Hong Kong: Mori Sushi 森壽司

I've been MIA. My apologies for the inconsistency, no excuses.

Good news is, I'm back and I will try to write as much as I possibly can. My newest review is Mori Sushi, a hidden jewel in Central, Hong Kong. What I mean by "hidden" is down an alleyway leading to a chinese wet market with a door so nondescript that you would've missed it even if you knew what you were looking for.

It took me one full week to book a 3 person table for lunch at 1:35 on a weekday. The Japanese restaurant that seats no more than 15 person serves lunches at $58-$88hkd per person.


The set lunch comes with a small appetizer(we got spinach gomae), a salad, an entree (rice with sushi or cooked Japanese food), a miso soup and also a fruit plate.

The portions were average, weren't huge but sushi rice had more than enough seafood for a mere $58hkd.  What a steal! For that price, the seafood was far more fresh than some restaurants charging $200hkd for literally the same thing.

The salmon/uni rice, priced at $88hkd was decent. The salmon sashimi was extremely sweet, however the uni was inconsistent. I had a few excellent pieces of uni and yet had a couple pieces that were bitter. Regardless, this restaurant proves to be of excellent value and worth visiting again.

Mori Sushi

G/Fl, 34 Graham Street,

Central, Hong Kong

(852) 2854 1800

Hong Kong: Big Binding Crab/ Big hairy crab 大閘蟹

I know I was raving about this last year here, but after my Big Binding Crab 大閘蟹 this year, I think I might take a break next season.

This year, I had the opportunity to try the full set meal consisting of 7 courses from one of the more famous Big binding crab restaurants in Hong Kong, East Ocean. This set came to $260 HKD per person (before gratuity), which is a steal, as buying just the raw crab and taking it home to cook would cost around $200 HKD per person.

The first course was a Chinese soup with Shark's Fin (魚翅佛跳牆). You name it, it basically had everything in it, from veggies, to dried scallops, mushrooms, pork, chicken leg (eeks), bamboo shoots and even a decent sized piece of shark's fin (Shark's fin is a fine delicacy to the Chinese, it's pretty much flavourless but with a good soup base, it turns it to gold).

Second course was the Crab miso soup dumplings (2 pieces per person) (蟹粉小龍包). A little bland in flavour, the flavour of the crab miso was taken over by the pork.

The third course that came was a little fusion; French garlic toast served with crab miso dip. I was quite happy with this. The dip had a very strong aroma and taste, unlike the crab soup dumplings, however as heavy as the crab miso already was, there was a thick layer of oil on top.After carefully scooping the oil out, I piled on the crab miso dip on my toast and was on my way to ecstasy. Yuummm...

The crabs came next, two per person. There was an abundance in crab miso; strong in flavour, served very hot, tasted especially yummy with our chinese wine pairing.  The restaurant provided a special sweet vinegar that essentuated the flavours, it worked, we polished our first crab inside out and onto the next.

Veggies came next. Just blanched veggies, needed something to wash my system out after this feast!

Dried shrimp udon came after. I swear, this was a neverending set dinner. I had a bite and gave it up. The hand-made udon was made extremely well; the soup base was sflavourful yet not heavy.

Finally, a dessert drink was served. It is a ginger tea with multi-colored sweet dumplings, supposedly this is  to make you feel better after the huge heavy crab set. This was a bit too sweet, not enough ginger and I think I need about 8 more cups of this to even be close to cleaning out my system (ulgh so heavy). The soup dumplings were multi-colored starch balls.. I just took it all out and drank the soup alone. Colored starch balls aren't my thing.

I fell sick for a week after this meal.  Although this is expected to happen when you have too much crab miso (which I did); and not enough ginger tea (which is also true), I can only bare with feeling like crap once a year. 

Overall, East Ocean has executed this ingredient quite well, I admire how they tried to add a little bit of variation with most these dishes and incorporating a mixture of light and heavy flavours.

East Ocean Seafood Restaurant

http://www.eastocean.com.hk/

Osaka: Midnight Ramen: Kinryu Ramen 金龍 ラーメン

Once upon a time, I lived in Osaka, Japan.  Living there were some of the best times of my life, great friends, exciting new ventures, chillaxed work environment, most importantly, scrumptious food on every corner, any time of the day (yes.. they have AMAZING food at corner stores). Speaking of which, at a minimum of once a week, I'd visit a restaurant at around 4am (...ahh.. the days when I was still young), my all-time favorite place  to go to after parties in Osaka was Kinryu Ramen 金龍 ラーメン.
Note: TONS of restaurants in Osaka are opened until 5am; when the train starts off for the day.

