[Brut] A dish for everyone

Brut is on the other end of Second Street, away from the crowd but not so away. You are greeted with two high tables and a long bar which makes it great dining alone with friends.

In this Modern era, it is all about clean living as well as clean drinking.
The drinks are definitely to brag about because Camille Lisette Glass at BRUT is a strong advocate of natural wine, hence the choice of all these natrual wines and their homemade Kombucha cocktails.

Looking at the menu side, it is tapas-style offering a good variety on vegetarian and vegan options with fresh organic produce from the local Sai Ying Pun market to support the neighbourhood.
Not only that, the dishes have a multicultural twist of French, Spanish, American and Asian influences which will surprise your palate.
Here was what we had that night, there wasn't really a dish that I didn't like because they were all good in different ways.

• Smoked eggplant and vegetables. ($58) (Vegan) It was flawless and eggplant dip in the middle was jet black as it was smoked.

• Mushrooms in a red wine, anchovy and shallot sauce. ($68) The anchovies in the red wine sauce really brought out the mushroom flavours.

• Devilled Eggs; eggs, fermented plum, artichoke. ($68) (Vegetarian) Not your usual devilled eggs as these were moreish and punchy because of the saltiness and sourness which reminded me of the pickled eggs at the chippie.

• Buffalo mozzarella, Kalamata olive tapenade and fried enoki mushrooms. ($98) (Vegetarian) Another flavourful dish which was enhanced by the olive tapenade.

The Roquefort Mac n Cheese was a killer because I love French Cheeses. Having it in the Mac n cheese dish was just too good to be true and something that I never thought about on Mac n Cheese.

• Galician beef tenderloin with baby spinach. ($248) For meat, the beef was soft and tender that it just tore apart effortlessly.

Finished with natrual cocktails with their Baby Boucha concocted with their homemade kombucha.

[Brut]
Shop C, G/F, 1 Second Street, Sai Ying Pun, Western District

Seaweed noodles

I love this place because they serve modern noodles in bright purple bowls which makes the noodles experience fun.The choices of noodles are good and I came specifically for the seaweed noodles which were sold out last time.

You get to choose three items to go with the noodles and I chose okra, Hiroshima oysters and pork knuckles.

The oysters were plump with a strong taste, while the okra was a healthy treat.

The seaweed noodles are a bit like glass vermicelli but lacking the elasticity and sweetness which is good because it absorbs the delicious pork broth that gives it flavour.
++++++
NOODIES:
Shop E, G/F, Fook Moon Building, No.56 Third Street, Sai Ying Pun, Western District, Hong Kong

[Cafe Malacca] Authentic SingMalay fare at Hotel Jen

Hotel Jen is located near Hong Kong university so it used to be an effort to go but now the MTR has made it much more accessible.

Since the last dinner, there were so many new items on the menu like durian puddings with a choice of D24 and Musang.
+++++++++++
Started with drinks: Michael Jackson and Chin Chow.
They both have herbal jelly but Michael Jackson is mixed with soy milk and the syrup is served separately which is brilliant.

+++++++++++
Here was the food that we had:
Assorted satays with ricecakes:
Tender grilled meats which have a very sweet taste paired with peanut sauce.

For noodles we had the Penang assam Laksa and Ipoh Bee Thai Bak.
The Penang assam Laksa was my favourite because it was strong and tangy with a hint of spiciness.

The Ipoh Bee Thai Bak has short strands of noodles which are similar to Chinese pin noodles and the broth was not spicy.

For the mains, we had the Grilled stingray which was moist and silky.

Finished with Fried beansprouts/beanshoots with salted fish which was another comforting dish because it tastes like choysuey.

The dessert choices were captivating so we had the Abok Abok, D24 durian pudding, Musang durian pudding and coconut jelly.

If you like durian then these puddings are a must but personally I prefer D24 as a dessert because the Musang pudding can get quite heavy especially if you didn't leave room for dessert.
+++++
Cafe Malacca:
Level 2, Hotel Jen Hong Kong, 508 Queen's Road West, Western District
Tel: +852 2213 6613

Electrifying burgers at Electric Ave

I have always wanted to try this place because of their famous burgers.


Electric Ave to me is a street in Brixton, UK where they have lots of Caribbean restaurants in that area.
Brixton is a lot more hip these days with other restaurants.

Anyway, this is the second Burger joint that I have been to in HK opened by a Brit.
What makes this one special is that everything is made in house by them from the sauces to the patties.
The chips are hand cut, soaked in ph water to remove the starch, fried three times so the chips are the most time consuming and take about 5 hours according to the menu.


It is best to eat with a friend because they have chips and fries which are both good.

Anyway, we ended up having two burgers: Classic beef with Fruit pig black pudding and the Creamy chicken.

Both burgers came in a delicious soft fluffy bun.
++++++
Classic beef with Fruit pig black pudding, bone marrow chips:

Evidently it was very tasty with lots of flavours going on as there are about 100 different ingredients inside, a touch of spiciness and sweetness and every bite was sensational.
There were onions, cheese, siracha, pickles etc.

