Review: Club Meatballs / Operation Dagger

Club Meatballs is definitely a go-to place for a drink after work. Hustling and bustling on a Friday evening and people surrounding the bar outside with a beer or glass of wine in hand. It’s definitely not somewhere you’d go for a quiet dinner. We ordered the cold cuts, grilled chorizo and of course, some meatballs (chicken, beef, pork) to share. We were most surprised by the chorizo, not at all greasy with the right amount of juice from the green peppers. Very delicious.

   

We then moved on to an underground bar we’d been before that’s in the neighborhood – Operation Dagger. Bottles of liquor in medicine/Aesop-like containers lined on the wall behind the bar, this fairly small lounge dons some eccentric decor. Lime green walls lit up by neon lights and ceiling completely covered by light bulbs, the cocktails were served in small bowls instead of glasses. Not exactly sure what was inside mine but it tasted of yogurt and yakult, with a white chocolate casing floating on top. Boyfriend’s was a savoury one with a piece of cucumber to go with it. Very special indeed, but based on the prices, not really somewhere we’d be visiting often.

   

   

Is there such a thing as too much ice cream?

Believe me when I say it was not intended to have four ice creams all in one night because it really wasn’t. What was originally a quest to have one of the best roast goose dishes in town turned into a night of marathon ice cream eating, well with a little bit of goose in between. As if to compensate ourselves after knowing that the restaurant we really wanted to try was not open due to the public holiday in Hong Kong, we had a scoop of latte gelato and another of salted caramel at Dolci on Wellington while waiting for another friend. After discovering the doors of yet another Chinese restaurant we wanted to try were shut we found ourselves at our next ice cream stop at Munchies near Gough, trying out their ice cream sandwich (matcha ice cream in between expresso and chocolate chip cookies) and orange glazed donut. All their ingredients are organic and free of GMO, as if to make ourselves a bit better, and the cookies were chewy which made eating the sandwich a little less messy. Donut was good too – not too sweet and not at all dry.

  

Roaming further into the Western side, we finally caught sight of a local place that was both open and served roast goose. Pity I forgot the name but the meat was juicy and certainly satisfied our long-awaited desire for some quality goose.

We then went for more ice cream. To a place I discovered a while back and wanted to go so it brought us to Small Potato Ice Creamery in Causeway Bay. The purple sweet potato ice cream, sprinkled with bigger and sweeter versions of rice krispies and a side of sweet potato paste, was soo yummy! The place is so cute too, with cartoon drawings of purple sweet potatoes everywhere. I really thought we were done and it was our last stop but boy was I wrong. How could we have called it a night without trying out the new ice pop place, I See I See, just around the corner? Handcrafted ice pops made with fresh fruits were a nice note to end the night on, and quite frankly the last time I’d be having any ice cream in a very long time…

  

Review: Burlamacco

I’ve heard about Burlamacco on Amoy Street from a colleague who went and said she had the best burrata she’s ever had there. Not sure whether that says a lot but I booked this restaurant for our dinner on Thursday as it’s free corkage for the month of June (except for Fridays and Saturdays of course) if you booked through Chope. I use Chope religiously ever since I discovered it when I first moved here as it makes booking restaurants so convenient without having to wait for a “good time” to call them by phone at work.

   

So we had to order the burrata of course, but not sure why we were crazy enough to get the mozzarella to share too. It was definitely too much in addition to the pasta we both ordered but the burrata was indeed quite good. Really really creamy, which by comparison the other cheese is not really worth mentioning… I had the lobster linguini and the pasta was cooked just right with enough meat and a kick of spiciness in its sauce to go with it. All the attention, however, had to go to the chocolate lava tart I had all by myself. The story goes back to a week and a half ago, when I dreamt of ordering a chocolate tart and just as I was about to have it, the alarm went off and my boyfriend woke me up. How cruel. And I’d been craving for one ever since, mentioning it to him every single day hoping he’d get me one as a dessert but it never appeared. So one can only imagine my excitement when I saw on Burlamacco’s menu online that not only do they have it, it’s also one of their chef’s recommendations. It didn’t matter how full I was. When I cut it open and had the first mouthful of warm chocolate ganache/molten chocolate with a bit of crust and vanilla ice cream, it was as if life had finally come to a full circle. Boyfriend didn’t even have to wait for long before I finished up the entire tart. I would lick the plate clean if I could. Who cared if my belly felt like a gigantic volcano about to erupt afterwards? It was soo worth it.

