The Deadliest Meal Ever......

Your stomach is boiling, your head covered in sweat. Your breathing in uncontrollable, your lips are shaking.

Why is it so hot everywhere around you? Why do you feel so exhausted? Did you just ran a marathon?

No....you just ate Sichuan.

Recommended by a good friend of mine from Poly U, he said that some of the greatest food are hidden in the old neighbor of Hung Hom. He brought me and a bunch of friends from my summer internship to try out some serious 'authentic' Sichuan food you can ever find in HK. Funny thing was that it happen to be around the corner from my other review of 聯記川王涼粉, my other humiliating spicy ordeal.

The shop is unnoticeable, like an average looking cha chan teng, it blends in with the odd mixtures of shops along this aging street. During daytime, it serves only Spicy Rice Noodle so casual diners or office workers. The real good food is only served at night.

When we order the dishes, they give us a variety of spices to choose from, 'Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Super, Extreme'. The choice of words....interesting. It didn't help the store owner, a Sichuan Woman, tease Cantonese people that none of us could handle spices. So...us being young simple-minded students, decided to step up to the challenge and order EXTREME for all of our appetizers. BIG MISTAKE
The meal started with pig lungs and stomach, a chewy appetizer to open up the dining stomach. Spicy Pig Intestines and Red Chili Oil Dumplings. You can tell by the bits of chili and the red colour of each of the dishes that this place is seriously no jokes. The feelings and emotions you get from eating Sichuan is indescribable. I first thought that I was fine after the first few bites. Then eventually the spice crept up to me. My lips began to shake and rumble out of my control and I was starting to lose my taste buds. Every bite I took, my eyes began to water in pain. WTF? why does it feel like torture when I am simply eating a meal? I instantly ordered a beer to help cool down my mouth.
Amazing, the extreme spiciness from the appetizers made our mouths more adjusted towards the less spicy main dishes, making it taste extra better. The best dish in the restaurant, their 口水雞/ Spicy Chicken (or literally Saliva Chicken). The meat is surprising tender and not dry at all. The spices actually sharpens the chicken taste, making it extra tasty. It also came at a big portion. We loved this dish so much we ordered a second one. By the time the 水煮魚/Spicy Fish arrived, no one on the table had the energy or the taste buds left to enjoy this dish. Our mouths were just numb, and the fish was full of sneaky hidden bones, so the mixture of the two leads to very scary choking scenarios. I honestly need to come here the second time to try out this dish again, I honestly couldnt taste anything when I had eating it.

The owner was amazed how much spice our table endured throughout the meal, but laughed at how many bottles of beer that we drank to neutralize the spices. Everything in the restaurant tasted authentic, something you rarely see in HK and the chef is no joke when it is adding spiciness to the dishes. By the time the meal was over, I couldnt even stand up straight, my whole body was wobbly trying to control that burning sensation in my stomach.

Final Verdict: Definite must try for Spice Lovers. But you cant take spice at all, AVOID AT ALL COST
http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/sr2.htm?shopid=21183

sadly....the best ramen in town?

There are times when I get a bit of ramen craving. Just something about a simple bowl of noodles that makes me satisfy. And since ramen was the only food I could afford back in my trip to Tokyo, I guess Me and ramen bonded during that 5 day tour.

Here back in HK, ramen selection is a little....lacking. There is the Ajisen Ramen chain....which throws in odd mixes of ingredients and invents a new flavor of ramen every week. It really lacks the authenticity and the tradition of Japanese Ramen.

