My Food Trail | A Melbourne Girl’s Food Blog

Apple & caramel tart dessert at Caprice Restaurant, Hong Kong

Highlights of Hong Kong Fine Dining

by April@MyFoodTrail on February 13, 2013

Thanks for all the congratulatory messages I received about my pregnancy from my last post! Besides the not so fun pregnancy symptoms I am experiencing, our baby seems to be progressing well and it’s such an amazing thing to feel him moving around inside me every day.

In this post I wanted to share a couple of fine dining restaurants we went to in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is an eating mecca, and there are hundreds upon hundreds of drool worthy restaurants to eat at. With such a high concentration of Michelin starred restaurants in one place, it was a very hard decision only choosing a few but we were only there for 6 days. We did our research as soon as we booked our flights, as we knew we would need to book ahead for some restaurants.

I had some trouble with thinking my iPhone was unlocked, but then going on holidays and realising it wasn’t, so when I came back, I had to wipe and restore my phone to make sure it was unlocked. In that process, I somehow managed to wipe ALL my photos off my phone, never to be seen again! I was so angry and upset but after trying so many things in vain to get my photos back, I had to come to terms that those photos were gone forever. While I still had the photos from my DSLR, I had lost all the photos I took of the menus so I have no descriptions of the wonderful fine dining food we ate. The menus available online weren’t the same so I apologise in advance for not having the inviting food descriptions from the menus.

Caprice Restaurant

One of the restaurants we definitely had on our list was Caprice, a French restaurant located in the Four Seasons Hotel on Hong Kong Island. It holds a prestigious 3 Michelin stars and Thanh told us that a 3 course meal during lunch time is around $70 AUD. We made sure we booked well in advance and got a beautiful table over looking the water. Even though it was a limited menu, we still got a decent choice of dishes for each of the 3 courses.

And the service, wow, I was so impressed! Each course was brought to the table at the same time by two waiters, syncing their placement at the same moment with a discreet meeting of the eyes! When they were clearing our mains, one of the waiters accidentally dropped a knife on the table and it left a mark on the pristine, stark white table cloth. Within a minute, the maître d was at our table apologising and placing a white napkin on the table to cover the stain!

The food was all very fresh and well plated and the 3 course set lunch deal is such great value for the calibre of the food you get. I would highly recommend putting this place on your must visit list for Hong Kong.

The beautiful water view at Caprice Restaurant

The grand splendour of the interior

Caprice, Hong Kong - Complimentary amuse bouche & bread

Left: Complimentary amuse bouche of black sesame choux pastries
Right: Complimentary bread with your choice of either salted or unsalted French butter

Our entrees which I can’t remember, but I know mine was the one on the left and it was like a smoky prawn jelly

My main of fish and pieces of raw sea urchin on the side

Hubby’s main of skate fish with a mix of buttered mushrooms

Left: My chocolate dessert was heavenly
Right: Hubby’s apple & caramel tart

Caprice, Hong Kong - Complimentary petit fours

Complimentary petit fours that were served with the tea or coffee included in the set lunch

Amber Restaurant

Amber Restaurant made the 2012 San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants list (at no. 44) and has two Michelin stars. It was on our list of places to try as it has a Weekend Wine Lunch where you get 6 courses with wine pairing for a very reasonable $798 HKD each (plus 10% service charge, approx. $110 AUD).

Amber Restaurant was just as impressive as Caprice, but it seemed to have a more laid back atmosphere. We also liked that we got to try more dishes and got wine with every course. Wine is ridiculously expensive in Asia, especially in restaurants, starting at around $30-35 AUD a glass!

I don’t normally drink at lunch time because my face goes completely red after a few sips of alcohol like a typical Asian but we were on holiday and I wasn’t designated driver for once! I was having a giggle at an Asian woman on the table next to us because she was clearly intoxicated after only two drinks and her face was the colour of beetroot. Hubby was quick to point out, people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones and the woman and I look like twins haha!

This is another fine dining restaurant that I would recommend and the Weekend Wine lunch is fantastic value, especially if you like your wine.

