I had heard great things about this place so we decided to try it out. The bar is downstairs and there is a long steep staircase up to the dining room so if anyone has problems with stairs, it is best to avoid the place or sit in the bar on the ground floor

The night started off rather badly. We had reservations and the hostess took us upstairs right away, but then made us stand in a corner like naughty children for 10 minutes while the table was prepared. Then when we got to the table my seat had some food on it. I thought it was a peanut or something so I tried to brush it off but in fact it was something soft and sticky, so it got spread over the seat and my hand. I decided to just clean it with my napkin rather than ask for a new seat. Then a few minutes after I sat down I felt something on my neck trying to crawl into my collar and I slapped it. It turned out to be a large bug, disgusting.

The ambiance was nice but seemed like an odd mix. The chairs were elegant with fancy high backs that reminded me of a small throne but the table was old and beat up (on purpose I am sure) probably like a well used butcher table. Most of the decoration was dark but yet there were 3 big lit up garish arrows pointing at a small pig statue. Also the temperature was quite warm and I was sweating through out the dinner.

The waiter was pleasant and after only two rounds of customary feigned ignorance brought us tap water (and came by on his own to refill it a few times).

Bread. There was a generous portion of excellent french bread served with herb butter, salt, black pepper, & olive oil.

Appetizer
Salmon Tartar and Avocado. I have had versions of this at many hotel banquets and this one was better than average but nothing special. The salmon was quite mild and mostly overwhelmed by the avocado otherwise I think the dish would have been good.

Bone Marrow with Toast. I was very eager to try this as I love bone marrow and was pleasantly surprised to see such a large portion and well presented. Unfortunately they had cooked it so much that the marrow had turned into a jelly, destroying the flavor.

Steak Tartar with vinegar cured Egg Yolk. Instead of piled up into a cylinder shape as usual this was flattened into an irregular shape and did not look as appetizing. There were a few croutons scattered around a small dark colored egg yolk in the middle. Trying the meat on its own I was quite disappointed. There wasn't much seasoning and the meat itself was quite bland. Then I tried mixing the egg and wow what a difference. The vinegar cured egg yolk was really something else and totally enlivened the dish into something special. The tanginess mixed perfectly with the meat to a provide wonderful combination.

Main Course
Prime Tenderloin. It was a very thick cut of steak, it must have been about 2 inches thick. This makes cooking it evenly quite difficult but it was cooked perfect and was ridiculously tender. The steak was served on a bed of creamed spinach that was a perfect compliment to the steak. On top was crispy shallots that should really have put this dish over the top into special but unfortunately didn't add anything rather than an occasional crunch. The biggest let-down was the sauce, it was a generic brown sauce that dampened the overall flavour of the dish rather than enhancing it.

French Chicken. The chicken was served in a deep frying pan, covered in a generous amount of pearl onions and surrounded by carrots. The presentation in the pan was one of the best for a chicken I have seen. It was ideally cooked, tender & juicy throughout. Fans of chicken will really enjoy this dish but others may find the flavor too subtle.

Dessert
Chocolate & Banana Tart with Sea Salt Caramel Ice Cream. This dessert sounded the best but was ultimately the most disappointing. It turned out to be a chocolate molten cake (even 7-11 has a molten cake now) with a slight crust around it. The banana flavor was so subtle I couldn't even taste it in many of the bites. A scoop of ready made Haagan Dazs would have been better tasting than this ice cream.

Maple Syrup Tart: Unlike the other one, this was a real tart. It had a solid but soft texture and sweet but not overly so filling. It was topped with a lemon whipped cream that I thought took away from the tart as it wasn't too sweet to begin with. If the tart was sweeter the contrasting tastes would have worked better.

Lemon Cappucino: What a great presentation and taste. It was served in a large coffee cup and covered with cream so it really did look like a cappucino. Stick a fork in it and taste the lemon filling goodness inside.

Overall there are a lot of contrasts in this place. The decor, service, & food all seemed to be a mixed bag. Some of it shined and some it flopped. For the price I would have expected better consistency.

I used to really like Nagahama No.1. Their broth is meant to be slightly less rich as a tonkotsu pork based soup by default. Also when compared to the nearby 熊本 Kumamoto which uses black garlic oil.