We found this place only because it the most eye-catching restaurant that was still lit with bright lights at 5am.With a green dragon running through the entire red restaurant in the biggest shopping district Namba, you will probably find a picture of this place in every tourist in Osaka's trusty digi cams, YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO MISS IT!!

The ramen at Kinryu, as most ramen shops, have to be purchased via a ticket dispenser in Japan, giving you the choice of size and soup base. Patrons are self-served and seated on raised tatami mats with short wooden tables; it's an "open-kitchen" allowing you to see everything going on; water/kimchi/shichimi/pickles/garlic are all unlimited at the counter in the corner.  Simply put, it's no different from a Mc D serving ramen. The best part of the whole ambience is the ability to people-watch. It's always so interesting to do that in Japan, with the eccentric fashion, street performers and basically expecting nothing but random encounters.

Now what you've all been waiting for.. the RAMEN. The ramen is firm, a little chewy, this was perfect for me.  I prefer my noodles with a bit of a texture, this might be my favorite part of the whole bowl as I'm not a huge fan of the Chashu (Japanese BBQ pork), I usually just have one piece and the rest of it goes to whoever I'm dining with. The noodles were the thin, round strands that are rarely found anywhere in Hong Kong. The combination is just delicious with the soup! For a small ramen, the noodles just like they're neverending (and NO, I'm no where near complaining, keep 'em coming!).
With a strong whiff of seafood, Chinese influenced broth, the tonkotsu soup base was light yet flavorful enough to soak the ramen with little fireworks . Believe it or not, I pretty much devoured this whole bowl all by myself. (snort*)

Kinryu Ramen 金龍 ラーメン
1-7-13 Namba, Chuo-ku, Osaka-shi
(06) 213-6825
***open 24 hours***

Hong Kong: Rare Okinawan Cuisine

Japanese restaurants in Hong Kong are like burger joints, there's always a kaiten (Round-about) sushi restaurant or an Izakaya lurking around every mall or corner you take.  It's no surprise that there's an abundance of Japanese cuisine variety, there's the shabu-shabu, sushi restaurants, izakaya, sukiyaki, yoshoku, noodle houses, okomiyaki/takoyaki, even Japanese-style burgers (MOS and Freshness burger), you name it, and we'll have it all here in Hong Kong.  Being such a small city, Hong Kong has a large responsibility for serving the 7 million residents here PLUS all the tourists. In 2007, there was approxmiately 9720 sit-in restaurants. So technically speaking, if I tried 3 new restaurants a day, it would take me 9 years to accomplish this task! (Now don't even get me started on Japan.. they have over 20,000 just in Tokyo) Getting to my point, there's only THREE Okinawan restaurants in Hong Kong. I remember absolutely LOVING the food when I was in Okinawa, that was my first accquaintence with Onsen Egg (drooling just thinking about this), Goya (bitter melon that wasn't bitter at all), Umi-budo (tiny grape-like seaweed that is very much like caviar). I absolutely fell in love with the above when I was there, all of which can't be found made nearly as delicious anywhere else. Considering the large population and their undying love for Japanese food, it really made me curious why that was the case... so off I go for my first investigation.

Chura is my first stop, located on one of the busiest streets of Tsim Sha Tsui (Tourists galore!). It's located in the basement of Toy House building (it's quite a discreet yet interesting Japanese-style office building with statues of the Ninja Turtle hidden in the dim lobby), the basement is shared with another Japanese restaurant (Tonkichi)  that is strikingly popular, serving Tonkatsu (fried pork) with rice, which I will happily make another trip just to take pictures for my readers.

On a Friday night, while passing by Tonkichi to reach Chura, there was a massive waiting line (approxmiately 2 hour wait), no one was standing outside Chura. A little scared but determined to accomplish this investigation, we stormed in. With intricate decor, running water and stone paths, the bright lighting conveyed a welcoming message. In we went, seated in an intimate booth close to the kitchen. 

We ordered a number of dishes, of which included umi-budo, daikon salad, lotus root cake, deep-fried seaweed tempura, grilled saba and squid-ink pan fried noodles with Kurobuta pork.

The umi-budo served on ice is my favorite, I just couldn't stop munching on them! With minimal dressing(just a special soya sauce), they were refreshing and something unique. Hey it's vegetarian caviar without the torture of the poor Beluga's and it's extremely healthy too, what's there not to like about this?

The daikon salad was just the plain ol' "daikon salad" you can get at pretty much any Japanese restaurant.

The lotus root cake was deep fried with pork. The combination tastes like it's very 'Chinese-influenced', as there's a Chinese cuisine that essentially is comprised of the same ingredients, lotus root and pork. The lotus root was very juicy, thus no sauce was needed. I think the lotus root cake would probably taste good even without the pork, although it does have it's distinctive flavours when mixed together.

