Fine seafood and huge mantis shrimps

Imperial (Kwun Tong)

Thanks to Imperial for inviting me to this tasting.

When I first heard the name, it reminded me of Imperial College.

Imperial is located in an industrial building in Kwun Tong.
This was my first experience dining in one and it is becoming a trend for restaurants to move to industrial areas because of the spacious kitchens and lower rents.

When I got there, it was no different to other restaurants but it was more spacious.

They even have their own fish tanks.

Apart from dinners they also do lunches which you can see on OpenRice for their menu.

Here was what we tried, it was for 7 people (approximately $300 per head):

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Spicy platter:


It was a platter of apetizers and the spicyness can be adjusted to your requirements.
There were beef stomachs, julienne cucumber and chicken, eggs and pork intestines.
I do not normally eat the beef stomachs but the spices they used were really nice and the beef stomachs were very clean and it had a nice meaty texture.
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Spare ribs in strawberry sauce:

The spare ribs were really good because they were meaty and had a lot of meat attached to the bone.
The pork was fresh and supple and the strawberry sauce was not too sweet.
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Typhoon shelter style crab:

This was my first time trying the Typhoon shelter style crab because I do not normally order crab or even eat it because it takes too much effort.
The crispy pieces were delicious and it was deep fried garlic and other goodies which is their secret recipe.
The delicious crispy pieces were wonderful with rice.
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Salt and Pepper Mantis Shrimp:

These were the biggest mantis shrimps I have ever tried in my life, they were the size of my lower arm!
I could see the resemblance of a preying mantis claws hence the name Mantis shrimp.
The taste of this was interesting, it was similar to lobster but the texture of it was not so springy.
The shell is nice and crispy which makes it easier to remove the shell than a lobster.
These mantis shrimps cost $2XX each, so getting the set meal is a good deal, as there were three.
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Stir fried noodles and beanshoots in crab oil:

The portion of this was huge and each strand of noodle was uniformly coloured.
It would be great of the crab oil taste was stronger.
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Vegetables with crabmeat:

The vegetables were covered in lovely crabmeat gravy and the vegetables were naturally sweet.
The crabmeat gravy was also delicious with the noodles.
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Steam rice with 龍躉 Giant grouper fish:

The size of this was huge!!
This was steamed fried rice with big fish slices, fried garlic and spring onions on top.
The rice at the bottom was really nice because it has absorbed all the fish essence on top.
The fish slices were chunky and soft.
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Dessert:

Not a fan of Chinese dessert but I actually had more than I usually do because it was not too sweet.
It was loaded with all sorts of pulses from chickpeas, black eye peas, kidney beans to peanuts.
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Kee Wah's Black sesame egg rolls

Kee Wah (Central)

Thanks to Garycwm for getting me these Black sesame egg rolls.

I really liked them, they were extremely crispy embedded with lots of black sesame.
The rolls were rolled really thinly and evenly.

There was a fragrant buttery taste.

Hana-musubi at the revenue tower

Hana-musubi (Wan Chai)

At the Revenue Tower, there is a newly opened branch of Hana-musubi.

I have never been to the Revenue Tower before but went there to get some musubis.


It is just building and buildings on that side of town so getting food is difficult which explains why there were so many people at Hana-musubi.

As it just opened, there was a Japanese man promoting it which annoyed me a bit because his voice was a bit loud and what he said was repetitive (luckily I did not understand Japanese).
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Konbu:


The Konbu was really nice, it was musubi with sea kelp, the taste was light and slightly sweet, a good choice for vegetarians.
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Tazukuri:


These were dried baby sardines which was why they were slightly hard and it was slightly sweet too.
Another healthy option if people do not want to choose meat.
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Octopus salad:

The sauce that came with this was really nice, it was ginger oil that had grounded ginger in it.
When it was mixed with the salad, it gave the seaweed and octopus a heaty taste because of the ginger puree.
The seaweed was really nice because it has a natrual unami taste.
Although it was a tiny box, it was very filling.
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Lab Made's first anniversary

Lab Made Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream Laboratory (Tai Hang)

It's been a year since Lab Made has opened........................

I havent been recently because the weather is too hot.

This time I went to try the new Birthday cake flavour.

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Birthday Cake:

It didnt really say what flavour it was on their FB page, but when I got there I realised it was my favourite PANDAN!! way to go!!!!
As usual it is mixed with other goodies, it had crispy bits, M&Ms/Smarties, rainbow sprinkles and a star shaped shortbread on top.
I requested it without the sprinkles because I do not really like them.
Other than that, the pandan flavour was really nice and it tasted buttery too.
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Japanese style coffee house in Sai Kung

Bei Coffee (Sai Kung)

To be honest I hate Sai Kung, but only went into SK to try this new Japanese Coffee house.

I do not drink coffee but I was attracted to their other items such as strawberry milkshake, Japanese style coffee and the red tea souffle.

Arrived in Sai Kung and found this brightly lit clean coffee shop in the lanes.

The logo for this place was nice because it was not the usual local designs it had a fox and this Japanese structure on it.

The coffee house is reasonably spacious and big with about 4-6 tables.



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Strawberry milkshake:

The strawberry milkshake was shaken in a cocktail shaker, manually shaken by the guy and it had a thick layer of foam on top which was really creamy.
(would have taken photo if I was fast enough).
It was made with their homemade strawberry syrup which has real pieces of strawberries in it and it was not too sweet.