The impressive interior of Amber Restaurant

Amber Restaurant, Hong Kong - Complimentary amuse bouche

Complimentary bread & 3 different amuse bouche before we’ve even started our meal

Left: I remember this as being duck foie gras with aspic & a mushroom jello
Right: My starter with ham hock terrine

Amber Restaurant, Hong Kong - Middle course salmon

My middle course of salmon, smoked & confit

Amber Restaurant, Hong Kong - Middle course fish

Hubby’s middle course of fish with French beans & a fregola base

Amber Restaurant, Hong Kong - Main course

Left: My main of pork belly which the waitress prewarned was going to be fatty. I guess people in Hong Kong complain about fatty meat!
Right: Hubby’s main of fish with white asparagus

Amber Restaurant, Hong Kong - Tasting desserts to share

Desserts were meant to be shared. Left: Strawberries & cream
Right: chocolate slice & cherry sorbet

Amber Restaurant, Hong Kong - Complimentary petit fours

Left: Another strawberry dessert
Right: Complimentary petit fours served with included coffee or tea

Over & Out, April xx

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Highlights from Hong Kong Dim Sum and some news

by April@MyFoodTrail on February 3, 2013

in Chinese, Dining Out, Hong Kong, Yum Cha

To my horror, I looked at my blog yesterday and realised that it has been three months since I last posted, and besides the last WTC Wharf competition post, it was three months before that! I can’t believe so much time has passed. What a slacker I’ve been! Sorry for the lack of updates. It started off with me being so busy with work and working long hours that I couldn’t be bothered sitting in front of the computer when I got home too.

After the big deadline passed at work, I got lazy and blogging felt more like a chore I could put off so I did. But I guess that’s the great thing about a personal blog – I can write a blog post when I feel like it and when I don’t, I don’t have to. I do feel that I should be keeping my loyal readers entertained with new material, but I’m sure (or at least hope) people understand.

Then came some big news which has distracted me for the past few months… hubby and I are expecting our first baby!! I wasn’t sure whether I should make an announcement on my blog, but hopefully the people we were meant to tell know our news by now! If not, I’m sorry you found out this way!

I’ve had really bad morning sickness (including vomiting) since about 6 weeks which has really affected my appetite and my love of food. Morning sickness supposedly eases up after the first three months, but when mine didn’t, I held out hope as some people told me theirs took 4 months. The 4 month mark has passed and I’m still feeling nauseous but it was a lot better than before.

Since I’m doing better at being able to keep down my food and can stand looking at food again, I thought I would try to start blogging again. You can also always find me on Instagram @my_foodtrail where I post up to date photos of my eating if I go missing on my blog again.

I’m conscious of not turning My Food Trail into a baby centric blog, but I’ve been keeping a diary of the progress of my pregnancy so if I have time, I might turn it into a blog and save all my non-food related baby posts for that.

Our eating out has been curbed a lot due to my morning sickness so I actually haven’t taken my DSLR out for a while. I also find the iPhone 5 takes pretty decent photos so I’ve been Instagramming instead of blogging. I had to dig through my archives to find some photos to blog about and thought I should do Hong Kong since a number of people have wanted to see what I ate.

As it has been a while since I returned from my trip to Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan, it seems a bit silly to do detailed posts of places I ate at, so instead I will do a two part Hong Kong food highlights post, starting with dim sum. Dim Sum (or yum cha as it is called here in Australia) is one of hubby’s favourite foods so he was very excited to be going to the birth place of dim sum. He actually envisioned having dim sum every day but I had to convince him we needed to try other things too!

Tim Ho Wan

Outside the famous Tim Ho Wan

By far one of the most recommended restaurants to visit in Hong Kong is Tim Ho Wan. One of the first questions people (usually foodies) will ask when they find out you’ve been to Hong Kong is “Did you go to Tim Ho Wan?” Yes, yes we did. Twice! Tim Ho Wan is the world’s cheapest Michelin starred restaurant, serving freshly cooked dim sum from morning til night.

There are currently three branches of Tim Ho Wan in Hong Kong. We went to the Mongkok branch as it was closest to our hotel. While it is the original branch, it was the smallest which meant long waiting times (can be more than an hour) in the mid-30’s heat (during June). You get given a number when you arrive and when your table is ready, your number is called. They give you a sheet of paper (either in English or Chinese) to order from while you’re waiting.

The first time we went, we got there at around 6pm on a Monday night and the wait was no more than about 30 minutes. I read that the char siew polo bun (baked BBQ pork bun) was a must order dish but OMG, I didn’t realise how amazing something so simple could be! A crisp, sweet crust, on a soft, fluffy bun, filled with the most delicious tender Chinese style BBQ pork. The polo bun was the reason why we returned a second time on our last night in Hong Kong and hubby and I ordered a serve each so we didn’t have to share!

To be honest, the rest of the food at Tim Ho Wan was good and cheap, but not really worth returning a second time for, especially when you only have a limited number of meals in Hong Kong. The next time I go to Hong Kong, I’m going to order the polo buns to take away! Below is the food we ate over two visits.