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Owner chef Lana Oliveiro carries an interesting history behind her in a rather high profile career life and within these life experiences she managed to fill up one of the more interesting resumes you will ever encounter. Her dad is Portuguese-European and although Lana still appears rather young and even good looking for a chef, this bit is not surprising as she was a former Miss HK Pageant contestant! She loves food and she manifests this fact in her love for Italian cooking, having spent parts of her life in Italy to practice her trade. Ingredients and recipes used here are painstaking and often takes hours to make a base tomato passata sauce or boiling down the natural chicken stock in-house.

Thanks to Mjqueen7e for getting me these delicious cookies from Island East Markets.

It is a great market for cafes and restaurants to participate.

These cookies are made by 18 Grams which I have always wanted to try but never got round to going because the cafe is small so I wasnt sure if there would be a table if I went and the MK branch is too far away.

Thank you IVYCWK for getting me these pretty Sakura cookies.

I never knew Sakura flowers were edible.

When I saw these cookies, the first thing that sprung to mind was the film Para Para Sakura with Sakura flowers falling from the tree.

Anyway, these cookies come packaged in a lovely box with a ribbon on top.

The first time I dined at Tosca was back when the Ritz Carlton had first opened. I remembered having to make a booking one month in advance for a table of two, but left underwhelmed by a mediocre experience, especially by their poor parpadelle dish, soft and limp sheets of pasta should really not be served at a supposed fine dining Italian establishment.

Now a year later, not only has Tosca achieved one Michelin star, the Ritz Carlton has also announced just last month the arrival of Chef Pino Lavarra to take over the reins at Tosca. Chef Lavarra, the once executive chef at the two-starred establishment Rossellinis in Italy, has promised to entice diners with contemporary and innovative dishes reflecting his love for food, and Sunday evening saw Mr. C and I there for dinner hoping to be surprised.

Service was utmost friendly, from the moment the hostess guided us to our table to every waiter/waitress that served us. Menus were given to us straight away as we were seated, and looking through it did seem to have more variety than what I saw on my previous visit. Technically we did not select our courses, rather it was organised for us, which most likely ensured that we would be served their most signature or recommended dishes.

We were offered a glass of Cristal to begin the evening, light and crisp with a hint of sweetness. My favourite kind of champagne The bread tray is then proffered to us for selection. Neatly arranged rows of lemon rolls, parmesean topped squid-ink baguettes, flaky-looking butter rolls, rosemary foccacia and cheese and tomato brioche. They certainly looked nice, but a little lacking in the flavour department and most unfortunately were not served warm. I did however like the olive oil they provided for dipping, a little thick with a relatively strong olive aroma.

Went to my favourite grocery store to get some filler for my sandwich.

I was deciding between prawn and mayonnaise or the cheese, but in the end I picked cheese.

★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★

We stopped in here because my boyfriend loves an American style brunch at Sunday. We had a cold cut and cheese platter and a Ham & egg with Toast on that day.



The Ham & cheese platter was very reasonably priced given the good quality of Cold Cut & Cheese.The Ham & Egg with Toast is beautiful and the egg was very nice cooking. I love it so much!

One thing we will suggest the shop to improve their drink’s qualities. I had a Grapefruit Juice, but just like a Starbucks’ ones, not fresh and using can juice. My boyfriend had a Latte, outlook is quite good, but it was tasteless, they should improve the coffee beans and milk’s quality as well.

Of all the restaurants in Hong Kong, I came to RyuGin with the highest expectations. Watch some of the training videos on YouTube and you'll understand the incredible care and respect each ingredient in a finished dish receives. Chef Hideaki Sato trained under founder Seiji Yamamoto in Japan for 3 years before taking charge of the 2 Michelin RyuGin in Hong Kong. The menu is different from the 3 Michelin menu in Tokyo but based on the same philosophy and techniques.

In the days leading up to dinner, email correspondence was always answered in a timely manner. You're asked if there's anything you dislike or want to see. When the menu is finalized for the season, you're sent a copy and asked for feedback. I asked for fugu, but apparently that's both out of season and one of the few fine foods that's illegal in Hong Kong. The day of dinner, I received an email asking if I ate soft shell turtle or shark's fin because these take a while to prepare. I never saw the shark's fin that night, but ended up with something far more rare and fascinating.

