Hong Kong: Day Two

Our breakfasts in Hong Kong tended to be fairly quick affairs, given that we still didn't know what people ate in the mornings. On our way to Victoria Peak, we popped into another convenience eatery called Can:teen.



The char siew paus I had for breakfast were actually not bad; fluffy and filled with sweet barbecued meat.

Day Two was spent in search of some eateries recommended by my sister, who's an old hand at exploring Hong Kong.



One of these places is Sweet Dynasty, which is a really outrageous pun on the Chinese word 'Tang'. It's apparently famed among Singaporeans for its desserts, which are indeed various and sweet, but they also do regular meals.



Its popularity is fairly obvious - the place is packed with people, from grannies to kids; clearly Sweet Dynasty isn't just a marketing gimmick.



I had a double-steamed rice with pork ribs, though they weren't really ribs, more like assorted pieces of bony meat.



No meal in Hong Kong is complete without dim sum, so we decided to order a few items from Sweet Dynasty's (very limited) dim sum menu. The shrimp rice flour rolls weren't bad, sweet and delicate and smooth all at the same time.



The steamed rice flour balls filled with custard, though, were quite appalling. The custard filling was powdery and coarse, dry and tasteless. I was rather disappointed by this sad offering.



The char siew paus weren't much better; we agreed that the ones I had for breakfast were vastly superior, and given that they came from a convenience eatery, did not speak well of Sweet Dynasty.



Nicholas ordered us a ma la gau, which I'd never heard of before. Eventually we learned it's the same thing as what I call a thousand layer cake (qian cheng gau), but the one at Sweet Dynasty looked like a big sponge. Again, nothing particularly impressive.



The saving grace, thankfully, was dessert. I had the mango pudding, which came embedded with generous cubes of sweet mango fruit. The pudding was firm and creamy, a fairly uplifting finish to an otherwise uninspired meal. I'm not sure what makes Sweet Dynasty so popular, but it's probably not the food.



As we spent most of the evening in the vicinity of Ladies' Street and the Temple Street Night Market, we meandered our way into one of the ubiquitous restaurants bordering the road (after first being careful of avoiding any eatery that had any tourists or Westerners in it). It apparently served award-winning fishballs, and after tasting one, I could see why. Firm and fleshy, it was plump, succulent and bursting with intense flavours without being overpoweringly fishy.



I had a stir-fried sliced beef dish served over steamed rice. Simple and luxurious, the sauce was rather heavy on the cornstarch, but they were quite generous with the beef, and I was only too happy to get away from the numerous dodgy-looking seafood stalls that virtually screamed 'tourist trap' to complain about the food.

Technorati Tags: Miscellaneous, Food, Hong Kong

Hong Kong: Day One

Our first meal in Hong Kong was lunch, and as it was late, we were too hungry and desperate to go hunting down recommendations from our Lonely Planet guidebook, so we decided to just pop into the nearest convenience eatery.



There are loads of "Cafe de Coral" outlets around Hong Kong, a little like our foodcourts, except that the whole place is occupied by one stall, AND you pay upfront, even before you order your food.



My roast pork rice was rather mediocre; although if you do find yourself eating here, their char siew rice is much better.

I feel we were rather spoiled, as it was arranged by an extremely generous Mr. Edmund Ching that we should have dinner at a restaurant he is a shareholder of. FINDS, short for Finland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden, is one of the top restaurants in Hong Kong, in fact Lonely Planet lists it as the top restaurant in the Central/Lan Kwai Fong area, an excellent meeting venue for a pre-clubbing meal.

Given that it was Monday evening, there were no pre-clubbing crowds, so we were fortunate enough to experience the full force of their extremely polished service. Our every need was seen to by the helpful and friendly staff, and dinner was to be a multi-course degustation prepared by Executive Chef Jaakko Sorsa.



Our first course was a fish-heavy offering designed to showcase the variety of Scandinavian cuisine. There was a lavaret mousse, smooth and cloudy, perfect with the restaurant's home-made crisps of dark rye bread. Next was a sort of gravlax, cured slices of salmon seasoned with dill. There were also some potato blinis folded over a lavaret fumet, and some smoked venison to round off our plate of starters. An excellent beginning, and a real eye-opening experience into the sophistication of modern Scandinavian cuisine.



This was quickly followed by lightly-grilled salmon in a morel sauce. Chef Jaako has an exquisitely deft touch with his seafood, using extremely fresh ingredients and combining robust flavours with muted ones, hence the salmon and morel pairing.

As an aside, the restaurant manager, a Swiss, told us that Swiss morels are edible straight from the ground, while Finnish morels were poisonous and had to be boiled twice before they could be eaten. Intrigued, I have since discovered that this likely refers to the false morel, as all true morels are edible.