The best bit is the black pudding which was velvety and there was a huge chunk inside the patty but unfortunately I didn't take a picture of it.
Moving on to the chips, nothing beats some real chips which you can't get in HK and these are laced with bone marrow which you can taste and smell. It has this beefy aroma to them.

++++++
Creamy hache chicken and rosemary fries:

I was really impressed with this because chicken is usually boring but they really jazzed it up. I thought it was going to be smothered in a creamy sauce but it was dressed with arugula and lots of herbs.
It tasted like Vietnamese chicken pho because of the aniseed and it was chicken hash so you still get the chicken texture.

The rosemary fries were perfectly done because I like them blonde, perfectly crisp on the outside yet fluffy on the inside.
++++++
Definitely coming again.
Next time I will order the veggie burger in advance because they do good veggie burgers as well.

https://www.facebook.com/electricavehk/

Mix and match noodles

Found out about Noodies a few weeks ago because I saw pictures of these pretty purple bowls.
I didn’t know it was owned by a friend until a recent post by Elena Kong (江美儀) which made me visit the place asap!

At Noodies, there are three choices of broth: Laksa, Tom Yum Kung and Pork broth.
The BEST and unique thing here is that you can choose two different types of noodles for an extra $3 more like the way they eat noodles in Singapore but in Singapore they only pair rice vermicelli and egg noodles.
I chose the Laksa broth with a mix of Korean noodles and Shanghai noodles.

It is good that they put the different noodles on different sides.

The Shanghai noodles were thicker in diameter than expected because I thought they were the thin ones and the Korean noodles, which were Korean instant noodles, were yummy because the big curls hang more soup to it.


It was great that I could choose Korean noodles because I am allergic to Korean spices and here they use whatever broth you choose.
I regretted not just getting Korean noodles because they were really nice but then I like this flexibility because you can experiment two different noodles in one go and see which tastes better.
The Laksa broth was quite spicy in my opinion but it was nice.
On another visit, I tried the Tom Yum Kung broth with Shanghai noodles and the broth was quite strong with pungent lemongrass flavouring but the lime was not prominent enough.

Hope to see Buk Kut Teh and Prawn broth soon!
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆
◎ⓢⓤⓟⓔⓡⓢⓤⓟⓔⓡⓖⓘⓡⓛ◎

Noodies:Shop E, G/F, Fook Moon Building, 56 Third Street, Sai Ying Pun, Western District
The bill: $47.7

Service: good
Service charge: no
Yummy factor: ok
Portion sizes: reasonable
Noise levels: None
Glass of water provided: No
English Menu: Yes
Air Conditioning: Yes
◎ⓢⓤⓟⓔⓡⓢⓤⓟⓔⓡⓖⓘⓡⓛ◎

A new hiding place

If you grew up in the UK, a den is a hiding place that could be a tree-house or a place to hide in the garden.
It is always fun going there with close friends and building it from scratch with twigs, pieces of wood and whatever you can find.

This was the reason I was attracted to this newly opened DEN in Sai Ying Pun.

It didn’t look exactly like a DEN but the path leading there certainly felt like one because it was a small quiet road with trees on one side.

Travelling to THE DEN was more convenient than I expected because I was dreading the walk from SYP MTR station but exit C is the shortest path and the elevator was fast.
When you get out of exit C, your almost there, you cross the road and the take the small uphill road adjacent to St Stephens college and your there.

The menu consists of steaks, comfort food and home made desserts.

I know that this place specializes in steaks but there were a few irresistible items I had to order, so steaks and dessert shall be items on my next visit.

My friend started off with grapefruit soda which I was expecting from the can or bottle but it was freshly made!!!!!!!!
First, the grapefruit juice was freshly squeezed into a glass and tonic water was added to give it the fizz resulting in a pretty glass of grapefruit soda with a lovely pink foam cap on top.

After seeing that, I immediately ordered the orange soda which was made the same way.

Both sodas tasted natrual and were thirst quenching.

For food, we had the beef cubes, fish pie, mash, bacon and egg butty and the portions were huge.
+++++++++++++++
Wagyu beef cubes:

To start we had the beef cubes which were a good way of trying out their beef.
Indeed each piece of beef was juicy and tender so I am convinced to try their Wagyu tenderloin next time when I have a beef craving.
There was a side of black pepper sauce that was homemade which had a strong peppery taste but the beef was really tasty on its own that it didn’t really need anything else.
+++++++++++++++
Fish pie:

Typical fish pies have a mashed potato top but here they have used puff pastry and you get a side of thick cut fries seasoned with salt and pepper.
The fish pie is slightly runny so that you can dip your chips and it is loaded with fish, prawns, crabsticks and clams.

The seafood pie was really good because there was a strong seafood taste.
+++++++++++++++
Mashed potato:

This was a buttery and silky home made mash.
+++++++++++++++
Bacon and egg butty:

For eggs, they have an option of free range organic eggs which cost $15 more.
Basically it was crisp tasty bacon on lovely toast paired with sunny eggs.
+++++++++++++++
Meringue pavola:

For desserts, finished with this fruit pavola which was topped with fresh fruits.
I loved the pieces of orange and meringue because it was a nice balance of sweetness and sourness.
+++++++++++++++
THE DEN:
8 Oaklands Path,

Sai Ying Pun

☎️: 2803 0901.