Sunday, April 27, 2014

Girly hotpot

I have to admit I have not a big fan of hotpot because it revolves around meat and noisy places but when I saw the press release for this place, the food looked healthy and it is located on the second floor of Lodgewood hotel.
There are not many hotels that offer a place just for hotpots.
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Lodgewood hotel and reception area:



★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Photos of canton pot:


Private rooms

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Beers:

There are so many international beers from Germany to Belgium.

My favourite was the strawberry beer which had a strong strawberry taste.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Apricot tea:

Aromatic apricot tea.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Hotpot broths and condiments:

Top left: Braised fish head with Chinese herbs $278
Top right: Fish maw & whelk broth $138
Bottom left: Mixed mushrooms soup $108
Bottom right: Short ribs soup in Korean style $228

My favourites were the mixed mushrooms and braised fish head because it seriously had a strong taste.

For condiments & sauces which cost $23 per person, there was:
Scallion
Minced Garlic
Thick broad bean sauce
Japanese sesame sauce
Crispy garlic
Chopped onion
Red chili
Preserved bean curd
Fermented bean curd
Peanut sauce
Chaozhou chili oil
Satay sauce
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Assorted dumpling platter (12pc) $158:

(Crab roe & coral clams dumplings, kimchi & mixed mushrooms dumplings, morel mushrooms & Kurobuta pork dumplings).
The crab roe and coral clams were springy and tasted similar to wontons and the other nice one was the pork dumplings with strong morel mushrooms in it.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Featured mushrooms platter $348:

(includes tremella frondosa, chanterelle, fresh shiitake mushrooms, Japanese mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, pleurotus eryngii, oyster mushrooms, button mushrooms, portobello, etc; available seasonally)
Mushrooms lovers will love this!!
My favourite was the tremella frondosa (middle) which has the same texture as sea cucumber and it was quite viscous.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Hungarian Mangalica boneless pork collar $298:

The pork was soft and supple when it was ready to eat.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Australian organic beef rib eye $248:

Nice lean slices with not much fat content.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Mixed mushrooms in tofu pouches $88:

The tofu pouches were great, inside were yummy finely diced mixed mushrooms with an earthy meaty tone.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Mixed meatballs $98:

(mixed with shrimp, cuttlefish, asparagus & Yunnan ham)
These meatballs were springy and tasty.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Organic tofu $38:

Silky and smooth tofu with a strong soybean taste.
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Seasonal vegetables and organic sweetcorn:

Sweet and fresh vegetables
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I am not a fan of Chinese desserts so my favourite was the serradura and the yuzu jelly I found a bit too sweet.
Black Sesame soya milk pudding $58:

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Double boiled pear with chuan bei and dried mandarin peel $58:

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Aloe vera yuzu jelly $58:


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Grass jelly, almond pudding with pomelo and sago in mango sweet soup:


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Serradura $48:


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Green tea & red beans panna cotta:


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Cute notebook set given by the hotel's PR which represents the three hotels:
Lodgewood, LIS and Forte.



★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Canton Pot:
2/F, Lodgewood, 1131 Canton Road,Mong Kok

Battling Shaolin Bronzemen at Tit Hong Lane

I have always wanted to try this Vegetarian place but they close really early so I never got a chance to try.

Anyway, I finally had some time to try it but when I got there, it was overwhelmed with people at the entrance.

Those people were getting takeouts which cost $22 or $25 with soup.
All the dishes are displayed in the cabinet and you just order by it's number.


In Chinese, the street it is located on is called 鐵行里 (Tit Hong Lane), somewhat meaning Metal Alley.
As with all vegetarian food in Hong Kong, it is normally associated with Buddha's and the Guanyin which made me imagine that it was like going to the Shaolin monastery and getting past these bronzemen!~

Luckily there were seats inside so I dined there.

The menu was stuck on the wall so you can order 2 to 3 dishes or have fried rice or noodles that cost $35.


