsley, garlic, nam pla

served alongside: 

 Roasted Butternut Squash

Butternut squash, olive oil, rosemary

 Misoyaki Salmon, a dish from me =)

Marinated salmon, Pearl rice

served with: 

 Pickled Cucumbers (before sprinkling the bonito shavings)

Cucumber, rice vinegar-soy marinade, bonito flakes

Impromptu Stuffed Quail, courtesy of A and D

Quail, mushrooms, duck meat, foie gras

 Attempting to make quenelles....

Bitter-sweet Chocolate Tart with Earl Grey Tea Ice-cream, by me

Crispy chocolate tart, 72% chocolate filling, chocolate glaze, hand-made earl grey tea ice-cream

Outcome? Quality food, great company and an honestly great night.... =)

Six Furlong

Date of visit: 25th July 2010

Six Furlong @ Happy Valley Jockey Club

On a Sunday night with nothing planned ahead, we decided to go to Jockey Club for dinner. After buying some of mother's favourite Cane Juice from Kung Lee in Soho we were off to Happy Valley. When we arrived the Food Plaza was damn full so we got in line for Six Furlong to see where we could be seated first. Six Furlong it was...

Our dinner began with the bread basket (house-made baguette + roll) with tuna paste, butter. There were only two kinds, but both were very good tonight. 

For dinner, you could opt for the standard set dinner ($88 for two courses; $98 for three courses - both sets with coffee/tea), or the new steak set dinner ($170-$360~) for an appetizer/soup, your choice of steak main course and French Basque cake, or go a la carte. Between us we chose two two-course set dinners and one steak set dinner.

One of the options for the standard set dinner was one serving from the salad bar. There was quite an array of greens, starches (pasta / potato salad) and dressings to choose from. 

 Another option from the set dinner menu was a simple caesar salad with smoked salmon - romaine hearts lightly dressed with a tangy and creamy caesar dressing and topped with croutons and grated parmesan. They used very fresh ingredients for this one!

Lobster Bisque was one of several choices from the more premium steak set dinner. This one was prepared very well indeed, creamy but not thick, and with only a hint of alcohol (cognac) but rich with flavours from the crustacean. 

Black pepper Beef Hor-fun was one of our standard set-dinner mains. The serving size was quite large, making it impossible to finish. The beef slices were tender but not in a bicarbonate of soda-marinaded way, and well-cooked and seasoned. The hor-fun was nicely fried too, not oily at all, but definitely could not match the hor-fun from Singapore's Swee Ting, because of the lack of wok-hei in comparison. 

Black Cod with wilted spinach and cream sauce (leek) was pleasing to the eye but not quite so on the taste buds. It was honestly quite bland. Everything was cooked very well - in particular the cod, but there was such a lack of seasoning on the fish and the cream sauce I had to make use of the table salt and pepper in front of me to make it more edible. The skin could've been more crisp too, says my brother. 

From the steak set-dinner, there was several selections of grades of meat, from filet mignon to grade 4 Wagyu. My brother decided to go somewhere in-between, a 12-ounce Australian Rib-eye, cooked to medium-rare. While I only tried the fully-cooked outer rims of the rib-eye, I must say they were tender, naturally flavourful and seasoned just right, the best main course for tonight with a little French mustard..! To go with your piece of steak diners were to choose a sauce, a vegetable side and a potato side. We chose garlic spinach and fries to make 'steak-frites', with a mushroom cream sauce that was served on the side. The mushroom flavour from the sauce was so earthy and strong it was definitely a memorable first for us. 

We were so full from all this food all my (normally apparent) desires for sweets were gone. We had the Basque cake (two almond sponge layers with Chantilly cream) to go, which I tried later that night and it was better than I expected, moist and light with hints of almond.... yumm! 

Food:  ♥♥♥♥

Service: ♥♥♥

Price: $$$

Six Furlong

4/F, Hong Kong Jockey Club, 1 Shan Kwong Rd, 

Happy Valley, Hong Kong 

Tel: +852 2966 136060

Watami Japanese Chain Restaurant

Date of visit: 25^th July 2010

Watami @ Sun Arcade, TST

On a Sunday lunch this place is pretty quiet, no long queues, no loud laughter….just peace (well, not quite true as a screaming child came along later….).

A friend and I were here to catch up so we savoured bit of quietness we were given… After looking at the menu full of pictures, we went for the following:

Watami Salad (has a tuna mayo topping, side of sesame dressing, teriyaki chicken and the regular lettuce, tomatoes, carrots etc.)

Dressing

Beef in stone pot rice (more like Korean bibimbap)

Scallop and Tuna sushi rolls

Scallop skewers

Nothing from this meal particularly stood out – salad was okay, beef rice was too spicy after mixing the toppings, sushi rolls were mediocre at most - not as fresh as say, Itacho or Itamae, scallop skewers were cold and too dry. The prices here are reasonably cheap so I wasn’t expecting anything ‘wow’, but I probably won’t return any time soon for the food.

On the other hand, drinks here are quite good - on previous visits I've sampled the passion fruit boba tea + mango yakult smoothie - both very refreshing and tasty!

Food: ♥♥

Service: ♥♥♥

Price: $$

Watami

Basement Shop 09, The Sun Arcade, Canton Road, 

Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong

(other branches in HK)

Tel +852 3156 2567

My favourite 'food plaza' in town

Date of visit : 2nd July 

Food Plaza @ Happy Valley HKJC Members Clubhouse

We arrived at around 1pm, and I don't know about my brother but I was starving. Began my (soon to find very filling) lunch with a small salad ($48) with two bread rolls. 

I normally get attracted to Food Plaza's salad bar because of the bright colours of foods. I picked a bit of everything to try today. In this bowl there was some caesar salad (mix yourself), couscous, already mixed tuna and green bean salad, fried sweet potatoes, mushrooms and cauliflower. I also picked up a side bowl of balsamic vinaigrette and italian dressing to dip the bread and veggies in. 

After 10-15 minutes of ordering, we picked up the wagyu beef burger ($118 - a steal!) which had bacon, cheddar and a very crispy fried egg. This was made skilfully on a hot plate behind the counter.

Sides of mesclun mix and house chips, which were hot and crisp, but we could hardly stomach these as we aren't potato-eaters. 

see the browned egg? It was very very crispy indeed! Egg yolks are also cooked, for those who don't appreciate runny yolks like I do =) 

A cross-section of the burger. 

Their wagyu burger was honestly glorious. So thick, juicy and had a clear taste of beef which melted in your mouth...! I haven't tried the original version here (but i suspect it will be similar to the one I had at Shatin JC Ladies Purse's 200gm ground chuck which was pretty good). If the pictures above don't make you meat-eaters salivate I don't know what else will! 

A couple hours of blazing hot sun (it was at least 34 degrees celcius) later...... 

We had this for tea...

Crepe with fruits ($28) plus a scoop of Movenpick Caramelita ice cream ($25)

The fruits today were melon and pineapple, or for an extra $10 you could opt for pure mango. We had pineapple only as we both don't appreciate melons.... Whipped cream was slightly sweetened and delicious with the crepe. Order for it to be on the side if you don't want the cream to melt in the heat of the freshly made crepe!. Toppings such as nuts, chocolate sprinkles, syrups and chocolate sauce are all complimentary with your crepe - feel free to pile them on =).

cappuccino ($26)

Love love love this international food plaza! 

Food: ♥♥♥♥

Service: ♥♥♥♥

Price: $$$

Food Plaza

4/F, Hong Kong Jockey Club House, 1 Shan Kwong Road,

Happy Valley, Hong Kong