SANYA: Hainan Attack at China Harvest

Yea Yea.. I know, it couldn't have been the best English name they came up with, but China Harvest it is. To introduce Sanya, it is known as a tropical destination for lovers, golfers and those in Asia that need a cheap getaway.  It's located at the Southernmost part of China, providing ample fresh seafood to the city daily.  This restaurant however, was a change from the days of seafood we had previously. Located in the Hilton Hotel, China Harvest being their only Chinese restaurant, serving an abundance of 8 different Chinese cuisines, namely Shandong, Sichuan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Canton, Hunan, Fujian and Anhui.  This restaurant was recommended by 3 friends when they were told I was going to Sanya, so I saved this for my last day there.

As we entered the restaurant, we had to pass through a little courtyard and a fountain with a big water buffalo statue. The area was a nice little addition to the restaurant, a transition from a 5 star hotel ambiance to an entirely different setting.  The setting was modern yet very traditional at the same time, with a bamboo garden in the middle of the restaurant surrounded by glass, square chandeliers hang from the ceilings covered with sheer rose gold cloth and blood red drapings hemming the whole restaurant. The table settings were exquisitely set up with gold and red with a cute pot of dried red peppers as the centre piece.

To cover their variety of different Chinese cuisines, we apt for dim sum, a main dish and fried rice; for two, that's already quite a feast for lunch!

We ordered two dim sum, one is the barbeque bun and the other is a fried dumpling with veggies and pork. They were both made very well, especially the fried dumpling. The crispyness broke off as you chewed it, not leaving any space for it to be soggy, and the filling was flavourful, veggies were still crunchy. But other than that, it was JUST dim sum, didn't exactly tickle my fancy.

For the main, we ordered Wenchang chicken, which is authentic Hainan cuisine. (By the way, did you know Hainan chicken rice originated from Thailand, and using "Hainan" was just the name?) Wenchang chicken is the authentic Hainan chicken and it's nothing like the Thai kind, with the green onion sauce.

Anyways. the Wenchang chicken is the breed of chicken, it's quite fleshy(chubby chickie) and considerably smaller, fed with coconut and peanut bran, giving the chicken quite a nice fragrance and more plump but not too greasy.

Our Wenchang Chicken was boiled and served with Ginger sauce and cold. I don't know whether it was just made really well or the chicken was just really tasty. The white meat was juicy but not greasy, delicious! I was a little worried that I hyped up the restaurant a little too much, but I wasn't disappointed!

Now the next one I must say is "ZE BEST"! It was fried rice covered with a thick sauce. I am having troubles deciding on how/where to start. The sauce had pork pieces, Gailan vegetables, Chinese mushrooms and shrimp. The shrimp was fresh (Seafood city), and the veggies gave it the right amount of texture to the soupy rice.  I am starting to drool, just thinking about it.

China Harvest, 1/Fl, Hilton Sanya Resort & Spa, Yalong Bay, Sanya

Opened 11:30-10pm daily
Average cost for lunch: RMB$100-$150/person

KOBE: Revisiting my long time lover: Kannonya

As the title attest, Kannonya is my long time lover in Kobe, Japan. It's simply my favorite place for cheesecakes. I wrote about this last year but this time going to Japan, I found Kannonya a new fan.  The last time I was here has been quite a while ago, thus I got a little lost. :p

 

After 40 minutes of searching, we finally arrived. I paid more attention to the ambiance, the setting and basically the whole experience this time while I was there. After 3 days of non-stop shopping, I just wanted to relax in this small cafe. We were seated right by the window. Playing light tunes, the colour and lighting provided just what I needed in a midday break from the hustling Sannomiya city.

Instead of ordering a few different desserts like the previous times I was here, I announced that I was getting my OWN cheesecake. Hehe.. "selfish" I was called. Little did the name-caller know, when he finally takes a bite out of his cake, he too, would want his own.  So about halfway through my cake, savouring every single bite with closed eyes and a dreamy smile, our name-caller devoured every single crumb, TA-DA... now he knows why I wanted my own cake! There I was, still chewing each bite with extreme pleasure. Who says chocolate was the only way to bliss? So is this, and this gets me there even quicker!

I just absolutely HAD to brag about my moments at Kannonya.. and how I miss that single hour I was there. Ahhh... bliss is a wonderful thing.

The comment I received from my partner: "The walk was SO WORTH IT!"