There is also a menu on the table.


I chose the one with soup and I was told to get it myself, but as it was lunch, the staff was REAL busy with the soup pot so I couldn't get near it.
In the end I just couldn't bothered to get the soup!!


Unfortunately, the choices that day were not as attractive as the choices on the previous reviews, but since I was there I tried four different choices.
I was quite annoyed they didn't have stir fried watercress or vegetarian chicken wings.


The rice and fried noodles were all you can eat but I didn't know that at the time.

Anyway, the food here was incredibly cheap but the presentation looked a bit rough because they were put on the plate at high speed and most of the ingredients are the same so it just looks like puke!
But for that price, the quality of food you get is really reasonable because a lot of vegetarian food is overpriced for no reason.

Here was what I had:
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Taro in red beancurd sauce, tofu in pumpkin and salted egg sauce



I loved the strong beancurd taste but the taro was too hard.
The tofu in pumpkin and salted egg sauce was lovely, it was flavoured by the sweet pumpkin puree with a touch of saltiness from the salted egg.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Salt and pepper beancurd skin, Loofah and vegetarian ham

The beancurd skin was a little oily but the seaweed in the middle gave it a nice umami flavour, as for the loofah, it was too salty while the vegetarian ham tasted like real ham but I only found one piece in it.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★

After eating all that, I was still quite hungry, but if I knew the rice and stir fried noodles were all you can eat, it would have beat my hunger!

I hope to come here again when they have other choices and try their fried rices.
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Fook Luk Sau Vegetarian Restaurant
G/F, 8 Tit Hong Lane, Central

Waffle feast

After trying the chicken tikka waffle, there were so many more I wanted to try, so had it for dinner!!


You can now sit at the counter and eat.


Again I forgot my card, so I had to get my receipts stamped.

I ordered and ate the vegetarian waffle first.


After I finished that I had the prawn because I didn't want it to go cold.


★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
The vegetarian:
The box was nicely labelled.





I was glad I started off with the vegetarian waffle because it was nice and light.
It was filled with tasty lentils, cauliflower, cumin seeds and spices tasting like a samosa.
This is definitely recommended for vegetarians and Indians.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Thai prawn:




The prawn had a strong lemongrass taste and the sauce tasted like red curry which was not too spicy but the version I had was different to the one Rebecca_Red15 had because there were mainly potatoes in hers.
The one I had contained lots of green peppers, onions and a few pieces of prawn.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Chili con carne:


I knew I was going to like this because of the tasty beef and kidney beans.
It was not that spicy so I could handle it.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Brussels All Day "Brekkie":



This had bacon in it drizzled with maple syrup.
The mix they used for this waffle was the same as the sweet ones which has a high ratio of egg white in it. Hence the lovely light and crispy airy texture.
Surprisingly I loved it because the saltiness of the bacon and sweet syrup were delicious.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Fruit Waffle double Ice Cream Deluxe:

I liked the way the apple filling was inside the waffle because normally it is topped with fruits and messy to eat.


It would be great if the apples were not sweetened because the icecream and white chocolate shavings were sweet.
As well as apple, I am looking forward to cherry and other fillings.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Lemon Lime drink:

This was a great refreshing thirst quencher because it was quite hot in the shop.
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At the moment, my favourite waffles are the chicken tikka, chili con carne, bacon waffle and the vegetarian.

Saturday, April 26, 2014

Food bloggers transform Hong Kong food writing

I was really honoured to be interviewed by John Cheng for an article which was featured on Varsity.

Varsity is an award-winning magazine created for the tertiary students and faculty of Hong Kong. It is written, edited and designed by students in the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Original source:
http://varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk/index.php/2014/04/food-bloggers-critics

Eat, Taste blog:

Exquisitely presented dishes are placed on the table in a fine dining restaurant. The food smells as inviting as it looks, yet none of the diners make the tiniest attempt to enjoy the feast before them. They are too occupied with taking pictures. For several minutes, the only sound is of the snapping of camera shutters.

