Our quarterly mahjong night always ends with a feast. Those of us who do not play mahjong will arrive at 8 in time to hear all the exciting results on the mahjong table. As our organiser is a regular to the club, food was very efficient and started to arrive soon after we sat down. Our friend had ordered all that was in season and famous dishes of the restaurant.

We started with some cold starters of pickled pig's trotters and marinated fungus in vinegar. I forgot to take photos of these but the trotters were very crispy and fresh tasting, not greasy nor oily. The fungus was a bit too sour. Steamed prawns were our first hot dish. Although the menu stated medium prawns, these were quite big. Fresh and firm and a good start Since our theme was seasonal, snake soup was next. The soup was hot and thick with lots of snake. My favourite part of snake soup were the crunchy fried dough that is served with the soup. They also had chrysanthemum flower petals and shredded lemon leaves. This shows that they take the dish seriously. Immediately after drinking snake soup, diners should feel very warm on a cold day. Maybe I imagined it but I think I felt a bit warmer. Deep fried oyster used to be a very popular dish in HK when I was a child. Then the oysters in Hong Kong became polluted and the dish disappeared off menus for decades. I think this club uses US oysters. It was delicious, just as I remembered, this is one of the few places that offer this dish cooked retro style More seasonal dishes came in the form of stewed mutton in clay pot. This is another winter dish not available in many places. Mutton was stewed in the pot with dried bean curd sticks, bamboo shoot and mushrooms. This was served with fermented bean curd paste. My classmate who is a connoisseur of this dish approved, although I think I have had tastier elsewhere. I liked the bean card sticks more than the mutton this time The steamed Sabah garoupa was cooked well, not over or under done. The sauce was just right too. Shows this restaurant has an experienced and skilled chef. This is the simplest dish to cook but very hard to get just right. Pressed roast duck looked a bit burnt but was actually crispy and smelt delicious. The meat was soft and marinated nicely. This was another one of my favourite dishes Another winter dish in clay pot was Yam with beef. Yam is used to cook many clay pot dishes. A more popular dish is with wind dried duck but we had it with beef this time as we already had a duck dish and wind dried duck is very fatty. The sauce was creamy and delicious and the yam was fragrant and delicious. Most people were surprised at how nice this was even though we were full by this stage. That was may be why I stopped taking photos, needed all my energy to digest the food.
There was a plate of fried Choi Sum to follow and desserts were steamed Malay Pudding (馬拉糕) which is one of the club's specialties and an almond paste soup. As I don't like Chinese sweet soups, I had a piece of pudding which I have to agree was very good.

So we thanked our member classmate for organising a wonderful winter feast and patiently wait another quarter before we meet for our Spring gathering of good food, good mahjong and good fun.

It was late on a Saturday night and we wanted to try somewhere we had never been to before and yet very typically local. So we decided on Wanchai. We parked at the CC Wu Building car park and saw lots of places still open on Heard Street. It was 10pm and the owner at this restaurant kept telling us to go in. I asked him what was good at his restaurant and he promised me everything would be good.

We settled for 3 dishes. Fatty Beef with XO sauce was really smelling delicious when it arrived. The beef was thinly cut as in those you put into hot pots and the sauce was slightly spicy but full of flavour, those that you only get when you fry food at a very high heat for a short time. We ordered some rice to go with the beefCuttlefish cakes had a firm and slightly springy texture, a very good bite. It was crispy on the outside and not soaked with oil. The oil was fresh and so the cakes were a good colour. Again, very well executedThis beans dish originates from Szechuan but here in this Hong Kong style eatery, it was not as chilli or fried as dry. But as a vegetable dish, this was more tasty as the beans were sweet by nature and retained the moisture. The minced pork was a bit salty, so again went well with rice.

The place was a bit rough and ready and so don't go for a first date. The food however was an excellent example of good hearty Hong Kong dishes. So do go for a try but not too late as it closes at 11pm

I was really happy to be invited to a lunch meeting at a new restaurant yesterday. I didn't realise it was new and in fact in a new building until I arrived and saw the big flower arrangements at the door. On the ground floor, it is Coffee Academics, a Habitu group coffee place and Food Academics is the restaurant on the first floor.

The restaurant was decorated in a cosy homely style. I suppose a European style, French or English. There were cosy booth tables with sofas and wooden tables with chairs. There is a salad buffet table in the middle of the first section. However, since our meal was specially arranged by our host, we didn't have the starter buffetWe started with a wonderful Lobster Bisque which they called Lobster Cappucino with cheese brioche. This turned out to be my favourite dish as it was rich, smooth and hot and the brioche a great accompaniment to the soup. As this was the amuse bouche, it was only a small portionThe next course was a marinated salmon salad with raspberry dressing and mango caviar. Unfortunately, I do not like raw fish or seafood, so had to ask the chef to pan fry my fish. This turned out to be a bit strange with the dressing and did not give it justice.The choices for main course were seabass wrapped in pancetta or roast Spring chicken. Chicken or fish? made me think of air plane food. I chose the chicken and it was a good decision since we already had a fish appetizer. I didn't think the chicken was very special but it was quite tender and moist. The dessert was another highlight of our meal. It was Latte parfait topped with caramel ice cream. It was hard to distinguish between the two flavours and textures but they did combine well. I nearly finished the big portion which was more than I intended to have. I had high hopes for a perfect cup of coffee since the group specialises in coffee. Sadly, I was disappointed. The coffee was weak and did not have much of a flavour or smell. I wonder if they used enough coffee beans to make it. It certainly was not even as good as a coffee in cafe Habitu. It did not deserve a photo.
Worth a mention is the pretty toilet and the nice shop area at the entrance of the restaurant.Chef Barry came out to introduce himself and ask how the food was. Always a nice touch to put a face to the food. Service was also very attentive and polite throughout. I think it's a nice find and would like to come back with friends and family.