蔡瀾 recommended Domon, a small ramen store located inside Granville Circuit. Of course, Domon is already a large food chain with stores all around HK, but he recommend people trying its first original store, where the main chef still works. Apparently him and the chef go wayy back, and the chef spent 10 years in japan learning how to cook ramen, and decided to set up a shop in a quiet little alleyway, just like all good japanese restaurants. Of course, granville now blew up into a fashion street...so not so quiet anymore.
When you first enter the store, you already smell a very strong tonkotsu/Pork Bone Soup in the air, its bubbling from the ramen soup that is cooking in the open kitchen. On the counter was a row of shochou leftover from past customers. It is a tradition in some japanese restaurant to keep the unfinished bottles of rice wine for their customers, so that they could finish it for their next meal, I guess it is to build customer loyalty and a sense of community. Most japanese wannabe restaurants in town don't even offer such service due to the lack of shelf space, I guess seeing this shows that this place serves quite a few local japanese customers already. And by listening to the chatter around the restaurant, I could hear someone speaking japanese.
Anyways, I got myself a Butter Ramen in their famous tonkotsu soup, a 蔡瀾 recommendation. The butter slowly melts into the soup, bringing out the soup flavor even more. The soup base was a little bit milder than the ones in japan, I guess its to cater towards the chinese taste buds, but its nice and thick with a good pork taste to it, alot better than any crappy ramen joints out there. The ramen itself was alright, very chewy and was not overcooked, and it had a nice mix of ingredients of corn and bbq pork. But overall, it was the well cooked soup base that was the defining factor in the whole dish. Surprisingly, it was the amazing scrimp gyoza that stole the show. It is voted as the one of the best dumplings in HK by 飲食男女 magazine. The skin was finely crafted, thin enough so you could see the ingredients inside, but thick enough to hold the fillings inside. The filling was a mix of onions, minced pork and bits of pig fat...that slowly dissolves, giving a swirl of flavors in your mouth. Wow.....they should specialize in making dumplings...

Final Verdict: It's a little pricy, weighting in around $80 for a ramen plus the gyoza side. But IMO best ramen in town so far.....Sure, its not Japan good...but its sadly the best we got :(

NOTE: MUST TRY THEIR GYOZA
http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/sr2.htm?shopid=5301

L'Atelier de Suck!

The following restaurant takes place two hours after my last entry......

I guess I am extra critical on famous restaurants, especially critically acclaimed French restaurants that is featured in the Michelin Guide. With all the hype built up by food critics, you naturally would expect the food to feel like a divine intervention, as if the clouds in the sky will part and angels will descend from the heaven to spoon feed you. After all, these restaurants do cost a fortune to eat.

So it was time for me to try out L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon, a Michelin two star international restaurant chain ran by celebrity chef Joël Robuchon himself. Ok I lied. I really didnt try L'Atelier, its just too damn expensive, not even Super Mom Saturdays could afford it. But what I COULD afford was its little brother, Le Salon de Joël Robuchon, its cafe branch located right below L'Atelier. Initially I was looking for a place for quick tea around Central, and was choosing between the wonderful looking Cafe Landmark, or the hidden Le Salon. Since the waiters seemed overly enthusiastic in sitting us, we chose Le Salon.

The seating in the place is a little awkward, each table is placed between each pillars on the 3rd floor of the mall. But the seating area is a little to small, so my seat pokes out into the mall corridor. It really lacks the comfortable seating like other cafes
We had to order the food at a separate counter across the mall, and the waiters will then kindly serve us the food.
Got a Chocolat noisette, a salted caramel tart, Freshly squeezed apple juice, and a Blue Mountain Coffee....The chocolat noisette was good, it had the perfect sweetness, like the Magnolia cupcakes in NYC. Nice and creamy. Funny how the sign says 'This is not edible'. The salted caramel tart was even better, very finely made and not overly sweet. The cakes and tarts in Le Salon were all made very well and bite size, not bad for $35HKD.
Here's when the rant starts........
For a $55HKD ($8CAD) coffee, you get a rather average sized cup,and it is disappointing that it is only half filled, as if the restaurant was having a shortage on coffee bean. What making it even moreee disappointing was that the coffee itself was sour, a sign that the coffee bean are kept in a moist area and had become moldy. It tasted like the sour coffee you get in Cha Chan Tengs, was pretty awful....and I felt robbed that I paid $55 for it....especially from a cafe like this.

The apple juice.....just tasted like normal apple juice.....but it cost $45.

And finally, the service! It was absolutely terrible!
1. First told us there were seats....then told us we had to wait because they were full
2. Finally got us seats....but only pointed at a general direction of where the table is in the mall....no escort service........we had to guess where our table was in Landmark...
3. Food took a long 20 minutes to serve, even though none of them required any additional heating or special preparation
4. The coffee came with no cream. what kind of cafe serves coffee without cream/milk?
5. Getting a glass of water and milk took the waiters another 15 minutes

Final Verdict: Cake set? Wonderful! Everything else? Yuck! Sorry, no angels here...no divine intervention or heavenly miracles. You better luck looking for them Cafe Landmark next door, you get better service....and better coffee.