When you arrive, there's a small envelope with the menu in it. Before service, Chef Sato comes out to see if there's anything you don't like or want to try. In spite of his immense talent and craft, he wears a smock of humility. You settle into the amazing views from the 101st floor of the International Commerce Centre and wait for the first course.

It's amazing to see a chef work this hard applying traditional and molecular gastronomy to fresh ingredients to get you to taste them the way you idealized they'd taste in the first place. Without a single bad dish and several stars, RyuGin belongs in the pantheon of must-visit restaurants in Hong Kong.

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1. Ice Fish: Small, mild fish are battered and fried but not crispy, served with Japanese vegetables that have been poached (then probably glazed) in dashi. The vegetables have a great bit past al dente bite that's perfect for these and they exude sweet bonito through and through. The ice fish also has that great soup base flavor. It's truly transformational cooking presented simply when the chef has taken bitter greens and mild fish and turned them into a play on textures and accents that enhance a complex dashi stock.

2. Agedashi in Three Textures: Agedashi is a traditional cooking method for tofu in Japan. In addition to tofu, there's a mochi cube and a yomogifu cube. The tofu was fantastic with the uni; it had just above soft density and added a creamy base for the intense uni to melt into. Less successful were the two chewier cubes that couldn't quite pull off the savory without seeming contrived. The dashi and uni combine to reconstruct red miso-like flavors, but in a way that's authentically sea-based. This reconstructed miso soup is what I wish all miso tasted like, but never fully does.

3. Abalone and Hotaru Baby Squid: This simple looking dish hides a lot of behind-the-scenes effort. It takes hours of slow cooking a large abalone to make it this tender. The broth that it's cooked in needs to be properly seasoned for it to retain the abalone meaty sweetness. Then there are the baby squid with cartilage removed and quickly poached that are so plump and fresh they taste as if they'd been stuffed with the tartare other baby squid. The fresh wasabi, seaweed salt, and lime all bring out different sides to these two star ingredients, but it's the seaweed salt that really opens up the sea in this dish.

4. Hamaguri Clam Soup: Two, big, beautiful clams in a soup made with clam juice and dashi. On the bottom are fresh peas in glutinous rice starch that add a complementary sweet note to the juicy and tender clams. Julienned bamboo shoots and seaweed add crunch. Sanshou leaf adds a mint-sorrel-purslane pungency that rounds out the complex flavor profile that's clearly anchored in clam.

5. Baby Tuna Sashimi: Lime, poached onion, thinly sliced raw onion, and baby shiso leaf give this a Japanese crudo character. The dipping sauce, a blend of three soy-based sauces gives it necessary anchoring salt. Baby tuna is definitely better than akami maguro, being milder and more tender, but it's still not in the class of even chutoro.

6. Whale Tongue Soup: Braised for hours in fish stock and served in dashi with Japanese vegetables. The tongue is porous, gooey and delicious. In texture (not taste), the closest analogy I can make is that it's like a cross between an aged tofu that's been simmering for so long that it's porous and soft, but filled with fresh mozzarella with it's chewy bite. In flavor, it's a blend of the collagen on otoro with the dashi that it soaked up in the long braise. There's also a side dish of a yellow pepper paste that taste like mild bird peppers and adds a nice optional kick.

7. Kinmedai: Roasted alfonsino fillet crusted with rice, served with thinly sliced green apple and bitter greens / seaweed. Alfonsino has a bright red skin and big eyes that distinguish it from snapper or bream. It tastes like a firmer snapper with more well-integrated collagen. If alfonsino were fresh Spanish baby lamb leg, red snapper would be vacuum-packed US supermarket lamb leg in the bargain bin. This is worlds better with cleaner, more tightly integrated fish flavors without the off-putting bitter blood line character that taints the finish on red snapper. The crispy rice adds toasty notes and texture. The apple acids are a welcome break between bites, as are the bitter greens that remind you of the purity of the alfonsino's flavors.

