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2014-07-26
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I had the honor of playing tour guide to some friends visiting from San Francisco. 3 of them arrived with a good amount of jet lag early hours in the morning. After a revitalizing breakfast at Mui Kee (Mong Kok), followed by a lunch at Chong Fat in Kowloon City, we ended up at The Chairman around 6 pm on a Friday night. It was all our first and only time at this restaurant, and we were quite blown away by everything (pretty much except for one dish which I will get into).The one great thing abou
I had the honor of playing tour guide to some friends visiting from San Francisco. 3 of them arrived with a good amount of jet lag early hours in the morning. After a revitalizing breakfast at Mui Kee (Mong Kok), followed by a lunch at Chong Fat in Kowloon City, we ended up at The Chairman around 6 pm on a Friday night. It was all our first and only time at this restaurant, and we were quite blown away by everything (pretty much except for one dish which I will get into).The one great thing about The Chairman is that I was able to make a reservation through email, prior to my arrival in Hong Kong. Manager/co-owner Danny was extremely helpful (unfortunately he was not present the evening we dined) and answered all of my questions and inquiries about pre-order dishes, seasonality/availability, and pricing. I had done as much research from the blogs of the more well known Openrice members, and in some cases worried too much about what to get in the event that the standard menu items were less than interesting. Fortunately my fears were put entirely to rest.
There is no doubt that The Chairman is a bit of a polarized restaurant....not many out there truly understand it, unless you have a deep seated appreciation for what they are really set out to do. There are many restaurants like The Chairman (that are western) in California....the concept is not really that novel, look at Chez Panisse in Berkeley California, one of the pioneers of locavore....meaning that you use the best locally available ingredients. Due to economic and geopolitical reasons (as well as other factors), quality non polluted original flavor original taste, even down to local produce, fish, meat, and seafood, is a prized commodity. The operating philosophy of The Chairman is something I really applaud....maybe there are other restaurants doing the same, and while some locals think this approach is gimmicky, but what they are doing is very commendable at the same time.
About a week prior to the reservation, I had landed in Hong Kong early and pretty much the same day, went over personally to The Chairman to decide on the dishes. I want to say that one of the managers, (Simon)? Helped me and he was a true pleasure to deal with. He set us up with a tasting menu for four (which ended up being way more food that we liked), that had most of our favorites. I purposely swapped out a few of the tasting courses with some dishes I felt were a must. Unfortunately I do not recall exactly what was swapped, but all in all, a pretty good value especially given the quality and style of food which cannot be found in California. I was pretty close to wanting to upgrade the size of the crab despite the hefty $600 markup, but good thing we stuck to the original "middle" sized, which was already good enough.
This is all from memory, so please bear with me if I got my facts mixed up
Chilled tomato (basil), pickled daikon - This was a no brainer starter dish. Chilling yet refreshing. If something this simple tastes rather complex, the meal has to progress upward, which it did.
Dragonwell tea smoked/roasted squab - While we have squab served at restaurants in Northern California, it is extremely difficult to find an execution as fine as this. Very delicate, yet robust. Delicious all the way down to the bones!
Threadfin salted fish (from Tai O) pan fried pork patty - Splendid. The fragrance and umami from the quality of the Tai O salted threadfin, the intense sear from the pan fry of the pork patty, and this was quite heavenly. If only we had a bowl of their Japanese rice to go with this, and it would feel even more homey.
Double boiled soup - Unfortunately I do not recall the ingredients or the name of this soup, but it really hit the spot on this cool January evening, and had a good rounded sweetness and robustness to it. Certainly different from the double boiled soups at Ser Wong Fun, have to say I prefer SWF's a bit more, perhaps a bit more balanced. Either way a pleasing start.
Flower/blue crab with chicken lard, shaoxing wine, and Shunde style "Chan village" rice noodles - I really don't care what other "foodies" say....this dish single handedly put The Chairman on the international culinary map. Celebrity chefs from around the world have dined here and pretty much all of them gave this dish the thumbs up, from Alain Ducasse, Pierre Gagnaire, Seiji Yamamoto, and most recently Heston Blumenthal. Yes you can probably find cheaper larger flower crab dishes but that is really not the point. For those who like stronger liquor flavor, this does the job. The smoothness of the Shunde style noodles that soaks up the chicken lard and shaoxing wine sauce, is a combination worth coming all the way here for, in addition to the intensity of the crab meat with it.
The next dish was probably the most disappointing of all. This was the stir fried "pei pa" shrimp with shrimp roe, served with shrimp heads. The heads were actually the best part. The presentation was solid, but somehow the combination of the roe with the stir fried body, was just off, from the texture to the flavor. The ingredients were not called into question but more so the overall result. This did not deter from the meal, but noteworthy enough that none of us particularly liked the roe and shrimp stir fry.
The 18 flavor "strange flavor" soy sauce chicken - not sure what to think about it, but really tender chicken with a very complex marinade. Very good, but a few of my friends perhaps found it a tad too herbal, but not overpowering. Either way much much better dish than the previous one.
The next beef dish I unfortunately do not remember much about it, but it looked like beef rib finger slices. Not super remarkable, but not bad.
The 3 shrimp flavor fried rice was very good - Tai O's finest in a bowl...shrimp paste, shrimp block, and fresh shrimp fried rice. I think some shrimp roe sprinkled on top and maybe even some dried shrimp, making it a 5 flavor, would bring it over the top. :-)
The desserts were equally awesome. Goji berry ice cream was a delight, but my favorite was the Chinese almond tea. This version does not incorporate egg white, but was ridiculously smooth and creamy.
At this point I did not care whether The Chairman lost their Michelin Star, but we were all very pleased with dinner. Atra/Altra was our waiter and he was a very fun and engaging waiter, patiently answered many questions and even shared a few stories of his encounters with celebrity chefs (e.g. Seiji Yamamoto) who he didn't know which restaurant he went to at the time. I joked to him that he was like the Aaron Kwok of washoku in Japan, and he missed out on a selfie photo op with him, haha.
Even the Pu-Er tea we had was extremely solid. Though perhaps not the best choice for jet lagged friends when the caffeine content was skyrocketing, haha.
Thank you Chairman, for leaving such an impressionable mark on me and my friends during our stay/visit to Hong Kong!
张贴