Our next course was an amazing tomato soup. It was so foamy that you could literally just dig into it with your spoon; it was like eating a cloud. The best thing about it was that it was so intense, yet so clear, almost as if it was just pure tomato essence. Imagine our surprise when Chef Jaakko revealed that the soup was made from pounds and pounds of red tomatoes, distilled till only the clearest tomato oils were obtained. Little surprise, then, that we all enjoyed this immensely.



Our first meat course was a venison tenderloin, a fairly robust meat that was served with some glazed vegetables and a celeriac puree. Venison imparts a stronger flavour than beef, but the tenderloin was surprisingly soft and easy to eat all the same.



I was getting kind of full by this point, but there was no stopping the chef. Next came a cut of ribeye that had a healthy and tender marbling of fat ensuring an extremely succulent slice of meat. The parsnip puree served as a secondary sauce and helped to balance out the richness of the steak.



Dinner finished with a platter of desserts, including some homemade yoghurt sorbet, a fantastic chocolate mousse cake, an interesting rhubarb soup and a fresh fruit jelly.

Incredibly stuffed and delectably satiated, I was most grateful to my gracious host for giving me this rare opportunity to enjoy some really amazing cuisine. FINDS is definitely a restaurant you should visit if you're ever in the area.

FINDS (Scandinavian)
2/fl, LKF Tower
33 Wyndham Street
Central
Hong Kong
(Entrance on 55 D'Aguilar Street, Lan Kwai Fong)

Tel: +852 2522 9318
Email
Website

Review: Sage

I know it's a bit gratuitous to post a review of Sage after the extensively-covered food bloggers' dinner, but I thought a more objective review might be better, and fairer, to both readers and restaurant.

Of course, how 'objective' the review is is questionable, given I've been here before and the staff know me, which is usually not the case in most of my other incognito reviews. Still, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.



The restaurant's unassuming exterior is nice and understated, almost like the frontage of a residential verandah, which mirrors their food and reputation - a subtlety that belies their true sophistication, rather like the herb which is their namesake.



Ambience here is fantastic, with large mirrors and french windows that create an impression of space, but ample mellow lighting and dark wood furniture still manages to convey cosiness. I'm greatly impressed by Chef Jusman's ability to work out of such a small kitchen, rivalled only by Oscar of Buko Nero. Unlike Oscar, though, Jusman clearly has no qualms of people watching him work, as there's a chef's table right in front of the kitchen that allows you a generous view.



Our complimentary amuse-bouche took the form of a sort of pork gravlax with a citrus dressing. The meat itself tasted like a coarse pate, chilled and flavourful, its richness balanced out by the sourness of the citrus. Certainly enough to pique the interest and appetite, setting the tone for the rest of the dinner.



Once again I had Chef Jusman's creative interpretation of escargots - a fricassee of Burgundy escargot with lentils du puy, field mushrooms, poached egg and Italian parsley foam. I used to think that some classic dishes are so hallowed that they should never be changed; but truly great cooking is not merely reproducing what's been done - it's dynamically reinterpreting what others never imagined possible. The fricassee of escargot is just such a dish, excellent in both conception and execution. The richness of the poached egg's yolk takes the place of the traditional butter, and the pairing of escargot, mushrooms and lentils works magnificently. The parsley foam, too, is a masterstroke of presentation.



Having cut his teeth (and burnt his hands - check them out) at the Hilton's Harbour Grill, Jusman has certainly learned well. A restaurant lives and dies by its foie gras, so we duly ordered a portion of pan-fried foie gras on caramelised Granny Smith apple slices, paired with golden raisin puree, and an emulsion of Muscat grape jus and beurre noisette ($8 supplement).

The first thing you notice is that the foie gras is huge. It's been a while since I've seen such a generous portion of foie. The second and last thing you notice before you lose yourself in this wonderful serving is that Chef Jusman definitely knows his foie gras. Rich and sinfully smooth, the natural fatness is rounded out by the sweet apple slices and raisin/grape emulsion. The addition of some walnuts provides a brilliant contrast of textures as well.



After hearing me extol the numerous virtues of the chestnut and oxtail soup, it was inevitable that my entire family decided to try it. Once again, it was amazing, almost as good as when I put the first spoonful in my unsuspecting mouth at the floggers' dinner, but only because allowances have to be made for diminishing utility. The soup is not available on the regular menu, but I strongly urge anyone going to Sage to call Kimberly and place an order for this amazing consomme. It's not something you should miss out on.



