Asia Flavours

Tea at the Peninsula Hotel

Tea is a meal that really doesn't get enough attention. By and large, if you meet a friend for a cup of tea you go to a coffee shop, snuggle up on a sofa and perhaps indulge in a slightly dry muffin (well, at least in Hong Kong - what is it about over-dry pastries in this place?). In my book, that's not tea. What I'm talking about is the full meal that is afternoon tea - and after sampling Afternoon Tea at The Peninsula, I can tell you it is not overstating it to call it 'a meal'. The Peninsula's indulgent afternoon tea gives you the opportunity to have a sophisticated, relaxed and, well, civilised afternoon, drinking gallons of tea and righting the world.

We were warned that the queues on a Sunday can get quite lengthy so we skipped lunch and headed over at about 2.30. This was definitely the right decision because the queue was very short and we got a table relatively quickly. Having said that, it is actually quite nice spending a bit of time in the queue because it gives you a good opportunity to indiscreetly gawp at the hotel's opulent lobby - and, of course, at the other patrons sipping their darjeeling. Despite being huge, the lobby has a great atmosphere, enhanced by the string quartet that played throughout the afternoon. There is enough hustle and bustle to take away any uncomfortable formality but you are still left with a nice level of pomp and circumstance.

The food arrives on a three tiered platter and involves everything you could wish for from absolutely brilliant scones with clotted cream and jam, to dainty smoked salmon or cucumber sandwiches, to mini-quiches to cakes and truffles. Despite our best efforts - and we did try pretty hard - we didn't make that big a dent on the collection. Everything, as you'd expect from The Peninsula, was of a very high standard although C. and D. were particularly enthusiastic about the mushroom 'sausage rolls' (which naturally I couldn't verify because I think all mushrooms are intrinsically wrong!). In case we felt hard done by, the waiters also bought a 'pudding' of tiramisu. The tiramisu was not really tiramisu, it was a pistachio cream pudding. Sorry to jump back on my mini-bandwagon here but seriously, does nowhere do good tiramisu in Hong Kong - one with plenty of coffee and booze? I'm searching high and low to no avail.

I know that Afternoon Tea at The Peninsula tends to be something that you do when you have guests in town but I'm now a convert to a bit of indulgence just because. It was such a lovely, relaxing experience (they didn't rush us one bit, regularly refilling our silver tea-pots). Wonderful.

Le Blanc

I've been on a quest lately to find good places to host dinner parties - ones where hosting doesn't involve slaving over a hot stove or doing the endless washing up at three on the morning... So far, Gong Guan, with its visually stunning Shanghainese banquet, is winning in the Asian corner but from a European perspective, Le Blanc is holding its own. The food is not going to knock your socks off (unlike Gong Guan) but the venue is just brilliant, even if everyone did decide the decor was more Bavarian German than French...

The restaurant is a virtual rabbit warren of private rooms, each decorated with, well, to be honest, random stuff that was probably collected by the owner while on holiday and a load of tree branches from his garden for good measure. I've made it sound hideous but it really does work - it's like having a dinner party in a private den, the sort that the one from your childhood looked like (in your mind).

Unlike other private kitchens, it is not a set menu and indeed, I was quite surprised how lengthy the menu was - there were about 15 main courses. The fennel soup was good as were the mussels although I wasn't convinced by the creamed watercress in which my main course of seafood was sitting. That course probably wasn't aided by the fact that the central star, the king prawn, was seriously overcooked. By the time we got to the puddings I was somewhat defeated by the amount of food but the clafoutis wasn't that exciting so I didn't mind. To be honest, it's not the food that makes it such a great evening - it is the fact that you are in such a kooky relaxed private setting with a BYO policy meaning that the wine is flowing. The food takes a backseat. 

I'd heard reports of dodgy service but the service was good and they had a great system of marking each filled-in menu with a number representing where you were sitting - at least, it was a good system until in a fit of over-enthusiasm I set my menu on fire and burnt off the number. Still, it all worked out well in the end...