This is a typical scene from the world of food blogging, where cameras and smartphones are whipped out before the food is touched. After these dinner gatherings, reviews will be uploaded the very next day. Every day, food bloggers repeat the cycle of visiting different restaurants, taking photos and writing online food reviews.

Caption: Supersupergirl, top ranking food blogger on OpenRice

It has become a way of life for Supersupergirl, currently the top ranking food reviewer on Hong Kong’s leading online food review platform OpenRice. The food enthusiast who works in creative publishing often scouts the city for new restaurants to try out. At other times, she attends food tastings with fellow OpenRice reviewers. After a hectic day of eating, Supersupergirl goes home and blogs about her foodie adventures.

“Eating good food is partly luck, at the right place, at the right time and moment the food is served,” she says. “Try anything on the menu. If it’s new, try it out as you might be surprised; if there is something you don’t like, try it out as well.”

Supersupergirl has been a foodie since childhood. She started writing on OpenRice in 2006, inspired by a bad food experience. “I went to this restaurant in Discovery Bay and I drank this smoothie. What happened was they blended the plastic lid into the smoothie,” she recalls. “I was really angry so I went home and wrote a bad review.”

Many food bloggers start off as food enthusiasts like Supersupergirl. Through blogs and online food review websites they gradually gain fame and popularity. More and more people have joined the ranks of food bloggers in recent years, changing the way food reviews are written and received in the foodie heaven of Hong Kong.

Caption: Lung Siu-yeah, another popular local food blogger

It can take years of experience in the media, the food industry or both, celebrity or impeccable connections to become a food critic in the traditional media. In contrast, anyone can become a food blogger.

“The so-called online food critics are no different to ordinary people. You can become one if you open an OpenRice account. No job interviews required, you just need your taste buds,” says Lung Siu-yeah, another popular local food blogger.

The internet has become a platform for any average foodie to write about food. Every year, OpenRice records a 20 per cent to 30 per cent growth in the number of food reviewers. To date, the website already has over 800,000 registered users.

The proliferation of online food reviews has completely revolutionised the practice of food writing. Restaurants are only too aware of the influence food bloggers have on consumer tastes and choices. Now, food bloggers are the first group of people restaurants approach when they want comments on their newest dishes. They either contact a food blogger to spread the word among the blogger circle or go through public relations companies to gather bloggers.

In the past, the latest food trends were usually determined by food writers for newspapers and magazines. However, the stories and reviews they write can often be de-facto advertorials as these reporters and writers have good relations with the restaurants they review. As a result, the real food trends in the market may not be accurately reflected. Nowadays, with online food reviews, the situation has changed.

“OpenRice users have their personal opinions, and when these opinions merge they become a form of collective wisdom,” says McCarthy Lee Cham-lun, marketing manager of OpenRice.

K.C. Koo, Hong Kong’s only full-time food blogger

K.C. Koo, widely acknowledged as the godfather of Hong Kong food bloggers has no doubt that food bloggers have become arbiters of popular taste.

“[Online] food reviews can stir up new food trends in the market. Since food bloggers are customers as well, the more they write about a certain food the more popular it will become,” he says over a cup of Hong Kong-style coffee in an old-style Hong Kong diner in Wan Chai.

Koo has been writing online food reviews for over 10 years and has reviewed over 1,500 local restaurants. He takes it so seriously that he quit his job in the finance industry to devote all of his time to food writing, making him Hong Kong’s only full-time food blogger. He now explores new restaurants, attends food tastings and writes an average of 4,000 to 6,000 words on a daily basis.

The blogger has also set up Fancook Production, a company that organises special food tastings for foodies in various restaurants. While the company is a commercial venture, Koo also wants to promote food culture and encourage more newcomers to join the food-writing industry.