Review: Teppei Sushi

The name Teppei came up when I first searched online for Japanese food around my area. Exploring a bit more on the restaurant i found out that it has a crazy booking system for reserving a place for dinner there. That only tells me one thing,  which is the food must be amazingly good. Luckily they do walk-ins for lunch so knowing how popular it is, I told my friend to be there at 11:30 am but there already was a queue. The wait wasn’t long before they opened their doors 20 mins later and I was surprised to see how tiny the place was with only seats around the bar. We could tell that people around us were all regulars as no menus were given out and everyone seemed to know exactly what to order. I opted for their bara chirashi (from what I’d read it’s the most popular there) and my friend their sansyoku don. Not entirely sure whether all of the chefs behind the bar are Japanese but certainly one in the middle is (picture below). My friend said he’s probably the owner and we could see he was the main person preparing all the food. What I liked about their chirashi was that the soy sauce and assorted cut fish were mingled before being off loaded on a bed of warm rice. This saved me the trouble to having to either dip the fish in soy sauce before every bite or having to pour the sauce over on the top (and in this case the rice stays dry too). The chunks of fish were also cut larger than other chirashi I’ve had, which I preferred as it made a better mouthfeel to every bite. I waited a bit before devouring my last piece of fish and rice, secretly hoping there was more. Needless to say, I’ll obviously be back.

   

The return of Anova and the birth of “Maid in Singapore”

After realizing how over-the-top excited he was when he first got his Anova toy and not actually end up using a whole lot of it, boyfriend decided to whip it out last weekend to put it to some good use. I stumbled upon a simple dish for starter on NYTimes (grilled eggplant salad) so save some space for the sous vide tenderloin and rib-eye we’d chosen for our main. Tossing the grilled eggplant with some cherry tomatoes and spinach turned into a tasty and hearty salad. But of course our anticipation was on the supposedly perfectly cooked pieces of beef in the tank-like pot we have and the machine stuck onto it. We went against some of the recipes we found and briefly grilled the meat on both sides last, after we finished cooking them. The outcome was indeed immaculate and that’s the beauty of using the Anova because it can’t go wrong! I personally preferred the rib-eye as it packs more flavors but they were both very tender. Next time we might try putting it on the grill before to see what difference it’d make to the taste. But that depends when we decide to take the machine out from our storage again…

   

Came across a cocktail recipe dubbed the “Maid in Cuba” and being the cheapskates we are and not wanting to waste a lot of stuff we did our own version, forgoing a few ingredients. Rum, fresh lime juice, cucumber and simple syrup muddled and shaken with ice, and finally topping it with some tonic water brought us the “Maid in Singapore”. We actually further modified it and replaced the limes with fresh orange and lemon juice, and it was if not better, just as good. Refreshing with the cucumber and sweetness from the orange juice, it might as well be our new go-to cocktail to make at home.

   

Review: G House

Heard there’s a new restaurant on Dempsey so gave it a try before our weekly ritual to Culina and Hubert. G House is huge with high ceilings and chic B&W interior. In addition to the tables being widely spread out, there’s a pastry/dessert corner, a bar area and a large open kitchen where you can see at the back a row of rotisserie chicken casually turning by itself. The pictures in the menu were enticing enough for the equally sleep and food deprived individuals after a night of drinking that we both wanted the pork ribs with I, the sweet potato fries and him, the normal fries. Was it because we had our expectations set too high after seeing the full page photo of the ribs? Or was it because we knowingly ignored the rule of thumb that we should never try a restaurant within the its first six months of operation? Let’s just say given how hungry we were, we certainly took our time in finishing the ribs. The fries were crispy though, and I guess the much needed type of comfort food we actually wanted. Wouldn’t exactly dismiss the restaurant yet as they have a good enough variety of food that’d make us come back. Perhaps a different verdict would come out next time, especially when we’d be in a better mental and physical state.