I decided to try something new for my main course, so I went with the gratineed medallion of grain-fed Angus beef cheek topped with marinated shallots, potato aligo and reduced braising jus.

Slow cooking seems to be a specialty of Jusman's, as virtually all the red meats on the menu are braised. Clearly playing to your strengths pays off, because the beef cheek was good. Not as exceptional as the braised short-ribs, but definitely a dish that you can't go wrong with.



A friend highly recommended the chocolate souffle with home-made vanilla ice cream and Grand Marnier custard ($6 supplement), so I thought I'd be adventurous with dessert as well. When the souffle arrived, I was somewhat disappointed, as the crust felt hard and overbaked. My disappointment turned to awed surprise, though, when I discovered that it was no ordinary chocolate souffle at all. As you spoon into the souffle, you find the centre oozing molten chocolate, exactly like a molten chocolate cake. This is such an extraordinary feat (I've never even heard of such a thing, let alone seen it done before), that I was quite willing to overlook the fact that the souffle is not quite as ephemeral or classic as, say, Au Petit Salut's. In fact, if the souffle needs to be overbaked in order to achieve that gloriously molten centre, then give me an overbaked souffle any day. Once again, hard (or in this case, meringue-soft) evidence of Chef Jusman So's wonderful ability to surprise the most jaded of diners with the most inventive takes on traditional favourites. The only thing I didn't like about this dish was the Grand Marnier custard, which while creative, just seemed somewhat out of place.

So far I've been waxing lyrical about the food, and not been paying much attention to service. I'd be doing Kimberly, the restaurant manager, a grave injustice, if I did not say she and her well-trained staff provide top-notch service and attention. Her pleasant disposition and impeccable manners are an equal to Jusman's inspired and talented cooking. If any couple can be called the 'dynamic duo' of the local restaurant scene, then I think that accolade must surely be accorded to Jusman and Kimberly.

The only minor point about service is that food can take a little while to arrive, which to me makes complete sense because it only gives you more time to enjoy the dinner company and work up an appetite to better enjoy Jusman's offerings.

Sage remains a little-known eatery, and tragically they've stopped offering set lunches except on Fridays (3 courses for $25 / 4 courses for $28), but their dinners remain one of the best valued (3 courses for $50 / 4 courses for $55, excluding price supplement items). I am often asked which is my favourite restaurant, and I think I can now confidently say that that honour goes to Sage, and I only wish I had discovered them sooner.

Sage, the Restaurant (Modern European)
11 Unity Street
#02 -12 Robertson Walk
Tel: 6333 8726
Website

Location: 3.5/5
Ambience: 4.5/5
Service: 5/5
Food: 5/5
Overall: Top marks all around, Sage has no parallel for an incredibly enjoyable dinner at an unbelievably reasonable cost

Technorati Tags: Reviews, Restaurants, Modern European, Sage

Recipe: Pizza

You have to hand it to the Italians sometimes. While French food is all art and sophistication, not everyone likes escargot or steak tartare. With spaghetti, pizza and tiramisu, however, I've never had anyone refuse those offerings.

Pizza is great party food, because for a relatively low outlay you can feed many people. This recipe produces thick crust pizza (which I am proud to say I used to love from Pizza Hut, before the culinary world imposed its thin crust bias on me), which can be quite filling, so be careful not to overbudget. You can always cheat and buy one of the pre-made pizza bases, but this way is so much cheaper and more enjoyable.

This is not gourmet pizza, with wood-fired ovens and strategic charring, but it can be made in the convenience of your own home, without too much fuss.


Pizza Dough
Ingredients (Serves 4)
2 ½ Tbsp yeast
1 cup lukewarm water
Pinch of sugar
1 tsp salt
3 ½ bread flour



Notes on Ingredients: This is rather similar to making focaccia, except pizza dough only rises once. You could use white flour instead of bread, but that would make the dough very dense.

Place the yeast in a bowl, and pour in the water. Stir in the sugar until both yeast and sugar have dissolved, then leave to stand for 5 minutes.



Mix in the slat and a third of the flour, which should form a murky, powdery, liquid. Mix in another third of the flour until the dough starts to form a mass and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. It should be quite wet and sticky still.

Sprinkle some flour (you can use white flour if you're running out of bread) onto a smooth work surgace. Remove the dough and begin to knead, working in the remaining third of the flour. Knead for 10-15 mins, by which time the dough should be elastic and smooth. If it's still sticky, work in more flour till it's smooth. Form into a ball.



Lightly oil a mixing bowl and place the dough into the bowl. Score it with a knife and cover with a moist towel. Leave the dough to prove for 40-50 minutes in a warm place.

When ready to use, punch the dough down to release the air and knead again for 1 - 2 minutes. Divide the dough into 2 balls and lightly flour them.