Le Blanc
6/F, 83 Wan Chai Road
Tel: 3428 5824

Mijas

I've always admired Murray House, the colonnaded nineteenth-century building looking out into the bay in Stanley and thought that the restaurants with their cute old-fashioned ceiling plans would be a good bet for a lazy weekend lunch. With the sun shining far too much for a spot of sangria not to be an option, a couple of us decided to try Mijas, a Spanish restaurant, with perhaps the prime spot in Murray House. It occupies the sea-facing corner and has a beautiful wide, covered balcony with both normal tables and those low-rise sofa tables designed specifically so you will never get up again - perfect for our lazy lunch!

With such a location, Mijas has everything going for it and I was therefore totally gutted about how boring the food was. It wasn't bad as such, it was just seriously bland - to the point where I am nearly falling asleep thinking about it.

Realising that we were loosing the battle to ever stand up again once sat down in the sofa table area, we decided that tapas and sangria would be the way forward. And, in all fairness, the sangria was quite good but then, seriously, how far wrong can you go with sangria? The menu looked good, covering all the classic dishes that I could remember and a couple more with a bit of a "creative twist". All looking good - great view, comfy sofas, glorious sunshine and a glass of sangria in my hand. What a tragedy then that the meal fell flat when the uber-dull tapas arrived. The crisp-fried calamari with pepper and wasabi hollandaise sounded fantastic but the thick hollandaise dipping sauce was pretty tasteless. Equally the patatas bravas lacked any semblance of spiciness whatsoever which is somewhat ironic when the name translates into English as "fierce potatoes"!

Things didn't look up when the meatballs in tomato sauce arrived - indeed, they'd used the same sauce as for the patatas bravas and so it was ok but not very exciting. The classic boquerones tapas dish had hit something of a budget cut and consisted of both white anchovies and the salty brown tinned ones. None of the other dishes - the grilled chorizo with arugula and asparagus and the tomato salad - were inspiring either. There was nothing particularly wrong with them - I mean, don't get me wrong, we found it in ourselves to eat it all - but they just weren't right.

While the company, weather and location made the experience an enjoyable one, I left with the distinct impression that any Spaniard who had previously been involved in the recipe design or cooking process was long gone. Still, nice view....

Mijas Spanish Restaurant
Shop 102, Murray House
Stanley Plaza
Stanley

Saffron Bakery

Stanley is not a complicated place: you have a lazy weekend lunch at one of the waterside restaurants and then you thoroughly exhaust yourself bargaining for tat at the market. The taxi ride home is always a bit of a blur because you've hit such a sugar low from all that intensive shopping. Luckily, however, my latest trip to Stanley lead to the discovery of a bakery which solves this problem. Saffron Bakery, a little gem of a place in Stanley Plaza, sells everything you could need to recover from the market experience - whether your fix is a cute little cupcake, a gingerbread man or a more traditional slice of loaf-cake.

The bakery / cafe has a rather over-whelming selection of traditional cakes, muffins, gingerbread men and cupcakes, with some of them piled up temptingly on a stand in the window. The items are not fancy, delicate little numbers like you might get in the cake shops in Central, rather, they are hearty, traditional, home-baked cakes. The place plays on your, possibly rose-tinted, view of an old-fashioned cakeshop and indeed, goes further by having a sweet corner filled with everything you ever overindulged in as a child - remember Nerds anyone? Or the sweets you can wear as a bracelet?

I tried the ginger cake which was not terribly photogenic but was delicious, moist and flavoursome. I managed to resist the cupcakes and gingerbread men but I've heard good things. Definitely one for the wekend...

Saffron Bakery Stanley Plaza

Gong Guan

I came to the startling realisation the other day that, despite being in Hong Kong for some time now, I'd never actually eaten at one of the many private kitchens I'd read about. Feeling that this gap in my knowledge needed to be plugged and spurred on by an article in HK Magazine, I decided to try out Gong Guan, a Shanghainese private kitchen on the 12th floor of an office block in Sheung Wan.

