hk diner

It's not often you can have a meal for two at a Michelin starred establishment and pay less than £20 per person. Unfortunately, these types of establishments usually only exist in Asia (and in our case, Hong Kong) and almost definitely never in Europe.

When we lived in Sydney, we used to take yum cha (or dim sum as it's more commonly known in Europe) for granted. We would go maybe twice a month and order our usual staple of chicken feet, char siu buns, prawn dumplings and a whole host of other steamed bundles of goodness.
Now that we live in Prague, getting our fix of dim sum has proven almost impossible. Not only are there no authentic Chinese restaurants here, the handful that serves up remotely passable Chinese food do not offer dim sum.

To satisfy my endless craving for all things food, I ended up investing in a couple of bamboo steamers and started buying frozen 'har gau' and 'siu mai' to replicate dim sum at home. Sad, I know.

On our recent trip to Asia, Hong Kong was our final destination on our two week long holiday. By the time we reached Hong Kong, we were very nearly over the thought and sight of food. Nonetheless, I had already made reservations for lunch at Cuisine Cuisine @ The Mira Hotel and wasn't about to give it up.

Cuisine Cuisine was recently awarded a coveted Michelin Star in the 2012 Hong Kong and Macau guide. What had drawn me in was the weekday all you can eat dim sum special for HKD198 per person. Usually when we are preparing for an all you can eat meal, we would skip breakfast to clear the way for a meal of gargantuan proportions. Fortunately for the restaurant and unfortunately for us, we rolled in at noon with full bellies - the inclusive, made to order breakfast at our hotel seemingly too good to pass up.

steamed prawn dumpling

steamed wild mushroom with black truffle dumpling

steamed bbq pork bun

crispy taro puff with diced chicken and foie gras

steam bean curd sheets with pork & prawn in supreme broth

stir fried turnip cake in X.O sauce

steamed mince pork and prawn dumpling with fish roe

crispy bbq pork puff with apple

steamed foie gras 'xiao long bao'

grilled wagyu beef buns in bbq sauce

crispy glutinous rice dumpling with diced goose & pork

steamed carrot rice flour rolls stuffed with bbq pork

deep fried dough sticks with dried scallops

chilled mango cream with sago & pomelo

chilled mango pudding

Although the all you can eat menu was somewhat limited, we still managed to put away 15 different types of dim sum with a few repetitions from the all you can eat menu and 2 additions from the a-la-carte menu. What I liked about Cuisine Cuisine was that whilst the dim sums were not overly inventive, they had enhanced the traditional dim sums by adding their own modern twists with the inclusion of ingredients such as black truffle and foie gras.


cuisine cuisine (@ The Mira)
http://www.cuisinecuisine.hk/eng/index.html
3/F The Mira Hong Kong, 118 Nathan Road, Tsimshatsui
tel: +852 2315 5222

flat as a pancake

I used to buy frozen green onion pancakes from the Chinese supermarkets. They were cheap and easy to prepare and were best eaten with chicken curries or beef rendang but also nice by themselves as a snack. I recently discovered a super easy recipe online and decided to attempt them fresh. A good friend of mine also has a recipe for these pancakes on her blog - Taiwanese Recipes, but I have yet to attempt her version.

Now that I know how easy they are to make and how much better they taste fresh, I won't be looking for them in the frozen section any more.

dough divided into 8 balls

spring onion pancake before it is shallow fried

crispy spring onion pancake

spring onion pancakes
created: 9 january 2012

[ingredients]:

• 200g plain flour
• 1tsp salt
• 125ml hot water
• 3 spring onions (green bits only), finely sliced
• 1tbsp sesame oil
• extra plain flour for dusting
• vegetable oil for frying

[method]:

• shift the plain flour into a mixing bowl.
• add the salt and combine well.
• gradually pour the hot water into the flour mixture and in a circular motion, bring together the flour and water using your fingers.
• knead the dough for about 5-10 minutes until the dough is no longer sticky and has a smooth appearance. Shape into a large ball.
• cover the dough with a damp cloth and set aside for an hour.
• lightly dust the work surface with plain flour.
• divide the dough into 8 equal sizes and shape into a ball.
• roll out each ball into a thin disc (about 2mm thick). Add spring onions and reshape into a ball.
• repeat for all 8 pieces.
• lightly brush each ball of dough with sesame oil.
• then lightly dust each ball of dough with flour and roll out each individual ball into a thin disc (about 2 mm) using a rolling pin.
• sprinkle each disc/pancake with flour and set aside on baking paper until ready to fry.
• in a fry pan, add 1 to 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil. 
• add the pancake when the oil is hot and fry each pancake until crispy and golden. This will take around 1 minute on each side.
• you may have to keep adding oil to the fry pan after each pancake it cooked.

Best consumed immediately.

Makes: 8 mini pancakes

singapore sling - part 3

In our final hours on the island, our eating pace started to diminish significantly. I'm not sure whether this had to do with the extreme humidity, or the fact that we over ate in the 24 hours preceding this and literally had no more stomach space left.

Nonetheless, a trip to Singapore is never complete without its two national dishes - Hainanese chicken rice and Singaporean chilli crab.