I have been looking forward to this dinner for over a month. This is because our dinner menu has been finalised for that long and it included nearly all of West Villa's signature dishes. I have never been to this branch of West Villa before. The other 2 branches in Causeway Bay and Taikoo Shing I have been to a few times and they are both very different in terms of the service, the decor although most dishes are the same.

West Villa Sheung Wan seems to be more quiet and tranquil that evening. It may be that it wasn't full as most restaurants around Central and Sheung Wan are only busy during lunch. We had an area which was almost like a room, 3 sides enclosed so it was even better for us as we can get quite noisy.

Our classmate who organised the dinner frequents this restaurant and knows the staff well, so we were well looked after. We started off with 3 small dishes: Sauteed mixed mushrooms in truffle paste, chilli jellyfish with cucumber and deep fried bean curd squares. The mushrooms and bean curd were spectacular whereas the chilli jellyfish was more ordinary and a bit too chilli for some friends. Then followed the signature soup which originated from a recipe from the late Sir Tang Siu Kin. It has fish maw, whelks, chicken's feet, pork and other secret ingredients resulting in a very refreshing and slightly sweet soup. Sweet and Sour Prawns was hot and crispy when the dish arrived. The prawns were very fresh and the flesh firm. I had to agree it was good even though I am not normally keen on prawnsAnother West Villa signature is the Big Brother Char Siu. They use a thick cut and it comes with a sweet clear sauce. In the Causeway Bay branch, the sauce has dried osmanthus flowers but this one didn't. I prefer the version here as the sweet sauce was not over sweet nor too stickyFried egg white and crabmeat tastes much like the Shanghai version of this dish. Luckily, it didn't have a raw egg on the top which would put me off. Judging from the popularity, it must have been very goodOur fish dish was a lung dun fish steamed in an old fashioned way. This was actually the fish de-boned and steamed with preserved olives. Since it is hard to have a good steam fish the ordinary way now, perhaps this is a good substitute method. The fish was sweet and smooth.By the time the vegetables arrived, everyone was very full. I had some but found it to be a bit bland and tastelessThe salt baked chicken was actually one of the best dishes of the night but again we were all really full. I had one piece and wish I could have eaten moreAfter fish, there was still fried rice and desserts which consisted of ground almond soup, fried water chestnut pudding and this deep fried sweet pastry There was way too much food as the portions were huge and the restaurant gave us a complimentary plate of mixed fruits. I could not upload more photos as I only have a quota of 12.

Everyone was so happy with the food and service and we had a big and delicious dinner. I think this could be my West Villa branch of choice if it wasn't a bit out of the way to get to. It is worth coming back with a big table of friends.

I seem to have been looking for the perfect afternoon tea for as long as I remember. Needless to say I have not found the answer in Hong Kong. So it was with great expectations when I found out that Tiffin had started to offer afternoon tea sets. With my 2 Britophile friends, we set off full of anticipation on that March sunny day in the hope of finding the perfect afternoon tea in Hong Kong.

We ordered a set for 2 people which came with unlimited visits to the ice cream counter. The set arrived in beautiful trays which were skewed so that we could see all the layers from the top. My sandwich specialist friend quickly spotted that the sandwiches were a bit creative. They were not finger shaped nor triangular, in fact, they were not sandwiches at all. I admit that cucumber sandwiches, although traditional for afternoon tea would not be popular here but these were not sandwiches. Having said that, the crabmeat bread roll was nice I normally rate afternoon tea according to how good the scones are and whether they serve clotted cream with them. Tick for the clotted cream but the scones were dry, very sad.
There was another savoury layer of quiches and foie gras terrine served with toasts. Well, the toasts were not hot since they have to be put in the tray and not toasted just before serving and the terrine was too sweet with not enough rich liver taste. The quiches were good though I didn't find the other sweet items to be too appertising and I didn't try too many of them. The macaron was too sweet and crispy with no chewy texture in the middleSo the bonus and pleasant surprise had to be the ice cream counter. It wasn't just an ice cream counter, it served iced cakes and desserts as well as waffles made to order. In the iced cake section, there was a Baked Alaska, Ice cream Cassata and many other selections. I had the Baked Alsaka for nostalgia and a scoop of green tea and a scoop of hazelnut ice cream. The ice cream is home made by the hotelThe ice cream toppings were a wonderful selection. I chose caramel and honeycombThe traditional set may not have been the answer to the perfect afternoon tea in Hong Kong but the ice cream counter was the best selection of iced desserts and toppings I have encountered. And the service was impeccable as you would expect from a 5 star hotel

My friend still thinks the Four Seasons is her favourite for afternoon tea and my preferences will remain as Clipper Lounge and Bettys Kitschen. The best is yet to come and we will continue on our quest.