A good recommendation by HK Magazine - I can’t praise Gong Guan highly enough. It was truly excellent, both in terms of the quality of the food and the dining experience as a whole.

Like all unlicensed private kitchens, Gong Guan is hidden away without much advertising or even a sign board - in this case, in an office block on Des Voeux Road. As a general concept the idea of going to an “unlicensed restaurant” should not be that appealing - after all, it all sounds a bit back-street dodgy. However, in Hong Kong the private kitchen provides something that is really not necessary anywhere else in the world - the possibility of holding some semblance of a dinner party for those without a kitchen or enough room in their flat to seat their guests. Gong Guan, for example, has a minimum booking of 8 (maximum 10) and has two private dining rooms available for your "dinner party". The room we were given had a large round table and was nicely, if non-controversially, decorated with the sole, and rather large, exception to the non-controversy of the decor being an odd purple sequinned and feathered affair that constituted the lampshade.

There is no menu at Gong Guan; you get what the chef has prepared that day. In our case, we started with a selection of cold appetisers which were interesting and varied, perfectly complimenting each other. Each of the starters, and indeed the main courses, were beautifully presented with dramatic serving dishes adding to the visual feast.

Our starters included soft tofu, ox-tongue, eggplant with pork floss, bamboo shoots and cucumber with a fantastic mustard and peanut dressing. This was quickly followed by a slightly uninspiring looking fish soup which turned out to be fantastically flavoursome, and then what turned out to be most people's favourite dish: bready pancakes with honey ham and beancurd sheets fried in egg yolk. It was really simple but the soft pancakes, crunchy beancurd and thickly cut ham made the texture as interesting as the flavour.

Next came the fresh abalone course. It was served on soft turnip with shredded dried scallop. I have to admit to not expecting to like it but it was a great combination of flavours (even if my chopstick skills seriously let me down when it came to handling the abalone/turnip combination!).

Although a Shanghainese kitchen, the chef indulged (successfully) in some fusion cuisine in the form of what, apparently, was "Yellow Flower Fish", Thai style with a sweet and sour sauce and served with deep-fried Shanghainese bamboo shoots (literally "plastic bamboo"). The fish was crispy, the sauce slightly spicy. This was followed by rice pudding made out of red rice with pork belly, soya bean sheets tied in a knot and snow peas, and then by beautifully cooked chicken in Zhenjiang sweet vinegar with scallion oil.

In case there was any remote chance that we were still hungry they brought out some steamed and then fried rice sheets. They really didn't look like anything but were in fact seriously morish - my friend V. thought they were the most surpisingly dish of the night. Then to finish off, they brought through some mixed vegetables with wolfberry and finally, mango pudding with strawberry and basil compote. The strawberry flavour was beautiful but it rather overwhelmed the basil which I couldn't taste and the mango which was rather weak. Still, a non-too heavy end to a delightful banquet.

The other advantage with a private kitchen is that it allows for a bit of opulence in terms of wine. Normally when I go to a restaurant I’m selecting wine from the cheaper end of the wine list but with Gong Guan charging only HK$100 for corkage, regardless of amount consumed, we felt it was only fair and just to drink several bottles of supermarket-bought Moet. After all, it’s unlikely my half-Scots/half-Yorkshire thinking would allow me to go to an “official” restaurant and purchase Moet from the menu!

The cost of dinner at Gong Guan is HK$350 a head plus a share of the HK$100 corkage which is excellent value for money. The food was stunning without one duff course, and the service enthusiastic. I look forward to going back.

Gong Guan

12/F Fung Woo Building

279 Des Voeux Road Central

Sheung Wan

Tel: 2577 9789

Gong Guan's website

Yangshuo, China

A trip to Yangshuo isn't about the food; it's about the scenery. And to be honest, had it not been for a random encounter with a fantastic village restaurant just outside Yangshuo, I'd have come away rather uninspired by the food.