Tim Ho Wan, Mongkok, Hong Kong - Baked bun with BBQ Pork 2 serves

The dish everyone must get when they go to Tim Ho Wan, the baked bun with BBQ pork

Tim Ho Wan, Mongkok, Hong Kong - Lor mai gai, radish cake, crescent dumplings, beancurd wrapped pork

Clockwise from top left: 1. Glutinous rice dumpling; 2. Pan fried turnip cake; 3. Deep fried dumpling filled with meat; 4. Steamed beancurd roll filled with beef & vegetable

Tim Ho Wan, Mongkok, Hong Kong - Har gao, siu mai, beef wrapped enoki mushrooms, pork spare ribs

Clockwise from top left: 1. Steamed fresh shrimp dumplings; 2. Steamed pork dumpling with shrimp; 3. Steamed beef roll filled with enoki mushroom & black pepper sauce; 4. Steamed spare ribs with black bean sauce

Tim Ho Wan, Mongkok, Hong Kong - Prawn rice rolls, char siew rice rolls, spring rolls

Clockwise from top left: 1. Vermicelli rolls stuffed with shrimp; 2. Vermicelli rolls stuffed with BBQ pork; 3. Deep fried spring rolls filled with shrimp, pork & vegetable

Cuisine Cuisine at The Mira

Cuisine Cuisine, The Mira, Hong Kong - Outside and Inside

Left: Outside The Mira Hotel; Right: Inside Cuisine Cuisine

Cuisine Cuisine gets one Michelin star, though I think it is for their dinner menu, not their dim sum. We heard about their fancy dim sum dishes and wanted to try so we made a reservation for lunch. There are two options at lunch – you can choose a la carte dim sum dishes or go for the all you can eat. The dishes are pretty similar on both menus, though there are some which are only available on the a la carte menu so we chose to go with that.

As with at Tim Ho Wan, there are no ladies pushing trolleys of food around where you can point and order what catches your eye. Instead you tick from a piece of paper what you would like to order. I much prefer the Australian way of seeing the food first, but at Cuisine Cuisine, they had quite good menu descriptions.

Cuisine Cuisine, The Mira, Hong Kong - Mushroom & truffle dumpling, wu kok with foie gras, osmanthus eel, crescent dumpling

Clockwise from top left: 1. Steamed wild mushroom & black truffle dumplings; 2. Crispy taro puffs with diced chicken & foie gras; 3. Grilled eel in osmanthus sauce; 4. Crispy glutinous rice dumplings with diced chicken & lotus root

Cuisine Cuisine, The Mira, Hong Kong - Radish cake, polo buns, crispy rice rolls with vermicelli, steamed rice rolls with scallops

Clockwise from top left: 1. Pan fried turnip cakes with Parma ham & prawns in XO chilli sauce; 2. Baked barbecue pork & pineapple buns with crystal sugar; 3. Crispy rice rolls stuffed with vermicelli, minced pork & carrot; 4. Steamed green rice flour rolls stuffed with scallops

The stand out dishes were the wild mushroom and truffle dumplings and the crispy taro puffs with diced chicken and foie gras, but the food overall was so amazingly good, probably the best dim sum we’ve had, that we made a booking two days later for the all you can eat dim sum! What I loved about the all you can eat menu was you could order individual pieces so if we weren’t sure about a particular item, we could order one piece so hubby and I could share in case it wasn’t nice and it wasn’t a waste of stomach space. The dumplings also came in two pieces rather than the usual three or four.

Cuisine Cuisine, The Mira, Hong Kong - BBQ pork puff, lotus root cake, spring roll, fried dace balls, wu kok

Clockwise from top left: 1. Crispy barbecue pork puff with pomelo honey flavour; 2. Pan fried minced lotus root cake; 3. Crispy spring roll stuffed with shrimp & cheese, crispy glutinous rice rolls stuffed with minced dace, crispy taro puff with diced chicken & foie gras

Cuisine Cuisine, The Mira, Hong Kong - Steamed carrot rice rolls with char siew, steamed rice roll with minced beef, pork spare ribs with rice noodle, stir fried turnip cake with xo sauce

Clockwise from top left: 1. Steamed carrot rice flour rolls stuffed with barbecue pork; 2. Steamed rice flour rolls stuffed with beef and parsley; 3. Steamed spare ribes with rice noodles in black bean sauce; 4. Stir fried turnip cakes in XO chilli sauce

Cuisine Cuisine, The Mira, Hong Kong - Har gao & prawn & vegetable dumpling, shrimp wonton in spicy soup, xiao long bao, siu mai

Clockwise from top left: 1. Steamed shrimp dumpling, steamed sweet potato with shrimp & vegetable dumpling; 2. Shrimp wonton in spicy soup; 3. “Xiao long bao” steamed Shanghai style soup dumpling; 4. Steamed minced pork dumpling with crab roe

Cuisine Cuisine, The Mira, Hong Kong - Egg tarts, sweetened bean curd, mango cream

Clockwise from left: 1. Baked mini egg tart with bird’s nest; 2. Sweetened bean curd with cane sugar; 3. Chilled mango cream with sago & pomelo

Yes, we ate all the food above in one sitting, plus we had seconds of a few of them! Needless to say, we were rolling out of there like a dumpling ourselves by the end of lunch.