Toppings

1 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp tomato paste
100-150g ham, chopped
50g mushrooms, sliced
20g onions, sliced
3 - 5 black olives, pitted and sliced
3 - 4 slices salami/pepperoni
300g mozzarella cheese, grated



Notes on Ingredients: Pizza toppings are of course extremely individual and customisable, so you can use anything that catches your fancy, like pineapples, anchovies and basil etc. Quantities are mere guidelines; since I tend to think in "handfuls" of toppings, feel free to use more or less. Pre-chopped ham is available from NTUC at the very affordable rate of 75c per 100g.

Preheat your oven to 250°C and flour your working surface.



Roll your pizza dough out with a rolling pin, into a circle. It doesn't have to be completely round, which in fact it probably won't be, as the dough tends to spring back after rolling. It makes sense at this point to lightly oil your baking tray and transfer the pizza dough onto it.

Spread the olive oil lightly over your pizza in order to help it develop a nice golden crust as it roasts in the oven.



Spread the tomato paste around the dough, leaving a rim where the crust will be. Try and spread the paste as evenly as possible, though a few rough spots are acceptable.



I tend to favour sprinkling some grated cheese onto the base first, before adding the other toppings, as it ensures they don't fall off as easily.



The other toppings can go on in any order, and since this is a personalised pizza, you can make it as generous (or parsimonious) as you wish.



Generally, the bigger the topping, the higher up it should go, so the salami was the last thing before I covered everything with more grated cheese.



Like so. You could conceivably use a different type of cheese, as in Quatro Formaggi, but I like mozzarella the best.



Bake the whole thing in the pre-heated oven for about 15 - 20 minutes, until the crust has turned golden and the cheese is bubbling and brown.



Remove the whole thing from the oven, transfer the pizza to a cutting board and cut into slices using a serrated knife to enjoy in true, messy, finger-licking style.

Technorati Tags: Recipes, Mains, Pizza

Recipe: Carbonnades A La Flammande

Previously, I mentioned winning a beautiful Staub cocotte sponsored by BATS Singapore.

As I was dying to break it in, I wasted no time in cooking a dinner of Osso Bucco using my new cocotte.



I am pleased to report that the osso bucco virtually cooked itself. Had I been able to procure meatier shanks, the end result would have been even better, but even for a last-minute, hastily-prepared meal, the cocotte worked its magic and the shanks were tender and generously yielded their rich marrow.

However, my true goal was to prepare a Belgian dish: Carbonnades a la Flamande. This typically involves three essential ingredients: beef, onions and beer - basically all you need to keep any man happy. While not a beer afficionado myself, beef and onions are always welcome at my table. From a recipe straight out of Julia Child -

Ingredients (Serves 6)
1.2 kg stewing beef from the chuck or rump, cubed
3 Tbsp olive oil
600g sliced onions
4 cloves garlic, mashed
1 cup beef stock
2 cups light beer
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 bouquet garni



Notes on ingredients: I used "probably the best beer in the world" Heineken, as well as a substantial amount of chuck beef. You can of course always use your own favourite herbs, like thyme and parsley, in more generous amounts.



First, as always, heat your olive oil till smoking and brown the beef cubes on all sides.



The cocotte gets really, really hot, so it took no time at all to brown my beef. Remove your beef and add the sliced onions.



In a similar fashion, saute your onions till they're lightly browned and translucent, then stir in the garlic.



Arrange half the beef in the pot and spread half the onions over the beef.



Repeat with the rest of the beef and onions. Who knew cooking could be so simple?



Pour in the beef stock and add enough beer so the meat is barely covered. Bury the bouquet garni among the meat slices.



Bring the pot to a simmer on top of the stove. When I first saw the beer and beef combination, I had my doubts, but the aroma of boiling beer and beef stock is truly irresistible. The taste and character of this beer-based stew is quite different from the more common red wine and tomato-based ones.

One of the best things about the cocotte is that it can go straight from the stovetop to the oven, without a corresponding lengthening of cooking time. In fact, cooking in the oven is preferable as the cocotte conducts heat so well it's easy to burn the bottom of some of your stews.

Either way, place in the oven or on the stovetop, maintaining a slow simmer for about two or two and a half hours, by which time the meat should be fork-tender.



Julia recommends thickening the sauce with some cornstarch, though personally I prefer just reducing it to the desired consistency. Sprinkle over some freshly chopped parsley, and you're ready to serve straight from the pot.

Like all stews, the carbonnade tastes even better after a few hours' rest, and simply heavenly the next day.

Technorati Tags: Recipes, Main Courses, Carbonnades