Kannonya 兵庫県神戸市中央区東川崎町6-1 Phone: 078-360-1537

http://www.kannonya.co.jp/menu/menu.htm

HONG KONG: High Tea at Mandarin Oriental Clipper Lounge

After a long weekend of eating, eating and more eating.. how I can't NOT share?

Now we went to this restaurant quite some while ago, but the comments still linger quite clearly in my head.
For one of our friends birthday, we decided to take her to Mandarin Oriental for their afternoon tea.  We chose Mandarin Oriental because it's somewhere we all haven't been for High tea and that it's a 5-star hotel, renowned as one of the best in Hong Kong, we couldn't go wrong with that! So we arrived at Clipper Lounge precisely at 3:15 as we purposely skipped lunch for this. Instead of the Chocolate tea buffet, we decided that we'd be more elegant and have the food served to us thus we ordered a tea set for 2 to share amongst the three of us. 

Our server was friendly, exactly what you would expect from a 5-star hotel restaurant. Our tea and orange juice were served promptly. After a while, our tea set was served with raisin and plain scones. It looked pretty amazing with three-layers of cakes and pastries. How can any girl not go wide-eyed looking at that? The first layer was colorful, with orange, peach, yellow and green of sandwiches; the second layer was what appeared to be pies, tarts, mainly savoury snacks and the bottom layer were cakes! (Yum!)

We dove right into the first layer, each taking up one of the many colorful pieces; I started with the green (cucumber) one... i spat it out in a second. Who wraps sponge cake with cucumbers, and I thought they were sandwiches!? "Spat" and "spat", I heard and looked up. My fellow friends both spat out theirs as well. And with the same reaction: "Who wraps SALMON/PARMA HAM around sponge cake?" Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Clipper Lounge has succeeded in being innovative: wrapping salmon, Parma ham, cucumber and scrambled egg around creamy sponge cake. It was just a natural reaction to spit it out. We left the other ones untouched.

We washed our palettes with scones and strawberry jam. I must say that, the scones were excellent. It was fluffy, frothy almost, it pretty much dissolved the moment I started chewing. The jam was amazing, it must have been homemade. It was sweet but not artificially, the rose petal jam prominently fresh. I am not a big fan of butter cream, but according to last bit of butter cream left by the time we were done, I'd say it must have been pretty good.

Already disappointed with the tea set, we had to give it another try, thus we moved on to the second layer. This layer consists of pies and tarts. It was considerably better than the first layer but we were all still not impressed with the quality of the food. There was a prawn tart, whereby it was the best thing in the tea set so far. The prawn was fresh and the spices were just right; pastry was acceptable, although a bit soggy.

Eventually after laughing, chatting and catching up, we decided to move on to the bottom layer: desserts! The Blueberry Cheesecake was quite creamy but nothing really that special, the blueberries were quite sweet but not over powering. The granola/carrot cake did not look enticing at all, thus we all decided to skip that one. The chocolate cake, in my opinion is the best. I guess you can't really go wrong with chocolate though, especially when they are doing a chocolate tea buffet. The chocolate ganache was not too sweet, made with the right amount of alcohol, enough to get a hint of the flavour, the chocolate was extremely silky with a dallop of cream on top.

I probably wouldn't recommend this tea set, however the scones and chocolate cake are worth a try.

Clipper Lounge Mandarin Oriental Hotel, 1/Fl, 5 Connaught Road, Central. 2825 4007

Open Daily 3-6pm for Afternoon Tea

MACAU: Ali's Curry House

Macau lies on the western side of the Pearl River Delta, an hour ferry ride from Hong Kong. Because of the Portuguese background, even though just a mere ferry ride, the cuisine, the culture, even the way people look and talk are very much different from Hong Kong.  Local Macanese food is made up of a blend of mainly Chinese and Portuguese cuisines although it uses the ingredients and seasonings from different countries, including those from Europe, South America, Africa, India, and Southeast Asia ingredients. And who said Macau was ALL about the casinos?

This restaurant that we chose in Macau was Ali's Curry House. It's a low-key, lovely lakeside restaurant that's a close proximity from the city, facing the Sai Lake and the Macau Tower.  With both indoor and outdoor alfresco seating, the restaurant seats about 120. Seems like it's not that small of a restaurant, however if you don't make reservations ahead of time, expect to wait forever. (Note: this restaurant isn't like most other food outlets in Macau where it stays opened until the sun comes up, it HAS a closing time, and it's 11pm.)

The two times I've been here, I left with a very satisfied tummy, although a little bloated, nonetheless, my tummy was satisfied. The dishes aren't huge, making it possible to order a few more dishes to try out.They have a very extensive mouth-watering menu that makes it a difficult decision.