Stay tuned for my next post, fine dining highlights from Hong Kong. Hopefully it won’t be in another three months !

Over & Out, April xx

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Winner of $100 WTC Wharf Voucher

by April@MyFoodTrail on November 20, 2012

in Giveaways

Thanks to everyone who entered my competition to win a $100 WTC Wharf voucher! The lucky winner who was chosen by Nuffnang is:

WINSTON

Congratulations! I will email the winner and your voucher will be sent by Nuffnang.

I hope you enjoy your visit to WTC Wharf!

Over & Out, April xx

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Kebbi and Rekakat at Byblos Bar & Restaurant WTC Wharf

Bloggers’ Progressive Dinner at WTC Wharf & a Giveaway

by April@MyFoodTrail on November 7, 2012

in Dining Out, Food Events, Giveaways, Melbourne

WTC Wharf
World Trade Centre (Riverside)
Siddeley Street, Melbourne VIC
http://www.wtcwharf.com.au

Post sponsored by Nuffnang

There is something about dining at a restaurant with a view, especially when it’s a view of the water. I feel that it adds something special to the dining experience and I’m glad to see the number of waterfront restaurants in Melbourne growing.

One place that I have recently heard about is WTC Wharf. I’ve walked and driven past the World Trade Centre area before, but I never realised there was a whole dining precinct right by the wharf edge, across the river from the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. It’s easily accessible via a new footbridge from Spencer Street, around Crowne Plaza Hotel. You can also catch a WTC Water Taxi from Docklands for a true waterfront dining experience.

I was invited by Nuffnang to a bloggers’ progressive dinner at WTC Wharf where we would be having entree at one restaurant, mains at another and dessert at yet another different restaurant. I’ve previously documented my fondness of progressive dinners and when I have the company of five other lovely fellow bloggers, it was sure to be a fun night.

WTC Wharf

We started off at Byblos Bar & Restaurant, which does a modern take on Mediterranean meets Lebanese cuisine. Byblos has a great outdoor lounge area out the front of restaurant which would be perfect for the warmer months, with a drink in hand from their large cocktail selection.

Outdoor area outside Byblos Restaurant & Bar

All the restaurants at WTC Wharf make use of the view by having large windows at the front of the restaurant letting in a lot of natural light, but due to the dark, Middle Eastern inspired décor of Byblos, you feel like you are walking into a mystical Arabian den.

Inside Byblos Restaurant & Bar

While we were waiting for the food to arrive, we chose 4 cocktails out of the plentiful list of 20.

Cocktails

The manager at Byblos chose a selection of the best entrees for us, and boy, were we fed well! We were brought the trio of dips – hommos, baba ghanouj and labneh. We had whole roasted quail marinated in pomegranate molasses and served with eggplant and yoghurt. There was beautifully golden brown grilled Cyprian haloumi, as well as two types of pastries. The darker brown kebbi was hand rolled roasted ground lamb and ground beef with pine nuts, chilli and traditional spices. The triangular rekakat was a lightly fried filo pastry filled with feta and mozzarella cheese, freshly chopped onion and fresh herbs.

Byblos Bar & Restaurant - Dips, quail, grilled haloumi, pastries

Clockwise from top left: trios of dips; quail; grilled haloumi; kebbi & rekakat

The food kept coming! We also had the lahim meshwi, which was chargrilled lamb fillets marinated in olive oil and traditional Lebanese herbs and spices, and shish tawook, which was chargrilled chicken tenderloin marinated in olive oil with garlic, oregano and a mild pepper taste. The skewers also came with the most addictive house made garlic sauce, which we only discovered towards the end of the meal! There was a fattoush salad which was a green salad with radish, tomato and cucumber, finished with toasted Lebanese bread and a bold lemon and olive oil dressing. The final dish we had was the batata harra, hand cut potatoes sautéed in lemon, olive oil, chopped coriander, garlic and a hint of chilli. Otherwise known as crack potatoes! These potatoes were so good, even though I was already full and needed to save room for mains and dessert, it was very hard to stop eating them.