At most....just get their tarts and cake sets takeout...and AVOID their beverages at all cost.
http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/sr2.htm?shopid=17506

Super Mom Saturdays: the SoHo Expedition

I noticed I am a little behind on the Super Mom Saturdays updates. Sor Sor. Been busy for the past few weekends, so there were a few 'canceled' SMS. Now its back to full swing....

First off, Dorothy, my old high school friend & idol food columist for HK magazine, tipped me off on a new restaurant that opened up in town. The place is an experimental restaurant opened up by the famous furniture shop 'Homeless', an trendy stores that sells a variety of designer furniture. It's not your average IKEA, the place is always stock with the latest gadgets and gizmos for the house that makes people go 'Ohhhh!' or 'Ahhhhh!'. Always a prime location to show around for tourists who wants to see the designer shops around the SoHo area.

Anyways, for a creative shop like this, it would be interesting to see what innovative ideas they could come up for a restaurant. Modestly named 'Basement', it is situated right under the original 'Homeless' store on Gough street, it sits hidden in a very run-down and dirty looking alleyway. Dorothy claims that it has a 'medieval cellar' like dining experience, and has uber SoHo cheap Italian lunch sets starting at $88HKD. The decor inside is honestly as crazy as it sounds, with half of the shop decorated in a wine cellar look...(photos from open rice)
And the other half of the place decorated like an art studio....So the meal started off with bread, salad and soup. Nothing too special here. Bread is nicely homemade and baked. The disappointing thing is that the soup kinda tasted like Campbell Canned veggie soup... I was more intrigued by the utensils and kitchen wares they use, from the odd looking shaped butter spreader to the weiner dog shaped salt and pepper holders (not in photo)I ordered a Grilled Sea bass with pesto sauced Rissottto....
This dish turned out to be AMAZZINNGGG. The risotto dissolves in the mouth in every bite, as it absorbed both the olive oil and the fish oil from the sea bass, giving a fresh Mediterranean taste. The good mix of olive oil and herbs makes the risotto not too dry in texture and also not too oily.

My mom had a cream sauced and mushroom parapadelle, a sort of like a big fatttt fettuccine. It was a little experimental as both of us have no clue what parapadelle is, and it turned out to be big wonton wraps looking noodles ahahaha. Sorry forgot to take photos. But it was equally as awesome as the risotto.

The only disappointing thing about the restaurant was that the proportionals were small. Extremely discouraging given by the looonng hot trek up the hilly district of SoHo. But for the fine quality, service and decor. The place is worth visiting again.......if I want another Supermodel diet....

Another funny thing was that not a SINGLE chair in the restaurant were the same! All imported from their parent designer store upstairs, we were given a choice to sit around odd assortment of stools, benches and chairs, from chess pieced shaped chairs to a bird nest looking ones. A few customers were actually leaving their tables to try out different chairs in the restaurant throughout the meal. Rather amusing and a smart marketing campaign IMO.

So for dessert.....
I guess I was a little too hungry to take a photo aahahhaa. We trekked up to near the top of the SoHo escalators...all the way to the mosque to find this little corner cake store...It's a tiny bakery that has a window stool seat of 3, and is always swamped with a nice buttery aroma steaming from the kitchen. I have been here previously with Kelvin and Moeha to try out their cake selections, most of them were rather average....EXCEPT FOR THIS!Their mouth waterinngggg White Chocolate Cheesecake! Originally discovered by Moeha, its starting to become the cake shop's specialty. In fact, a pair of couples were picking up their order of White Chocolate Birthday Cake when we entered the shop.

The cheesecake itself has a very creamy texture and not hard and dry like other crappy cheesecake you regularly get in cafes. The cake itself is mixed with coco butter giving it a hint of white chocolate in every bite. And the cake selection itself.....sad that only one thing in the whole bakery is good...but the White Chocolate Cheesecake is delicious enough to make me coming back :D

Final Verdict: I guess you get what you pay for, the cheap lunch set will come in small proportions. But the fine taste makes Basement worth the trip up to SoHo if you are looking for some European Food. Vanilla is not even worth asking, you should go NOW for the white choc cheesecake!

Basement: http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/sr2.htm?shopid=31877
Vanilla: http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/sr2.htm?shopid=15046