The first time I went, we started off with Shrimp on Toast, Baked Mussels and the Samosas.  The Shrimp toast was very fluffy with a big shrimp on top, so fluffy that it reminded me of tempura, though it was a bit on the oily side.  Samosas, again were too oily but it was bursting with flavourful curried veggies. TheBaked Mussels were perfect. Cheese was melted so that it was stringy, and the mussels itself was not only extremely fresh but they were large and were able to be pulled effortlessly from the shell.



As the name attests, Ali's Curry House, it's specialty is none other but Curry. They have a whole page dedicated to it, an assortment of curries are available, from Vegetarian curries to a variety of seafood curries, beef and lamb, basically everything that goes well with curry! We chose chicken curry. Not much of an exciting dish eh? You're wrong and I was wrong, they were able to WOW me with that dish. The flavours were so distinct, it's like you can differentiate the variety of spices, it tantilizes your tastes buds. It wasn't too spicy yet had a kick, the potatoes were soft where it just breaks apart in your mouth without chewing and the chicken was tender with a bit of sweetness.  What was even better was that they had 5-6 different Naan bread selections, we chose the whole wheat naan (trying to be healthy after all those fried food). Only comment is that it wasn't warm enough and a bit on the hard side. Another bite of the curry, low and behold, it easily made up for the flaws of the naan.

That was it for my first time at Ali's Curry House. When we left, it started pouring rain! Getting a taxi there is fine, it's leaving the restaurant that's a a hassle. There aren't any taxi's there, so you literally got to stand on the streets and wave them down (rain or shine).
Totally not equipped for the rain, we ran out, frantically waving our arms for a taxi and after 15 minutes, soaked, we finally found one. That's fine, we thought, our lunch was worth it.

The second time we went was for dinner. Here are just a few other dishes we tried:

Beef brisket curry, and not wanting to make the same mistake with the naan, we opted for rice.  The curry doesn't need anymore compliments, it gets enough; rather, this curry tasted very from the chicken. It was a lot meatier and a lot thicker.  Needless to say, we cleaned out the dish.

Beef Short Ribs, it tastes exactly what you would expect from a good short rib dish, savoury, salty and juicy.  It wasn't fatty but it was fairly greasy. It was cooked perfectly otherwise, I had to be STOPPED from hogging the whole dish to myself.

Portuguese Sausages, Thought we'd try something more "Portuguese" so we tried this. I didn't like it. It was far too salty and basically my tongue was numb and it stayed numb until i drank a full glass of water.

Duck Fried Rice, I didn't order this, only because I thought we already had enough food, with curry, appies, rice and all, but my companions did, and am I ever glad they did. Before this came, I was already full; I declared that I'd have just one bite to try it. That "one bite" didn't stop there, not even close, I think I had almost a whole bowl of rice after everything we had before that. The fried rice was dry, covering the hidden duck inside. Uncovering the rice, shredded duck was peeking through. The aroma of the duck literally filled-in the little space between me and the rice. The duck was very moist, shredded up with the duck skin making the fried rice a little chewier and crispier.

Overall this is worthy coming back to and it's a great place to take friends. Of the ones I've recommended, I don't think anyone has yet been disappointed! 

Ali's Curry House Avenida da República no. 4-K, Lojas L-M, R/C, Macau

Open daily from 12:30 pm. - 11:30 pm, Reservations are a MUST: +853 2855 5865

Luxist Reader's Choice for Best in Food

Luxist has put together the "Reader's Choice for Best in Food" awards. With a number of sumptuous nominations, there is still time for you to vote. Results will be announced in about 10 hours from now.

Each of finalists for the Readers' Choice for the Best Gourmet Grocer/Food Hall is a leader in the industry.

The Readers' Choice for the Best Online Gourmet Food nominees include a New York institution with a staff that travel the world in search of great artisan-produced foods.

The Readers' Choice for the Best Caviar Retailer for a Luxist Award include award-winning brands from Europe and the United States with each offering the highest of quality. Several offer some of the finest Russian caviar to be found, while one is a proponent of sustainably harvested roe with its own tank-farming system.

Nominees for Readers' Choice for Best Bread Bakery include companies that have been producing bread for decades. One opened more than 70 years ago and is now an institution in Paris, while another was launched in Belgium before expanding around the world. A Los Angeles-based nominee has developed more than 100 varieties of award-winning breads.