Our mountain biking guide offered to take us to a restaurant she knew for lunch. I have to admit to rather cynically suspecting that we were going to be taken to a tourist trap where she was going to get a kick-back but we went along with it because we didn't have any better suggestions. I really should learn that not everyone is out to scam you. The Farmers' Holiday Inn (or "Farmer Holday Inn" as the sign actually said) was a fantastic family-run place in a small village outside Yangshuo. To be honest, it didn't really look like a restaurant at all. It consisted merely of a few wooden tables under an awning in the car park but when you look at the picture below (taken while sitting at the table), you can see why they put their dining area in that spot!

There was a menu in English but as they admitted, they'd copied the entire menu from one of the tourist restaurants in town and so it didn't include what they regarded as their specialities. Accepting the hint to go with the flow, we agreed to have whatever they suggested and were not disappointed. Among other things, we had a really flavoursome stir-fried beef with tomatoes and green peppers, a delicious, slightly salty, chicken with bamboo shoots and a lovely pumpkin dish. We also had a beautifully cooked whole fish served in a delicate soy sauce - the fish having been extracted from the pond in the garden only moments before!

The food was simple rustic stuff, freshly prepared and cooked to perfection. We know it was fresh because the kitchen was in what looked like it should have been the building's garage and the large door was permanently wide-open, allowing us a complete view of the proceedings. Indeed, they were keen for us to actually wander in and have a look at the preparations, and in particular at the huge wok at the back where the chef was battling some serious shooting flames!

All in all, the food was delicious and generously proportioned, the service enthusiastic and incredibly welcoming. Should you be able to track it down (sorry can't remember the name of the village) I couldn't recommend this place highly enough. As an added bonus, the Farmers' Holiday Inn was phenomenal value. None of the restaurants we tried in Yangshuo had anything on this restaurant and used to their prices, we were rather shocked to discover that the bill was only RMB30 a head. Unbelievable value.

L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon

To celebrate the fact that E. and I are now work room-mates, we decided to try out the patisserie at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon for a mid-afternoon sugar buzz. This was a mistake. The cakes are so unbelievably good that we're now totally and utterly addicted!

The patisserie is hidden away on the third floor of The Landmark and is therefore never as busy as the two nearby Starbucks (although this is probably as much to do with the fact that it is considerably more expensive). The actual sitting in area is rather small but they also have tables lined up on the edge of the balcony overlooking The Landmark's atrium - perfectly acceptable but lacking the drama of the black and red design in the patisserie.

The counter contains a vast array of different individual sized cakes and resisting the inclination to sample them all, I opted for the chocolate orange mousse cake. The orange flavouring was natural and not overpowering.

There is something about me that whenever I go into a cake shop, for reasons best known to myself, I'm unable to not order a chocolate cake of some form. Naturally this means that I can get terrible food envy. In this case, it was of E.'s tarte au citron which left me a case of the green eyed monster. It was outstanding - a crunchy base and a perfectly tart filling. Indeed, E., somewhat of a cake expert, said that she couldn't believe anywhere would out-do the Mandarin's cakeshop.

Should you need a little pick-me-up to improve your productivity in the afternoon, the coffee too was great - really thick and bitter.

The only thing downside is an environmental one. I have never seen so much packaging in my life. Each cake comes in a beautiful solid red box, in a bag, with a handful of napkins (although no forks which is rather strange). Still, it adds to the purchase experience and now that I know about it, unless it is a gift, I'll ask for it without the box.

L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon
3/F The Landmark
Central

Cambo Thai

Eating at a restaurant should not be an endurance test. Eating at Cambo Thai in Kowloon City was a seriously traumatising experience.

As the next phase of my education on "local" cuisine, I decided to try to make myself a little less island-centric, something which my friend N., who lives out in Kowloon Tong, was only too happy to help with. We'd both read good things about Cambo Thai and judging by the massive crowd of people hanging around outside waiting for a table, so had everyone else. Perfect, I thought - an small, authentic "local" Thai / Vietnamese restaurant.

Could I be more wrong?

