HONG KONG: Malaymama

Malaymama, a tiny takeout/fast food restaurant in Sheung Wan. There are actually 3 restaurants on the same street that serve similar dishes, I like this one. I used to live close by at one point and when I wasn't meeting anyone for dinner, 2 out of 5 times, I would pay them a visit. THeir specialty is Laksa and their octopus spinach.

Their Laksa is not as spicy as the traditional Laksa, better suited for the locals tastebuds. Spices are available upon request. You can tell by the colour of the soup that the chef took a long time boiling all the flavours. It's not very thick but the coconut milk was delicious. The shop owner claimed that the soup was made of over 20 catties of shrimps. No wonder there's a strong flavour of prawn in the soup. The texture of the noodle was good that it retained its resilience of flour. The big shrimps were all fresh. If you have a big appetite, this would be excellent as the portions are huge, lots of prawns, veggies and meat.

What I really like is their Octopus Spinach Salad, served cold. Upon any order, you can add this veggie dish for $15HKD. I'm not sure if this is a traditional Malaysian dish but I enjoyed it. It is made with spinach and octopus(as the name defines), there's a special red sauce on top, spicy, tangy and a little peanutty, topped with crushed peanuts. The octopus is very fresh. The texture was crunchy, almost as if it was raw. Went great with the spinach as the spinach was cooked and thus the combination was perfect. The sauce went well with it, hinting Malaysian flavours with it's spices.

Pasta! Pasta! Pasta!

As you may have already noticed, I dine out far more than I cook, and honestly, it's not because I don't enjoy it, I just don't like the preparation work of cooking. First time *actually cooking in my new apartment and it turned out better than expected!

This pasta doesn't have a name, since we just raided the supermarkets selecting products that we wanted to eat!

Ingredients:
- Tomatoes
- Chopped onions
- Olive Oil
- White wine
- Rubia Chorizo Sausauges
- thyme
- Holland Giant mushrooms
- Chili flakes
- ground black pepper, salt to season
- mozzarella
- spinach
- whole wheat organic spaghetti

1. Boil spaghetti in a large pot, turn heat off when it comes to a boil and cover pot for 15 minutes.

2. Drain and set aside.
3. Chop onions and cut each tomatoes into four slices

4. Simmer onions and tomatoes with olive oil/butter until soft

5. Add white wine, chili flakes and thyme, stir until almost dry, add more white wine
6. Wait until it comes to a boil, add Chorizo, mushrooms and spinach

7. Mix in spaghetti

8. Add salt and pepper and mozzarella
9. Voila!

TAIWAN: Ay-Chung's Flour-rice Noodles阿宗麵線

These rice-noodles that are made by Ay-Chung have originated since 1975 in Taiwan. Available throughout various locations in Taiwan, they definitely deserve the hype.

The shop is very small, and there's no room to sit, so everything was take out only. Apparently, the average daily receipts are close to US$30,000 (NT$1,000,000) a day. Very local indeed, as you pass by the store in Xi Men Ding, you will see crowds of people scattered around the restaurant, one is the line-up, the others are just people standing by the pillars eating their noodles.

These flour-rice noodles is the only thing they serve in the whole shop, there is a man standing in front of two giant woks, scooping noodles from one and soup from the other into a plastic green bowl. This bowl of wheat-based noodles, its strands are as fine as angel hair, suspended in a murky brown soup as thick as gravy; thickened with a healthy dose of cornstarch, this soup clung to the noodles. There were pieces of pork intestine, needle mushrooms and bamboo shoots to add to the texture of the combination. Condiments includes hot chili oil and parsley.

You would not believe it, but I just HAD to get myself a bowl on the way to the airport, and yes, we were eating it on the taxi, scorching hot and the ride was a bumpy one but we didn't spill a drop!

VANCOUVER: C Restaurant

Who likes Seafood? What about desserts? C Restaurant along the waterfront provides them both with contemporary class. Incredible food is only the start of the many praises I've got for this restaurant. The ambiance is fun yet classy, everything in this restaurant has good taste, from the snow white interiors, to their lighting, their cutlery, glasses, etc. Their ever astounding creativity surprises me every time, you could order the same dish 10 times and you would get something slightly different, always looking good. Despite their inconsistent presentation of their dishes, the flavour, temperature and taste have always been consistently surpassing my expectations (and high is that).

There was however, one disappointment, the service of the servers there were not as attentive as expected from a classy restaurant like this, and making reservations was a pain. We made reservations 3-4 days ahead of time and when the hostess called to confirm the day before, instead of marking us down for a table of 6, she only marked down a table for 4 and thus we had to reschedule our reservations.

Be prepared for forking out extra money if you are planning on ordering wine as their wine list is overpriced.

Lobster Set Menu we ordered from consisted of Lobster Carpaccio, Lobster Bisque, Lobster and a Maple Syrup Creme Brulee.

The Lobster Carpaccio turned out to be very fresh and sweet, the chives complimented it well.

Portion for the lobster bisque was not very generous, however, the bisque was very light and foamy, we begged for more.

The Lobster was shelled and placed on top of spinaches and potatoes. They used an apple sauce as the sauce. First time for me to have lobster with apple sauce and it was superb. The lobster was fresh and the apple added just enough sweetness.

I absolutely adore maple syrup and Creme Brulee has been my favorite dessert since I've known of it. This combination impressed me so much that I literally cleaned the bowl with my tongue... just thinking about this is making me drool...