They also use this for their toasts.
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Japanese Chicken curry with fusilli:

This was meant to come with rice but they did not have enough Japanese pearl rice so replaced it with fusilli which was even better.
The fusilli they used was smaller than the usual ones you can buy and it was al-dente and more sauce hung to the spiral parts of the pasta.

The curry sauce was slightly bitter and tasted like coffee later confirmed by Bei Coffee.
In the curry sauce I liked the baby carrots which were really cute because you could see how young they were by their diameters.
The colour of the curry was also quite dark probably due to the coffee.
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Red Tea souffle:


I loved this souffle because you could see they put so much tea leaves in the souffle and the tea aroma was really strong and you could taste it.

The sweetness was just right and it was my favourite Earl Grey flavour (confirmed by Bei coffee) which I could imediately taste right away.
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The menu:
The menu was simple but it would be good if there were prices on it because some Hong Kongers are quite .......

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Apart from Coffee they also have a good range of teas which you can smell at the counter contained in the labelled jars.

Culinary adventure with Arron Rhodes

Thanks to Dot Cod for inviting me.

Dot Cod is now headed by Executive Chef Arron Rhodes.

Prior to joining DotCod, Chef Arron worked with Michelin Star, Rosettes, and San Pellegrino world-ranked restaurants internationally.

“I am passionate about cooking and like to surprise guests” said Chef Rhodes.

At this tasting we own had our very special menu and here was mine.

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Seabream tartare with caviar and flying fish roe:

To start off with we all had Seabream tartare which was contained in a beautiful tin served on a bed of dry ice.
If there were no maximum photo limits I would upload that picture here.
The tartare was gorgeous complimented by the deliciously fresh and classy caviar and flying fish roe on top.
The caviar gave it a saltier taste and it was finished within seconds because it was so delicious and the seabream had a texture similar to lobster sashimi but even more delicate.
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Maine lobster:
(vanilla, poached red beets, ice radish, pickled air loom carrots)

Visually it was stunning, I loved the colourful balance of orange, green and browns.
The fresh springy lobster was paired nicely with the crunchy medley of vegetables and the seeds gave it an even more lively crunch.
The sauces here were minimalistic which was brilliant because it was extremely natrual and light that you could taste each element such as the beets, lobster and salad leaves.
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Chilean sea bass:
(charred bass, fresh peas, feves, poached grelot onions , black garlic cream)

The black garlic foam on top was mysterious and captivating because beneath the dreamy foam laid a big chunk of delicate Chilean sea bass.

Underneath the tender sea bass, there were freshly plucked peas bursting with natrual sweetness.
Although it was a simple dish, the fish and peas were just delicious flavoured by the delicious foam on top.
The delicate twines on top made it into an elegant fairytale.
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Lollipop teaser:
Before dessert, we were brought out these frozen lollipops to see if we could taste what they were.


I just loved that moment, it was like seeing some new invention coming out of the laboratory and watching Heston's show.
The taste of this lollipop was sensational it had a hint of savouriness from the tuna but it was sweet followed by popping candy and tastes of green tea and wasabi.
I was really glad that we got to try this because I have always wanted to try the savoury icecream at Ice Cream Gallery which is now closed and used to serve lobster icecream.
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Chocolate garden:
(yuzu, Venezuela chocolate , toffee , pomelo and grapefruit)


The dessert was too pretty too eat, it had a cute mini marzipan carrot and tomato with a real stalk!
The yellow piece in the middle was delicious white chocolate and peanut butter, and the dreamy light chocolate and the crispy bits were heaven with the occaisional burst of yuzu.
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Petit fours:

Delicious chocolates
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After the meal and experience at Dot Cod, I certainly was surprised just as Arron promised.
I loved his creativity and suspense because each dish came as a surprise.
I felt that it was like a Heston experience which was fun and full of surprises.
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When we left these cute jars were brought out for us to take home, the experience did not end there...

It was like a mini biosphere with prized Romanesco broccoli pieces that look like fractals and other marine plants.
The clear tagliatelle was Crab soup jelly tagliatelle made with the stock of Crab.

Usually I would indulge on it asap but it was so nice I put the contents on a plate which I would usually avoid because of the washing up, but I felt that the tagliatelle really deserved to be put on a dish and photographed!!
The taste of the tagliatelle was delicious and it had a slightly smokey taste.
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Sheared egg tart

Hoixe Cake Shop (Wan Chai)

AGAIN I did not buy these but the association who got them were on a budget of $4 per person.
They always buy from here.
They always get anything that costs $4, the main complaint people complained about were that the egg tarts were floppy and watery, then they changed to butter cakes which were smelly, then on the last occasion they got individually packed sliced butter cakes.

This time it was back to floppy tarts!

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Egg tarts:
I liked the way one has been sheared!! NOT


The filling looked normal, but too sweet this time and the flakey crust was too oily.
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Sliced butter cake:
Since some people never eat these cakes because they said it was disgusting, we decided to do an experiment and see if it would go moldy in a month.
It did not go moldy and the size has shrunk if you compare it to the fresh one!
Anyway more to follow as next month we will see how the cake progresses!


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