Readers' Choice nominees for Best Cheese Shop include some of the most respected shops in the world. These cheese shops, offer a full range of both international and domestic artisanal cheeses. They are the destinations for serious cheese lovers and chefs who are in search of the best.

Vote for the Best Caviar Retailer, Best Bread Bakery, Best Cheese Shop and more here.

HONG KONG: A vegetarian restaurant for meat lovers!

Gah! What? A vegetarian restaurant for meat lovers? It must be, I need my meats for a fulfilling dinner. I've been to numerous vegetarian restaurants and no matter what how they've made their dishes or how full I become, I've never been fully satisfied. One of the girls that brought me there is the same way, we both need our meaty dinners.

Life's purpose is "be the change you want to see in the world." It sure changed MY view of a vegetarian meal. This restaurant served such gastronomic delights that I went twice in the same week! Price ranges from $40hkd for a starter to $110 for a main, such a good deal for such fine ingredients. Everything served is organic including Organic beers and wines! The menu indicates whether it's a vegan dish or gluten-free; quite handy for the health freaks (not me).

They always have a Soup of the day($45hkd), the soups are always hearty and very filling. Warning: share with a friend. It's such a nice soup to have on a cold winter day (although that only happens about a month out of a year in Hong Kong). Always loaded up with veggies in their soup and bursting with flavours. Organic DOES really make a difference. It is served with an organic sunflower seed bread.

The Life Salad ($80hkd) is mixed baby greens, julienne carrot, julienne beet, sprouts, nuts,
organic hummus & Life’s classic dressing. Served with Life’s organic flaxseed cracker. The salad was served in a large bowl and again, PLEASE SHARE. It's (again) organic thus the vegetables were naturally sweet, with or without the dressing. The dressing enhances the freshness of the veggies.


Now the mains. We could NOT possibly eat anymore at this point but since we already ordered, we didn't have much of a choice but to try everything. We shared 2 mains amongst the 3 of us. The Sesame scented tofu, seasonal vegetable & organic quinoa stir fry ($95hkd) was very flavourful, it tasted very Oriental... it's just LIKE Chinese stir-fry minus the oil. Finding such an unhealthy dish prepared so healthily is just like a fat boy finding hot fudge cake with ice cream on top... such a nice feeling. The tofu was barbequed with actually grill marks.. one of the hardest things to master according to my chef-friend. The only thing was that they added a bit too much salt, oh well, at least their ingredients are natural and healthy!


and the Whole wheat pizza with roasted garlic, mushrooms, smoked mozzarella & rocket ($95hkd), the pizza crust was a bit on the hard side, a bit like biting into a biscuit. I know, some people might enjoy that but I personall don't. I like it crispy, chips-crispy, not hard. The combination was excellent, I LOO-O-VE my 'shrooms. I was actually glad that it was not served in a very generous portion as we were already stuffed, however if I only ordered that, I probably wouldn't be that happy about it.

And... desserts.. we didn't order any! They had organic cookies and carrot cake or something like that.. it didn't sound too appetizing so we passed. Life needs only one more addition: a better dessert menu!

Life Organic Health Cafe Soho Central open daily from 8am - midnight, Reservations: (852) 2810 9777

HONG KONG: Oysters, oysters and oysters

Yes, I know, I've been gone, how inconsistent of me... the good news is, the foody is BACK!!


A friend told me about this hidden restaurant tucked away under a highway in North Point, Hong Kong. You wouldn't even notice it if you didn't know exactly what you were looking for. Oyster C. You'll recognize it by the glass windows with red, blue, green pen marks all over it. Takes up to a week to make reservations on weekends, the ambiance is casual and no doubt a fun one, scribbles all over the wall from lovers writing messages to each other to testimonials of the dishes customers gush about.

Don't expect to see a hostess, no one is free enough to just stand by the door, asking if you have reservations. Seated admist a crowd of laughing drunken customers, the ill-dyed-mafia-looking server comes to us asking us in the most casual manner what we'd like. He takes the menu out of our hands before we even had a chance to take a glance. He then asks us what we DON'T like. He goes on in his casual but warm manner, telling us what oysters he is going to choose for us. Satisfied with not having to decide what to eat, we just smiled and nodded.



After a few moments, 8 oysters were served with the usual cocktail sauce, shallot vinegarette and a special olive vinegarette that i especially liked. The olive vinegarette was rather sweet, highlighted the bursting flavours. We were quickly done and ready for round two. We had a total of three rounds with and array of oysters from New Zealand, the States, Ireland and South Africa, with South African oysters topping my list.


