I'm BACK!

Hello followers and readers!

It has been almost 10 months since my last post in Denver and I am thrilled to be at it again for the first time in 2012.  I am currently on vacation in Hong Kong after four great weeks in China for work and instead of checking my work email incessantly, I thought I would take some time to share my love for food and start blogging again.  I can't promise that this will be regular, but you can expect 2-3 posts in the next week at least.

If you know me personally or even professionally, you know how much I love food (and in Hong Kong!), and if Hong Kong does indeed become your next vacation destination I would be happy to be your food consultant.

I've been thinking for a while and I've decided (with much much thought) to abandon the plate score. I invite you to imagine the plate score for yourself and share it with me especially if you go to the restaurants mentioned in my posts.

I thought I would start off with a comparison between 2 Michelin stared restaurants here in Hong Kong, one ultimately more outstanding than the other:  Caprice at the Four Seasons and Amber at the Mandarin Oriental.

Both are incredibly expensive so either come with parents, a for profit company or start a specific savings account for this experience.  The one upside is service is pretty seamless and I always enjoy the "free stuff": Amuse bouche, unlimited bread selection, pre-dessert and of course petit fours (for your eyes to feast on, 1st is Caprice, 2nd is Amber).

First let's explore Caprice. I will not go over each and every single dish otherwise this blog post would become a novel and who has time for that.  I will just go over the highs and lows.

Let's start with the low.  So I've never been to a French restaurant that doesn't serve foie gras in some way.  At Caprice, it was seared and served with a passionfruit carrot puree with cocoa crispies.  Despite the colorful presentation, I tried intently to listen to the server explain the chef's vision for this dish. but the sweet, salty, sour (from the passionfruit) flavors were bizarre and ultimately confusing together.

The second low light was the langoustine carpaccio, beautiful presentation but the temperature was too warm for my palate and peace of mind.  I had flashbacks to epic bouts of food poisoning, not a good to start, luckily the end of the night was just fine.

The first highlight was my dad's lamb 3 ways: rack, tenderloin and braised shoulder. The second was the cheese plate.  Yes, you heard me, cheese.  I can hear all of my cheese friends jumping out of their seats right now.  I never order cheese but it came with our meal so why not right?  My favorite and apparently of excellent choice was the 4 year aged Comte cheese which had these distinct salt crystals that develop during the aging process (the rectangular block in the bottom right corner).  Our waiter proudly explained Caprice has the most complete cheese course in the city and that there are only a dozen or so restaurants in the world that have aged 4 years Comte, most Comte cheeses are aged 1-2 years....I just picked it because it isn't a soft and/or pungent cheese.

Instead of dinner (like Caprice) we opted for lunch at Amber.  There is a lunch set that is relatively affordable in comparaison to their dinner.  The key word is relatively.

So I mentioned that French restaurants find a way to include foie gras on their menu and at Amber it comes in the form of their signature 1st amuse buche: foie gras lollipop. A round ball of pate coated with a liquid sugar coat.  Reminds me of a candy apple in appearance. It was tasty but incredibly rich that I had to promptly stuff a piece of bread to avoid feeling like was I eating a tablespoon of butter.

The appetizer is worth mentioning here. The seared langoustine with chickpeas, chickpea and red pepper puree and the 2 (brown) "raviolis" of mysterious but I assume scientific execution. It was like flavor balloon bursting with shellfish jus and chickpea puree.

Desserts at both restaurants were great but despite the excellent cheese course at Caprice, the unanimous winner is Amber.


This evening we decided to take a break from the fancy stuff and opted for an equally delicious and homemade meal. From top left going clockwise:

1. Fried chinese sweet cruller (basically a Chinese donut but chewy like a pita)
2. 1000 year old (or Century) egg and salted duck egg.  It is not actually 1000 years old, but it might as well be with that color and taste.  You think chicken feet and fish eyeballs are weird, that stuff is amateur.
3. Congee (rice porridge with pork or any variety of your choosing)
4. Boiled Choy Sum (Chinese vegetable)

It's good to be back :)


And if you've decided that my obsession with food is not relevant to your life anymore, I'll be sad but let me know and I can remove you from my emails.