Review: Absinthe / 28 Hongkong Street

We’ve both heard people rave about Absinthe, so although it hadn’t made it to my list of restaurants to try, I booked it for dinner on Friday before our drinks at 28 Hongkong Street. Located on Boat Quay, the outdoor seating area of the restaurant looks uninteresting and quite similar to all of its neighbors. However when we were ushered to our table inside on the second floor, we were surprised by how dainty and charming the décor is. I chose the Alaskan king crab leg to start with and was a bit taken aback by the fact that I had to extract the meat myself without any tools. It was quite messy (am a messy eater in general) but the crab was indeed very juicy and sweet. It was a refreshing dish that paired well with the Champagne we ordered, though I totally ignored the shreds of green asparagus on the plate as they looked and tasted a bit bland. Under the “indirect” influence from the boyfriend, I’ve grown to love lamb to a point that I’d crave for a good rack and don’t mind having it a bit too often than I should, which is what I got for my main. It was a fairly big portion and I couldn’t say that I was as impressed with it as I would when we cooked it at home. The side of ratatouille was good though, and it went well with the meat. We were both quite full and ended up sharing a mille-feuille. Definitely wasn’t a good idea to have gone through pictures on my phone of the time when I had the best mille-feuille I’d ever had in France since the one at Absinthe was quite far from it. I still love anything that comes with a crust though…

   

The walk from Boat Quay to Hongkong Street was a short one and it was nice to see that our little table of two with my name on a big sign on it had been reserved among this busy and crowded bar. I got so enthralled by the menu that I just wanted to try everything but I knew I can’t and didn’t know what to pick. So we eventually had three, each, which probably explains why I can’t remember much of them but that they were all quite special. Will definitely be back to try the others out, but maybe not three…

   

  

A filling dinner for Saturday night

We picked a new recipe from Donna Hay for our starter on Saturday night – blue cheese and caramelized onion brioche. We got the brioche from Paul and decided to make our own caramelized onions. It eventually took us over an hour to get them properly browned and our whole apartment smelling of onions. Slighting frying the brioche and slices of green apple, we topped it off with the caramelized onions and pieces of blue cheese. The finishing product was heavenly (although most of it was the anticipation me thinks). For the main we went with something we’d done a few times before – lamb loin and mushroom wrapped in puff pastry. We were cautious not to leave it in the oven for too long and it came out just right, at least for the middle part with the meat all pink and juicy. Overall quite satisfied with our dinner but got ourselves quite full with all that bread and pastry!

   

Review: Relish @ Cluny Court

We wanted to check out Cluny Court next to the Botanical Garden so we opted for Relish for brunch. Seeing their list of burgers I resisted by ordering a tiger prawn salad and told the boyfriend I’d have a bite of his instead. When our server put down the salad in front of me, to be honest it really didn’t look appetizing. It consisted of prawns, cucumber, apple and mango slices with spicy Asian sauce. Who knew this mix could be so refreshing and delicious. I guess it’s really the ingredients that count. Boyfriend ordered the blue cheese, poached pear and walnut burger, all of it infused in the patty. He thought it was a bit weird and prefers the “normal burgers” but I must say it’s quite delicious and juicy. I’d definitely recommend that if anyone’s up for something a little different.

   

Review: Cocotte

We would always find a restaurant around CBD on Friday nights but after reading good things about Cocotte, we decided to make an exception to go a bit out of the way to try it out. Situated inside a boutique hotel in Little India, the decor is quirky, avant garde and fun. I really wanted to get their lamb ribs as well as the salted caramel ice cream sandwich I saw online but they didn’t have either of them! Quite bummed but oh well, decided to give the grilled asparagus salad and pork collar a try. Presentation is somewhat simple but it was what we kind of expected from such a setting. The starter had walnuts, watermelon radishes and baked goat cheese en croute – not as flavorful as I thought and it was certainly lacking a bit of juice. The pork was slow cooked with mustard sauce, and with roasted potatoes and brussel sprouts on the side. The meat was tender without having the gravy overpowering its flavors; veggies were tasty having fried with toasted almonds. It all worked well together for this casual dish. We were going to get a few of their cheeses for dessert but without having the Echourgnac that we really wanted to try (again!), we resolved to calling it a night before another disappointment looms.