In other parts of the world, there have been tensions between food bloggers, established food writers and even celebrity chefs. Bloggers are said to have democratised food criticism and writing, and have also provided direct competition for traditional food writers in the mainstream media. But for Koo, there are fundamental differences between the two groups. “If you want someone to comment on Korean fried chicken, you’re not going to seek out Chua Lam(蔡瀾), you’ll look for me,” he says.

Lau Kin-wai and his son Lau Chun in front of the Michelin-starred restaurant, Kin’s Kitchen

Renowned columnist, food critic and restaurateur Lau Kin-wai also thinks such worries are unnecessary. Sitting in his Michelin-starred restaurant, Kin’s Kitchen, Lau says food bloggers and traditional food critics cater to different audiences.

“They [food bloggers] are more mass-oriented, while we traditional food critics who write in newspapers and magazines talk about different aspects of experiences,” Lau explains.

“If you ask me about egg waffles or cart noodles, I can’t answer you. But I travel around the globe to try the best [food]…and try to bring food writing to a cultural level, not just commenting on the taste or price of the food.”

When everyone and anyone can be a food critic, the independence and credibility of food bloggers comes into question, especially as more and more restaurants latch onto them as a means of promotion. Through public relations companies, restaurants invite food bloggers to free tastings and subsequently require bloggers to give them positive reviews online.

However, gourmet writer and restaurateur Lau Chun, who happens to be Lau Kin-wai’s son, reveals that traditional food writers also face the dilemma of free meals. The younger Lau says it is almost impossible to be free from the influence of advertisements and other vested interests. In order to uphold the independence of food criticism, he thinks it is important for all food writers to declare their interests.

“Foreign critics put much emphasis on this [declaring interests] — whether the meal is self-paid and is there any collaboration between [food critics] and restaurants,” Lau says. He cites the example of prominent overseas food critics, like the American food writer Ruth Reichl, who make anonymous visits to restaurants and pay for their own meals to ensure their reviews are more objective.

Willie Mark Yiu-tong, food critic and consultant

Acclaimed gourmet, food critic and consultant in Hong Kong, 78-year-old Willie Mark Yiu-tong, says the spirit of food writing is truthfulness and honesty to oneself. Ultimately, whether a food review contains good photos or whether it is timely or trend-setting enough are not the fundamental elements that differentiate good food writing from bad. Mark says all good food writing begins with a deep-rooted love for food and the reviewer’s own truthfulness. Good food writing should not pander to the restaurants or to chefs but give them real food for thought.

“Like any commentary pieces, what matters the most is truthfulness,” Mark says. “Food reviews should serve as a mirror for the food industry, allowing them to see the real side of themselves.”

Lime soda with black truffle

Went past this restaurant ages ago in the evening but they didn't serve the noodle sets.

This time I went past they were serving it.

They actually specialize in hot pots which seem quite cheap compared to other places.


As well as the food, the drinks were INTERESTING! This is probably the first place in Hong Kong to have black truffle with soda!!

The decor in the restaurant is quite nice.

They make their own chili sauce which costs $5x per jar.


★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Vermicelli with chicken in wine:

To be honest, the wine was not strong enough but the broth was full of chicken flavour and yellow chicken oil which made it rich and tasty with the noodles.
I also overheard that the chicken skin contains no fat but I did not try it because I don't like the taste and texture of fatty things.
Anyway, I will try their hotpots next time because their herbal one smelt pretty strong.
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Black truffle and lime soda:



This was interesting because black truffle in the drink was quite nice with 7up/sprite with a hint of savoriness.
I would prefer black truffle with soda water because I don't really drink flavoured fizzy drinks but because it was black truffle, I had to try it.
The Chinese and English name didn't quite match because the Chinese said that it had salted lemon but in English, it just said that it was black truffle and lime soda.
Anyway, I hope to try it again with soda water and salted lemon because the salted lemon would definitely make it nicer.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
G/F, 17 Man Nin Street, Sai Kung
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