8. Wagyu Sirloin Sukiyaki: Very East-meets-West with white asparagus and morels in this subtly sweet teriyaki broth. The 63 degree egg that takes 40 minutes in an immersion circulator to make adds the extra touch of texture and cream that blends the flavors together. The sirloin is A3-6, cooked to medium-rare and sliced thinly enough to remain tender. The classic combination works with the asparagus being the grassy element growing from the earth element (morels), that gets eaten by the cow that all gets eaten by you!

9. Rice with Sakura Shrimp: This looks like a standard Asian dish of rice with dried shrimp seasoning, but is executed with such great ingredients and skill that it becomes fine dining. Intense, sweet and briny nose. The shrimp have a little crunch and a lot of sweet flesh before they melt into fluffy rice. The aftertaste is shrimp consommé all over. The cold greens with fried tofu halt the shrimp aftertaste long enough for you to appreciate just how fantastic it is when you return to the rice. The miso is slightly intense and delicious with soft bean curd skins adding a more texturally interesting feature than simple tofu.

10. Soft Shell Turtle: What a beautiful rice dish, with everything melting into place! The soft shell turtle is raw and tastes a bit like mussels but combined with the 66 degree egg yolk, it takes on a uni character. Mochi strips are thin enough to just melt into the rice grains, adding a textural rice-on-rice play against the urchin. Seaweed builds up the umami.

11. Tomato with Plum Shaved Ice: After seeing the strawberry and peach desserts in prior seasons, this was a bit of a let-down because the savory part of the tomato isn't fully tamed. You break the candy bubble to cut open the ripe tomato. The plum gratinée is the right choice in bridgeable acidity to bring the tomato towards the sweet, but the finish returns to the savory. It's refreshing and technically flawless, but in ways more intellectually than physically pleasing.

12. Sakura Meringue, Almond Ice Cream, Fresh Strawberries: Break through the crispy, melt-in-your mouth meringue to get at the fantastic almond ice cream that has such a velvety texture you want to roll around in it on a hot summer's day. It's just lightly almondy, bringing you the best sweet almond flesh center taste and none of the bitter husk. The strawberries add a sweet tartness. The poached sakura leaf is salted and adds brine that helps each sweet element more clearly delineate itself.

-tastecompendium

After hearing great things about 22 Ships from multiple sources and really missing Spain, I had to give this place a chance. They don't take reservations, but they will take your number at the door and call you. On a Sunday night, the wait was around 20 minutes for a table for two. But that still beats the pit of straight elbows standing room only at popular tapas places in Spain on Thursday through Saturday nights. But you'd hardly eat these tapas with your hands either.

You get a sense that 22 Ships is clearly overwhelmed and rushing orders out, but there are technical flaws that go beyond execution. Even on a calmer night, I suspect that dishes will be very hit/miss here. The success here relies on a crowd of primarily English-speaking tourists looking for something only mildly exotic to eat.

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1. Hamachi with Gazpacho: Good quality hamachi that's presently so tamely you'd think this were a shy crowd. The gazpacho is mostly tomato puree with very little in the way of peppers or onions. Given the mildness of the fish, you'd expect more punch in the sauce. In fact, the only bold move on this plate is a tiny piece of basil that helps, but not enough.

2. Pressed Pork Belly: Crispy and fatty but a bit dried out, I suspect this was shallow fried in a cast iron skillet with a cast iron weight on top to press it. The quince aioli helps fill the moisture void and adds a nice exotic sweetness, but it doesn't make up for what should have been a wonderful vacuum braised then seared cube. The Chinese greens probably reference some dish that combines these greens and pork, but it's a bit lost on the plate.

3. Grilled Wagyu Sirloin: This is about Grade 6/12 marbling, so it has fine flavor, but it's not meltingly tender. It is perfectly seared rare to medium rare and well-seasoned. But the real star of this dish is the black pudding which is richly porky with no real pork grain or intrusive fat; it's just grains of rice that have been deftly bound by blood and fat and pan seared. There's also a piperade sauce that adds some sweet pepper flavor to round out any bitter edges in the other two ingredients.

-tastecompendium

Based on prior three dining experiences at Gagnaire's restaurant in Paris, I decided to give his Asian venture a try. Walking in, there is beautiful view of the bay over which the restaurant seems to levitate and the place is dark, decorated in black with accent mirrors. It feels like a date place.