We had the Seaweed tempura next. This dish, I didn't like at all. The seaweed was very starchy and tasted like a deep-fried "sponge". Crispy on the outside and a flavourless sponge on the inside. Not exactly my cup of tea. At this point, I was starting to realize why this restaurant isn't as popular as the one next door.

Finally, we had the squid-ink pan fried noodles with Kurobuta pork. Doesn't sound Chinese-influenced at all, except for the pan-fried part right? WRONG.. It tasted like pan-fried Shanghainese noodles except with black noodles instead of the tan coloured noodles. Pork, being one of the main ingredients in Japanese cuisines (as beef is in America), being called Kurobuta pork, the meat should be tender and very flavourful, HOWEVER (yes, you saw that coming, didn't you?) the "Kurobuta pork" was just like any other pork. The dish just didn't tickle my tastebuds.

Squid ink pan fried noodles with Kurobuta pork

Pan-fried Shanghainese noodles

After all that, the three of us decided that the dishes were too small and we were not yet satisfied (even went next door for dessert after this!), so we ordered a grilled saba.  This was ho-hum, nothing exciting, the typical grilled fish from any Japanese restaurant.

Verdict from my first investigation: The Okinawan dishes are mainly Chinese-inspired except for the umi-budo. Afterall, being in Hong Kong, why would you go to a Japanese restaurant for Chinese-inspired dishes? The Japanese dishes were not exceptionally good, the deep-fried seaweed tastes nothing like it does in Okinawa.  Basically, if this was my only accquaintence with Okinawa food, I probably wouldn't be too excited about trying other Okinawan restaurants.

I still have two more chances of hope in revisiting my memories of Okinawa right here in Hong Kong. I hope I have good news to announce soon!

Chura - Unit A, B/F, The Toy House, 100 Canton Rd., Tsim Sha Tsui, 3105-8950

SEATTLE: Beecher's Handmade Cheese Cheese and Cheese!

Had the luxury of visiting some of my favorite restaurants in Vancouver, Whistler, Seattle and Vegas, a few to list were *ta da*, In and Out Burgers, Beecher's Deli, Tojo's... and all that good stuff!

Let's start with Beecher's.  It's a little deli in Seattle at the Pike Place Market that claims to serve the "World's Best Mac & Cheese".  I, of course have not tried nearly enough Mac & Cheese to agree but what they're serving must be pretty darn close to the best. It's not exactly "Mac", more like penne, still got the same lovin' for it though. Crusted with baked cheese and chili powder on top and Beecher's special sauce mixed with their cheese is absolutely heavenly. It's already-made, so they just scoop it out of the trays and serve it in a bowl. It would probably be more fresh, if only I visited a little earlier in the day, it was good enough for me, the aroma of the cheese was strong; biting through the stringy yet saucy dish must be one of the best feelings in the world. I have yet to try even better Mac & Cheese, please let me know if you know of any!

 

You can even take it home and make it yourself! Of course, being the lazy person that I am, I rather just be served :p

Besides their Mac & Cheese, another favorite of mine, is their grilled cheese sandwiches. It's a simple dish and I do realize the only reason why it's so good here is because a. they make it as you order it, in a panini grill; and b. they're using their own cheese for this sandwich and their cheese are hella good.

If you're in Seattle with a few friends, I recommend you drop by for an afternoon snack and share these two phenomenal dishes.

Beecher's Handmade Cheese, 1600  Pike Place, Seattle, Washington, 98101. 206-956-1964
http://www.beechershandmadecheese.com

Opened 9am - 6pm daily
Average cost for lunch: $4.75-$8.25USD

Happy 2010!!

It's been A DECADE since the Milennium!! Can you believe it? Sure makes me feel old. The last time I remembered, I was getting ready to the *party of the century* or at least I thought it was....!

I've come up with a few New Years Resolution for Diners Play Pen and here they are:
- Write regular updates 1-2 a week (well I guess even when I'm on vacation, I'm still working on this blog as I WOULD BE DINING)
- Get 100,000 hits by October 31 (I only have 8000 now, but I know if I keep this updated regularly, that will change right?)
- Write regular restaurant reviews on at least 5 foodie websites (I am on 3 now but not as consistent as I wish) by June
- Take a photography course (and get those sexy macro lens) by November
- Do more exercise (the amount I eat, I have no choice but to maintain my smokin' hot -round shape by working out)
- Travel, travel, travel... how else will I bring the world cuisines to you otherwise? 

What are some of your resolutions? Do share!

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