We took a cab out to Maxwell Food Centre for what has been voted as 
THE BEST HAINANESE CHICKEN RICE in Singapore. Of course, with such a declaration, comes a certain level of expectation. It was around 11:45am by the time we arrived but there was already a long line outside the Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice stall compromised mainly of the lunchtime crowd who worked close by.
I joined the line and ordered 2 servings of Hainanese chicken rice. Like wine, food can also be very subjective. Did we think it was THE BEST HAINANESE CHICKEN RICE in Singapore? Probably not. Although Anthony Bourdain did eat here and proclaimed that the "chicken rice was so fragrant and delicious, it could be eaten on its own" I must admit, it was very nice, but I wouldn't say it was the best I've had. Even the rice, whilst fragrant, was a tad dry for my liking. The chicken, however was really succulent and deeply enhanced by the secret sauce that was generously poured over the chicken.

hainanese chicken rice from Tian Tian

Like any true glutton, we didn't just stop at the chicken rice. Left feeling somewhat unsatisfied, we wanted something else to to fill the void. After trawling the stalls for a few minutes, we finally settled on good old Malay food. For hubby - nasi lemak and for me - mee rebus. 
Washed down with fresh sugar cane juice and a splash of fresh lime - now THAT really hit the spot.

mee rebus

nasi lemak with fried chicken

To round off our time in Singapore, we went to an old time favourite of ours - Jumbo Seafood Restaurant. Started back in the late 80's, Jumbo now has many chain restaurants littered across Singapore, but the best is still by far its original restaurant located at East Coast Seafood Centre.

king crabs - these guys were HUGE!

geoduck - don't they remind you or something else?

grouper - my favourite fish

We ordered the obligatory chilli crab with fried "man tou" or steamed Chinese buns, otak-otak, satay and oyster omelette (a huge improvement on the one we ate on the first night)

otak otak

satay chicken and lamb

oyster omelette

fried "man tou" - to mop up the crab sauce

singapore chilli crab

For me, returning to Singapore time and time again means eating out at hawker centres and local restaurants. The fancy dining and extravagant prices can be left for Europe. It is here, for me, the best food in the world can be found and the fact that a great meal can cost less than S$10, makes it even easier to stomach.


maxwell food centre
cnr south bridge road & maxwell road, singapore
opening times: varies from stall to stall


jumbo seafood restaurant
various locations
www.jumboseafood.com.sg

world's best restaurant - according to who?

Some say it's the best restaurant in the world - 2 years running. Could it have been timing? As El-Bulli closes its doors, Noma promptly slips in there and steals the show.


We'll soon find out.  Saturday, April 21 2012.

reservation for 4 - April 21, 2012 12:30

singapore sling - part 2

There comes a time when every man reaches their limit. I know my husband did. When he said to me: "no more, I can't eat anymore". But I felt he was letting the team down, letting me down. 

I, on the other hand, soldiered on. I wasn't about to let the food get the upper hand. And so I ate, until I too could eat no more. For the very first time I actually felt disgusted with myself.

Anyways, I'm sure you are all dying to see what else I ate during my 40 hour food marathon in Singapore. And so, here they are. In no particular order. They were just random snacks I ate on day two, in between my other meals. Just make sure you save room for dessert - that's coming up in part 3.

fishball on a stick - with chilli sauce of course

otak otak from Tang's food hall

spicy garlic ramen from Ippudo

pork sliders from Ippudo

curry puff from Old Chang Kee

kueh kosui from maxwell road hawker centre

singapore sling - part 1

It's been some time since we holidayed in Asia. We prefer to spend our summer and winter breaks in or around Europe as the travelling time is significantly shorter and my recovery from jet-lag, much less painful.
We were able to redeem our frequent flyer points to Asia with the thanks of British Airways. Due to the time of year we were going, we were only able to get business class tickets into Singapore and out of Hong Kong - and not in and out of the same city, but then, who was I to complain? The tickets were essentially free - save for the taxes and surcharges we had to pay.

First stop Singapore! I have so many fond memories of Singapore. I spent 6 years of my early childhood here sweltering away in the constant 100% humidity and 28+ degree heat and that has attributed to my dislike of heat in my adulthood. All my favourite foods can be found on this tiny little island of some 5+ million people. Some of which I have never been able to enjoy outside of Singapore much to my chagrin.

We only had 40 hours here, but I was determined to consume as much food as possible.
For the amount of times both hubby and I have been back to Singapore, Newton Circus (a famous hawker centre and in some people's opinion - a tourist trap) has never been opened. This time was no exception. We trekked there after our flight landed (after confirming with the hotel concierge it was open!) only to find the shutters pulled down and not a soul in sight (save for the stray cats roaming between the stalls). I only go to Newton Circus predominantly for its BBQ sambal sting ray which is pretty damn good and not easily found in food courts. 
Frustrated, hungry and sweaty, we headed back to Orchard Road and into Ion Food Court, conveniently located opposite our hotel. At 9:30pm it was still heaving with people. In Prague, most restaurants would have been shut by then!

fishball noodle soup

seafood laksa

My first order was fishball noodle soup. I did contemplate ordering just fishball soup, minus the noodles (to save on unnecessary carbohydrates intake), but it wouldn't have been the same. Hubby had the seafood laksa. For a food court, the quality and standard is better than even the best Singaporean restaurant outside of Singapore and at $6 a pop, it wasn't as cheap as I remembered but it definitely hit the spot. We didn't stop there though. We continued ordering (or maybe it was just me doing the ordering) - mutton and chicken satays, singaporean fried mee goreng, fried oyster omelette and finally finished the night with a good old ice kachang (shaved ice with carnation milk, fruit syrup and a whole host of sweet corn, red bean and jellies underneath the mountain of ice.

chicken & mutton satay

singaporean fried mee goreng

fried oyster omelette

finishing touches - ice kachang

Needless to say, it was a satisfying night, mildly dampened by the failed trek to Newton Circus and the lack of BBQ sting ray.




ion orchard
2 orchard turn, singapore, 238801
(or conveniently located opposite Marriott Hotel on Orchard Road)
http://www.ionorchard.com/en/