There are two tasting menus and a short à la carte menu to choose from. The four-course tasting is an abridged version of the seven-course. Both have wine pairing options, which I recommend because, a. the sommelier's selections do pair well with the dishes, and b. the few gems on the wine list are not rare and priced around 2.5x auction.

The food philosophy is French with a combination of French and Asian ingredients. The best dishes generally stuck to French roots.

While this does not live up to Pierre Gagnaire Paris, there are enough food sparks to make Pierre Hong Kong worth a visit. If Pierre can overcome food inconsistencies, it'd clearly merit 2 stars.

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1. Amuses-bouches: This was a set of fun little bites along the same lines as Gagnaire Paris. The black pudding with apple compote was a slightly meaty croquette ball. The brunoise with squid powder was a bit more than a palate cleanser. The beet chip in olive oil was the most harmonious combination with the sweet of the chip cutting the slight bitter of the oil. There was also a marshmallow made savory with shrimp powder, a cheese cracker, a yam, and goat cheese with beet gelée. To get to the Gagnaire standard, execution needs improvement. (I still remember Gagnaire's perfect tater tot on a toothpick in his amuses set over a decade ago.) To move to the San Sebastian 3 star standard, gain storied harmony and flavor development throughout the set.

There are only three places that I've ever been to (restaurant and retail included) where I remember the quality of the bread: the bread sticks at Daniel in NY, half the portfolio of Blue Oven Bakery in Cincinnati, and the mini-baguettes at Pierre Gagnaire in Paris. They have nearly the same mini-baguettes here: crispy and slightly fire kissed crust, doughy interior with just the slightest tinge of sour.

They also have the greatest compound butter in the world here. It's a beurre aux algues from Jean-Yves Bordier and it's one of the few beurre de barattes left in the world; they churn this butter in wood barrels by spinning milk in the barrel. It tastes like great Russian pressed caviar whipped with a great European butter. It's so good that I would trade my best-of-every vintage Italian olive oil source for a local supplier of this.

2. Yabbies with Osetra Caviar: Yabbies are large Australian crayfish. Here, they are poached just long enough to remove them from their shells whole, then served in that not-cooked-through state that allows the slightly-firmer-than-amaebi texture to come through. Under the Pouilly-Fuisse cream is a Japanese citrus gelée with grapefruit vacuoles. The whole dish is garnished with radishes, flowers, sugar crisps, and caviar. The play on textures in dish is really quite remarkable. You have the soft yabbies mixed with cream, then the gelatin elements as they break up in your mouth, crispy-fresh radish slices, crunchy sugar cracklin, and bursts of caviar and grapefruit sacs. The yabbies are pulled in different directions with each bite, from the traditional creamy shellfish to the citrusy shellfish and finally with that pop of brine from the caviar.

3. Hokkiado Scallop with Asparagus: The scallop is slightly overcooked, but benefits from the spinach puree (which gives it a green minerally character) and the scallop cream (which adds body). That green/white contrast is reflected also in the two colors of asparagus. The green has more mid-palate bite and astringency. The white is more mild; you get the mildly sweet vegetal finish of cooked asparagus before you swallow. Finally, there's a small roulade of black truffled chicken with scallop in the middle on two perfectly crisp crackers that reference one of the traditional preparations of Coquilles St. Jacques, sliced horizontally and layered with black truffles. This is an incredibly harmonious dish and were it not for the slight overcooking on the scallop, would have been the dish of the night.

4. Roasted Abalone with Foie Gras Soup: Nested atop braised leek, celery and fennel, the abalone is reasonably tender, but it has bite from being a small abalone. The foie gras is tinged with green curry and is probably a reference to crab back fat but constructed from earth. There's certainly a sense that each spoonful is like digging into sea mud in a good way. Julienned fresh celery strands add a bit of freshness, but it's still not quite balanced. This is the first of a few dishes that would have benefited from the omission of Asian influence. The green curry brings in an odd bitter that accentuates the worst aspect of foie gras, the part that's usually masked through careful deveining, salt, and cream.

5. Grilled Red Mullet with Tomato Relish: Very Mediterranean preparation that recalls a cross between ratatouille and bouillabaisse in flavor profile. Tomato, olive, artichoke and zucchini bring out the meaty character of the mullet; but the best part of this dish is the diced mullet that's barely torched on one side which contrasts so well with the roast pieces, the later being fleshy and briny to the prior's crunchy tang.