Our server came back and brought us our Tom Yum Goong soup with lobster. The lobster was served on the side as a sashimi plate. Did you know that Tom Yum Goong is one of the dishes that excites all your taste buds? It's a bit sweet yet salty and clearly sour and spicy. The lobster is fresh but served with the Tom Yum Goong, the flavours were washed out, a bit of a waste.

Now this is my favorite part of the evening, when the server came back again, we knew and he knew, it was time for the mains. We requested pasta and not too much as we were already quite full. He asked what we didn't like, I pitched in what I liked, mushrooms and what I didn't, celery and corriander, preferably not angel hair pasta as I find that it gets soggy. He said he will leave out the celery and corriander but to prove me wrong, he said he's going to specifically use angel hair pasta! He was so confident that I just HAD to say YES.


Soon after, our pasta was ready. Our parma ham-mixed-'shrooms on angel hair ensemble was perfect. The pasta was dry, texture went well with the wine sauce. The parma ham was crispy and the mushrooms were not soggy. It was a bit peppery and unlike most dry pastas, it was not overly oily. The pasta and mushrooms weren't too rich, the parma ham enhanced the flavours as well as the texture.

Although our tummys really couldn't contain anymore food, not even water, we still HAD to have a dessert. Souffle caught my eye and asked our guy to serve it in 20-30 mins while our stomachs digested a bit of our previous food.


25 Minutes later, a fluffy ginger souffle in a ramekin appeared, the sweet smelling dessert caught the attention of a few tables around us. Despite the heat, the dessert was gone in merely 5 minutes. The flavour wasn't too sweet, and the texture was light, melted pretty much the moment it hit my tongue.

It costed about $80USD per person, including one wine. Considering the quality of the food, it was good value. This is not your idea of a romantic date but definitely a fun, warm place to go to with a few friends. Oh, by the way, no corkage which is a big plus!!

Another dish that we tried on another night and proved to be just as delicious:


Garlic Toast and Crab dip: this was on the heavy side and very very filling

TAIPEI: Favorite Restaurant in Taiwan..

I think I found a gem. Thanks to one of my buddies in Taiwan for bringing me last time I was there, I've been craving it and am I ever glad that I got to pay this small cozy restaurant another visit.
This restaurant is located on a street known as the "food street" in central Taipei. This is the street where the infamous "Ding Tai Feng" resides... but no, my favorite restaurant is not the fancy Ding Tai Feng, rather, this one here is a low-key, down-to-earth, Taiwanese cuisine.

They serve traditional yet tasty dishes, such as pan-fried Pork liver(!!!), pork oil on rice(yes does not sound healthy), bitter melon with salty egg yolk, etc.

The pan-fried pork liver looks like foie gras.. but it's alot chewier and I think it's pan-fried with soya sauce, intensive flavours and the texture is very different, it's more powdery and doesn't melt in your mouth but doesn't feel as greasy and I like how it's chewy.

The rice.. pork oil(lard) on rice. haha.. man.. that does NOT sound good at all... but the aroma came all the way from the kitchen, it smelled so good. Not the healthiest option, the flavors just made working out for 2 hours all worth it.

Let me share a little story of my experience with bitter melons. First time I tried it was in Okinawa, Japan. Bitter Melons was one of their specialty. It was good, bitter but I could take it. I went back to Osaka, tried it there and practically ran to the washroom throwing up. Went to Hong Kong, my aunt told me bitter melon juice is good for skin, thus thinking I could just shoot it like a shot of tequila or something, committed to it. I think I spat it all over my clothes (and the person next to me). Swore to never have it again. So I lied and tried it in Taiwan last year and was impressed, comparable to Okinawa! As simple as that, I ordered it again on my own will at this restaurant, Bitter melon with salty egg yolk. The bitter melon was really juicy, really fresh and not bitter at all, in fact.. even a little sweet!

We ordered chicken drumstick, this probably disappointed us the most. It was just chicken. It was good, don't get me wrong.. but it was JUST chicken.

We didn't plan on ordering soup but the server recommended it and we were glad we did, how much we would be missing out if we neglected it. It was clams and asparagus. It came in a clear broth, I was personally expecting it to be not too tasty but I was surprised by the freshness of the clams. The broth was sooo sweet. SOOOO sweet, it was surprising to come from a soup that clear.

Very decent prices, for all that, it came to less than $20USD for TWO! If you're in the area, don't forget to try Ice Monster, it's right around the corner. It's a fresh fruit shaved ice restaurant. Dessert that compliments the meal very well!

(Had this last time.. omg. so good)