Trumpet Royal Mushroom Risotto sidestripe shrimp, spinach, lemon parmesan broth

Grilled 'AAA' Beef Striploin goat cheese gnocchi, parsnip, rapini red wine jus

Milk Chocolate and Cinnamon Mousse Cake white chocolate ice cream, dried cherry

HONG KONG: Desserts @ Stonegrill

Been to Stonegrill in Vancouver? Well I have a few times and never wanted to go back. A friend of mine brought me to the one in Hong Kong and I didn't have any expectations whatsoever. She told me it was good though, so we went. The ambiance is totally different as the one in Soho, Hong Kong is very classy, very elegant and looks very much like a French restaurant. The food was superb, much tastier than the one in Vancouver. I was impressed by their selection on their menu. What impressed me more was their desserts. The presentation was very exquisite, each artistically put together, didn't even want to touch them when they arrived because they looked so nice.

We ordered the Mille Feulle with mangoes and strawberries and blackberry with chocolate drizzle. The crust was very crispy, and their selection of seasonal fruits made a good combination.

We also ordered the Chocolate tower with iced mango filling. Never realized that chocolate tasted so good with mangoes. The chocolate was rich but the cake was fluffy, evened out perfectly, and I love the presentation of this one, very simple but very detailed.

HONG KONG: From the best city view

No doubt, Hong Kong is the home to one of the best city views in the world, encompassing some of the greatest architectural designs all within this small cosmopolitan city. Dining while overlooking this magnificent view is one of the few luxuries that you cannot get enough of. For those of you who've been, for those of you who's heard of, Peking No. 1, 29th floor, Aqua-Tokyo. Aqua-Tokyo is a fusion Japanese Restaurant with a bit of an Italian mix as they also have an Italian kitchen on the same floor. There is also the Aqua-Spirit(the bar) up above, the view is absolutely breathtaking, when you're standing up there, basically, you feel like you have conquered the world. Yes, I may have exaggerated just a tad bit, but honestly... it is truly amazing to have such a view in such a tiny city.

You can expect to be served by English-speaking servers as the crowd there are mostly westerners. We were seated by the windows(score!), adjacent to the private rooms (double score!), overlooking the beautiful night view of Hong Kong island.

Our experience at Aqua was not as impressive as the view, I regrettably admit. The servers all spoke English but unfortunately were not too attentive and not too friendly. The music was a little on the loud side so don't expect to have a nice quiet romantic dinner. Romantic view and romantic furniture, romantic almost everything *but the ambiance.

The dishes were decent, some more impressing than others. The sashimi platter was pretty plain except for the delicious piece of foie gras sushi.

The presentation of all their plates were just as their restaurant's decor, elegantly trendy. I love the presentation of the black cod, although the texture was not as tender as I had expected, it was flavorful and juicy

.

The tiramisu at the end was pretty bad. It didn't look nice nor did it taste very good. The presentation looked like it was made in a rush, and the chef made a mistake and loaded on the cocoa powder to cover it up. The sponge part of the cake was dry and there was way too much cocoa powder, making a mess everywhere.

VANCOUVER: Brunch @ Feenies

How I miss my regular brunches at Feenies... or my hair appointments at Marcus J (located right beside Feenies). Sometimes would go for the unhealthy choice of Feenies Weenie or the Burger... but for breakfast food, I really like their Salmon Blini.
The yolk is raw on the inside but with a well-done egg-white, so that the egg yolk doesn't break easily. The English muffin is warm and has a crispy crust and I love how the shower the blini with salmon roe. Adds a very interesting texture to the dish. The smoked salmon is fresh, going exquisitely with the Hollandaise sauce. Yumm... my mouth is getting watery just from looking at the picture.

The Roast Beef Rye Sandwich is also one of my favorites for brunch. Toasted rye bread with avocado, tomatoes and lettuce with a side salad greens. Healthy and fresh for a Sunday (hangover) morning. It helps that the Rye bread is so moist.

HONG KONG: Petits Cupcake

UPDATE: This cupcake joint is GONE! No more addition to my weight! (that's me looking on the positive side of things, whimper*)

Petits Cupcakes are definitely not petite at all. Available at Elements Shopping Mall, this cupcake store is always busy. Though I must admit, their cupcakes could be better tasting, but presentation-wise, they win hands-down. They have the prettiest cupcakes, a big variety too, including flavours like Valrhona Orange, Smores, Sea Salt Chestnut Cream, Lemon Meringue, Mint Chocolate Chip, Baileys, Eggy, etc. $23hkd a pop. (Approx $3.50usd)

Lemon Meringue: The top part was a foam-like cream, with a lemon-ey filling. The lemon filling was far too sweet, the foam was fluffy, but the cupcake itself was too dry. The cupcakes, as you can see are works of art. They are all intricately made, however, they don't taste great. The cupcakes are on the dry side, and some are too sweet. I understand that cupcakes are desserts and they are supposed to be sweet, but for certain flavours, such as their Dark Truffle Cupcake, I would expect at least a little bitterness. Some of the cupcakes have a cream filling, unusual for a cupcake. The Sea Salt Chestnut Cream cupcake has chestnut paste filling, I enjoyed this one very much.Mint Chocolate Chip: I always like Mint Chocolate Chip, the chocolate chips on top were crunchy, very delicious chocolate chips, but the icing on top was not good at all. The icing was far too sweet, made me tooth numb and I couldn't even finish it. The chocolate cupcake didn't go well with the icing because they were both equally as sweet. Smores Cupcake: The marshmallow on top was too hard and the marshmallow as a filling was too heavy. I think I'd go somewhere else for cupcakes next time.

The Cake shop itself was a lovely experience. Decorated with a huge colorful Cupcake in the window display yet elegant once you step inside the store. Filled with hundreds of cupcakes, a little bit like a kid walking into a gigantic toy store.

Coupon for New York Fries

For you all Hongkies, here's something special for you!

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