Byblos Bar & Restaurant - Meat skewers, fattoush salad, potatoes

Clockwise from top left: chicken & lamb skewers; fattoush salad; batata harra

If that was the extent of our meal, I would have been very happy as we had so much good food already, but onwards we went to our next stop, Kobe Jones and Riverside Teppanyaki. Kobe Jones combines modern Japanese cuisine with a Californian twist and Riverside Teppanyaki delivers a unique culinary experience, featuring the newest and largest teppanyaki table in Australia.

Kobe Jones & Riverside Teppanyaki - Inside

The teppanyaki inside Riverside Teppanyaki

We were offered more cocktails with our meals which started with plump oysters with a ponzu sauce. This was followed by a wild mushroom salad. The mushroom mixture was cooked in a delicious nori butter. For mains we had a choice between salmon, beef or half, half. I love salmon and beef so I went with half half. The beef and salmon were simply cooked on the grill without any marinade, leaving us to choose our choice of dipping sauce from the ponzu sauce, miso citrus or teriyaki sauce in front of us.

Kobe Jones & Riverside Teppanyaki - Cocktails, oysters, salmon & steak, mushroom salad

Clockwise from top left: Cocktails; oysters with ponzu sauce; steak and salmon; wild mushroom salad

The last stop was dessert at The Wharf Hotel. The top button on my pants was threatening to pop off by this stage, but we all know we have a separate stomach for dessert! The Wharf Hotel has the unique combination of a friendly local pub with stunning river views and waterfront ambience. There was a Caulfield Cup after party being held at the Wharf Hotel that night, so the place was really rocking. It looks like a great place for drinks with friends.

Dessert was delivered 50/50, with half of us getting the homemade apple pie with cinnamon ice cream and anglaise, and the other half of us getting the sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce and caramel ice cream. I preferred the sticky date pudding, but I’m a sucker for moist sticky pudding with a rich butterscotch sauce! I did the granny thing and declined a glass of wine with my dessert, opting for a hot chocolate instead!

Wharf Hotel - Sticky date pudding, apple tart

Left: Homemade apple pie, cinnamon ice cream, anglaise
Right: Sticky date pudding, butterscotch sauce, caramel ice cream

Giveaway: COMPETITION NOW CLOSED

Thanks to Nuffnang and WTC Wharf, one lucky My Food Trail reader has the chance to win a $100 WTC precinct voucher for any restaurant! All you need to do is make a comment below and answer the question, “If you were to go to WTC Wharf, which restaurant would you go to?”

Competition closes midnight Friday 16 November 2012 and Nuffnang will choose the winner based on their favourite response. Terms and conditions can be found here.

Over & Out, April xx

April dined at Byblos Bar & Restaurant, Kobe Jones & Riverside Teppanyaki and The Wharf Hotel as a guest of WTC Wharf.

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Photo Sundays: Absolut Elyx Vodka Launch

August 5, 2012

During my younger years, while I was in University, my alcoholic drink of choice was vodka and my favourite mixer was cranberry juice. I remember every time I went overseas I would use the opportunity to purchase Absolut Vodka duty free because I liked the look of the bottle! Then Absolut started to bring out [...]

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Robuchon au Dome (formerly Robuchon a Galera), Macau

August 2, 2012

I think you would be hard pressed to find a food lover who hasn’t heard of Joël Robuchon. Joël Robuchon is famous French chef and restaurateur who has restaurants bearing his name all over the world. I’ve been lucky enough to the visit all the countries where Joël Robuchon has his restaurants, but have never [...]

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Singapore Trip Summary & Travel Guide

July 19, 2012

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Delivery Hero to the Rescue and a Giveaway!

July 17, 2012

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Photo Sundays: The Din Tai Fung Trilogy – Singapore, Taipei and Hong Kong

July 15, 2012

I’ve heard a lot about Din Tai Fung and how their xiao long baos (steamed pork dumplings with soup/broth inside) are supposedly the best. They have branches all over the world, but only one in Australia, in Sydney, so I have never been. I found out that there is a Din Tai Fung in Singapore, [...]

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Photo Sundays: Lunch at Bottega, Melbourne

July 8, 2012

Bottega 74 Bourke Street, Melbourne VIC PH: (03) 9654 2252 It was a couple of months ago that I was invited along to a lunch at Bottega to try out the new lunch menu designed by head chef Gabriele Olivieri. Bottega is smallish, cosy restaurant located on Bourke Street, near the Spring Street end. A [...]