Before I get carried away with everything that was wrong (and it's a long list so get comfy), I should probably look at the plus sides. Umm.... Well, it was very very cheap. To be honest though, I'm not sure the trauma levels were really worth the saving. Another plus: the menu came in English and had pictures in case you weren't familiar with something. Ok, now I'm really scraping at the barrel...

Many things are forgivable if the food is great. We should have known it was going downhill when the couple next door, when asked what they'd had, said that it was ok but they'd expected their Thai red curry to have had a little more kick to it - they described it as "canto-fied". We ordered tiger prawns in butter which came seriously over-cooked and not at all fresh tasting - although that may have had something to do with the fact that when they said it was 'in butter' they meant it was drowning in a whole tub of butter, somewhat masking the flavour of the prawn. The Thai green curry was, to its credit, perfectly flavoursome although it was supposed to be Thai, not Vietnamese, and yet it came with French bread and without any 'bite' whatsoever. The fried squid, mussel, shrimp and mixed vegetables was ok although the shrimps were overcooked and the mussels didn't look that appealing. The final dish we ordered was the fried water spinach with Malay paste. Interesting translation because 'paste' it was not. Had it said 'in heavily corn-flowered gravy' i'd have thought that rather more accurate.

The food was pretty uninspiring but the service (if you can even call it that) was what made the experience traumatising. The man standing outside dealing with bookings was clearly stressed. Still, we had bothered to book and were happy to wait for a table. There is simply no need as the front-of-house 'receptionist' to be so terse and unwelcoming. When we were allocated a table, the waitress, who didn't smile once during the entire meal, pointed at a table and left, without bringing any menus whatsoever. After waiting 15 minutes, my friend went up to cashier area to grab some menus. Noticing this, the couple on the table next door, looking stressed, said that they'd asked for the bill five times and that they'd had a similar experience throughout the meal. Everything was just too much effort for the waiting staff and they made that very clear, not just to us but to other customers too.

So, if you like being crammed into a tiny restaurant with oily, overcooked food and unbelievably rude and unwelcoming service, this is your place. Perhaps, it is the case of a restaurant that has become too popular and has lost the need to try and make effort - after all, the chain has been so successful that it is now made up of three restaurants in a row, each with the same menu. Maybe, I'm just not that knowledgeable about Thai / Vietnamese cuisine and this is actually "authentic" but, frankly, give me Nha Trang any day.

G/F, 15 Nga Tsin Long Rd
Kowloon City
Tel: 2716 7318.

Hakka Ye Ye

A visit to the history of Hong Kong exhibition at the Heritage Museum fired my enthusiasm for trying Hakka cuisine - on the grounds that, along with the Cantonese (or "puntis"), they were the original immigrants to Hong Kong. So, when my friend S. wanted to go to a restaurant with a cuisine which his visiting friend wouldn't easily find in London, I seized the chance and booked a table at Hakka Ye Ye on Wyndham Street. A good decision, if I say so myself.

(As a random aside, it turns out that Hakka cuisine is not quite as novel as I had thought - apparently, well according to Wiki, most of the Canto restaurants in the UK are owned by ethnic Hakkas. I've never come across a Hakka Chinese restaurant in the UK before so I guess those restaurateurs work on the idea that everyone in the UK knows what Cantonese food is and so they serve that (or tell you they're serving that), not Hakka cuisine. Hmm...)

Back to the restaurant, it continues the theme of restaurants in Hong Kong being situated in bland shopping malls / office blocks. In this case, Hakka Ye Ye is on the second floor of an office block, accessed via a rather non-descript entrance. Although the entrance is not encouraging and the "trendy decor" is somehow rather clinical, the second floor location does give it a fantastic view of the old police station on Hollywood Road which is shown off perfectly through a glass frontage.

The Hakka people supposedly originated from central China (although this seems to be somewhat debated) and, according to various sources, their food is a twist on the classic Chinese dishes, the twist being a heavier influence of both fresh and fermented vegetables. The menu, which seemed to cover all of the key Hakka dishes I found during some Internet research, was reasonably extensive, as was the monthly specials list, and both included symbols which identified the house recommendations. The wine list wasn't particularly extensive but did include some very reasonably priced bottles.