6. Smoked Pigeon Salad and Potato Soup: While it's still tender, smoking accentuates the gaminess on this bird. Fresh peas and salad greens offer minimal relief. The creamy potato soup has pieces of shredded pigeon and tomato on the bottom, which add depth and acidity.

7. Cheese Course: Three cheeses are presented, each with its own accompaniments that work well. The Gruyere comes across as creamier because of the white chocolate shavings and the shredded green beans are a fine textural go-between for flavor balance. The Fourme d'Ambert soup is rendered with cream and strained. It has beautiful layered overtones of blue cheese. The Moelleux du Revard is slightly mushroomy with a Camembert consistency. The caramelized pecans and fantastic spice paste (that's kind of like a modified achiote) really anchor cheese.

8. Grand Dessert: Having this at Gagnaire Paris made me look forward to the Hong Kong version. Sadly, too many of the small dishes were marred by Asian medicinal notes. The wild strawberries with grated Parmesan was sweet and savory, but missing the necessary balsamic to pull it together. I also question the choice of grated vs. shave Parmesan. The champagne granité with grapefruit is pulled in an overly sweet direction with the simple syrup on the bottom. The dragon fruit, cream, exotic citrus and tapioca dish had an odd Chinese medicinal aftertaste. The meringue with citrus and angelica seemed disjointed by the slightly bitter rhubarb that is angelica. The vanilla cream and panna cotta set was a happy play on the textures of crème anglaise. The chocolate cake with pistachio ice cream and blackberries was a classic winning combination.

-tastecompendium

when people keep saying there is no good stuff at university, its all wrong!!!

i have been studying in CUHK for 3 years, and finally i have discovered a real good stuff!! its located in CC around "5high", near to the SHHO college.

a high quality pizza just costs us 28HKD, its not kidding, its real.

its quality can defo compare to 150ish at pixxaexpress or any other chain store!!

and every week SCR offers a variety of choices and menu will be changed weekly!

last time i had a peach & seafood pizza (just costs me 28 lol), was absolutely bravo!!!! peach and seafood match well with each other, and with melted cheese which is yammmm!!

ordering pizza with a set is also a nice choice, adding 10 HKD extra, you can enjoy a caesar salad (which worths it price , veggie was fresh and da sauce is kinda fab!), and a coffee or tea

there is a set with dessert, which costs you 5- 10 bucks more (i cant really remember) lol pistachio mousse was awesomeeee!!!!! it was so creamy and running through your mouth but a bit too sweet for the one who doesnt like sweetie thing

40ish dollar can make your day! and there are several side dishes too, gotta try them all next time and i promise i will take photos too ;)

Metrocity used to be an old mall with the most basic shops such as standard supermarkets, pharmacies and local restaurants.

But recently, new fashion brands such as pull & bear, H&M, and other eateries from the city have opened there.
It was just lacking a nice patisserie.

After trying a new restaurant nearby, I spotted this patisserie from the floor above and went down to check it out because it was located on the basement floor near the escalators.

Just after I bought some chocolates at K11's Che Che New York, I discovered they were selling it too at 7-11 convenience stores.

Luckily the flavours at 7-11 were not sold at the K11 branch.

I saw the chocolate with bacon so i got that.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Che Che Chocolate and bacon dark chocolate:

Love All kind of Japanese food, Sushi, Sashimi, Yakiniki, Hinabe, and Ramen... I have been at this shop a few times, and just ordered a Ramen with pan fried dumping for lunch. Sometime, My bf will add one or two skewers and a beer or sake.

They have so many types of Japanese sake, and taste is quite good and price is reasonable. That is why my bf will choose this shop for lunch quite frequently, as he is a sake lover. We have tried to collect the full set of the four seasons sake's bottle this year. (Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter) we just have two now. Can't wait to collect them all.

Sake: we tried "Spring", this is quite suitable for a girl. Not too strong and very smooth.

Ramen: frankly speaking, their ramen is not good for a real reman's lover. Just average, even they named the same name with Mutekiya Ikebukuro, taste is completely different.