On the grounds that it sounded unusual, we started with steamed shredded radish puffs. I don't normally like glutinous dishes but the slightly sweet-tasting puffs were really interesting. Like many of the other dishes we had, you wouldn't want to eat many too many of them but they worked well as a sharer dish.

For mains we had a variety of dishes from steamed emperor chicken topped with ginger and green onion to golden pumpkin cooked with salted egg yolk, from Ye Ye minced pork stuffed tofu cooked in a clay pot to sweet and sour pork. The chicken dish was particularly nice, simple with a lovely ginger flavouring. The golden pumpkin was also nice, an interesting but surprisingly effective combination of sweet and salty. If you like soft tofu, then the tofu dish would have been right up your street but I, personally, just can't get that excited by the flavour (or lack of) of soft tofu. One thing I did notice was that we found ourselves drinking quite a lot of tea and water throughout the meal to compensate for the seemingly high salt levels.

I'm glad we went to this restaurant - the food was interesting and quite good value for money for Wyndham Street. However, given the salt levels and strong flavouring, I would choose to come back in a group to benefit from having a little bit of a lot of dishes.

Hakka Ye Ye
2/F Parekh House
63 Wyndham Street
Central

Tel: 2537 7060
Hakka Ye Ye's website

Wang Fu's Beijing Dumplings

In keeping with my new obsession with "local" cuisine, I had lunch at the original Wang Fu on Saturday. This tiny little cafe specialises in Beijing dumplings and, unlike the newer Wang Fu further up Wellington Street (Link to post), doesn't have much more on its menu beyond those and a couple of noodle dishes. Cheap as chips, it is a fantastic place for a quick fix of quality homemade dumplings.

And yes, before you say it, I know a Beijing dumpling cafe is not exactly "local" to Hong Kong but it is "local" to China and that's how I'm justifying it...

You could quite easily walk past the entrance to this narrow restaurant, not least because the name is not written in English anywhere on the outside. Fear not though, the menu and special have all been translated into English and so there is no need for pot-luck ordering!

Yet another hangover prevented me from meeting my friend D. for lunch at a traditional lunching time but that was probably a good thing as they only have a handful of tables and even mid-afternoon they were rarely empty. The decor is, well, basic with the kitchen taking up a large chunk of the room.

Today's special was pork and courgette dumplings which were really flavoursome, the soft casings having a nice homemade feel to them. The dumpling options come in sets of 10 although you can do 5 of one variety and 5 of another if you want. We had a mixed plate consisting of pork and chinese cabbage dumplings, and shrimp, scallop, pork and yellow chive dumplings. As a slight tangent, according to about.com, yellow chives are

garlic chives that have been grown under cover, without any exposure to direct sunlight. This prevents the leaves from turning green, as the plant’s chlorophyll-absorbing molecules never kick into action. Yellow chives have thick flat leaves, a yellow color, and a mild, “oniony” flavor.

Although the dumplings with their soy-vinegar dipping sauce are great, there is a slight danger of dumpling overload. On my last visit we got round this by having some noodles and a delightful fresh cucumber dish with a sharp soy-vinegar sauce. To be honest though, I thought the noodles were rather bland and so I didn't bother with them this time. Not being totally sure what the cucumber dish N. and I had last time was, I plumped for the cucumber with sesame sauce. Wrong choice, although admittedly it was exactly as described. I think, but can't confirm, that the hot and sour cucumber is the one that tasted so good as an accompaniment to the dumplings (we did order it after our disappointment with the sesame cucumber but it never arrived and by the time we'd remembered that, we were totally stuffed!).

Although you might have to share tables, there is quite a lot of personal space at Wang Fu. Having said that, it's not the sort of place you're going to go to for a lengthy lunch. It is, however, a great place for cheap, tasty dumplings should you find yourself wandering along Wellington Street with a rumbling stomach. Also, they do take-out of the pre-cooked dumplings which is rather useful.

Wang Fu
Wellington Street