My Few Seconds Of Fame - Rita On The Media

10 Hong Kong foodies to follow on Instagram - Lifestyle Asia Hong Kong

Five Rules to Break - Smartphone Photography (HK Magazine Online)

Cheap Eats - Bloggers Choice - Hong Kong Time Out Magazine

HK Magazine (print) All Day Dining - Foodies & Chefs Recommendations

Hong Kong Social Media Week 2012 - Getting Social with Smartphone Photography - Panelist

Vintage& on Hong Kong Weekend Weekly (print)

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Sunday Roast at St Betty, IFC, Central, Hong Kong

Look at that scrumptious spread! Went to try St Betty's famous Sunday Roast with a couple of friends including blogger Gastronomous Anonymous. Since we're crazy big eater, we were wondering if the Sunday Roast set's gonna be enough for us. We were assured that it'd be enough (look at the above scrumptious spread!), but since we're greedy bastards, we ordered more anyway.
Portion control has always been our problem.

We also ordered the ox heart tomato with pesto, dried black olives with 8 year old balsamic vinegar.

It's hilarious how we've overlooked the word "tomato" since we had our eyes fixed on the words "ox heart". We were totally shocked and couldn't believe what we saw when the tomato salad arrived. Our bad! Fortunately, it looked amazing and tasted fantastic. Phew!

We ordered this sweetcorn fritters with ricotta, corn salsa and morteau sausage  for baby Marcus, who is now no longer a baby, he's now a cute two year old with a healthy appetite.

We thought we could feed him a bit of this and share the rest, but unexpectedly, Marcus could pretty much finish the whole plate and we only got to try one tiny bite each. It's absolutely delicious!

The Sunday Roast's SUPER YUMMY! I especially LOVE the roast beef, yorkshire pudding, and the Chinese cabbage confit with Japanese bacon. Perfectly cooked beef, fluffy yorkshire pudding, and tasty veggie with bacon! I adore! Plus horseradish cream? I pretty much slathered everything with that.

The set also came with roast potatoes and crushed root veggies. I don't mind them, but I'd rather concentrate of my favorites :D

We almost ordered extra desserts, but luckily our server reminded us that the Sunday Roast includes this yummy rhubarb crumble.

SC helped me with that money shot :D

Buttery deliciousness! Not too sweet, but sufficiently rich & satisfying. I like!


SC & Marcus had fun enjoying the crumble too!

Everybody were stuffed to the brim, but we (I) managed to finish most of the beef. Heheheh.

The meal's a tad pricey (HK$440 per person but that's because we were so greedy & ordered lots) but I do love their beef. Hmmm beef. I crave some right now.

Check out Gastronomous Anonymous review here.
The rest of the photos will be uploaded to my Facebook Page.

St Betty
Shop 2075, Podium Level 2
IFC Mall, Central
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2979 2100

Pandan French Toast - Ugly Delicious

The color might be lurid green and scary, but I can assure you that it's very yummy!

Bread soaked in mixture of egg, melted butter, coconut cream, sugar & pandan essence. It's a no brainer, really! Must be yum! I will definitely use coconut cream more often when making french toasts. It gives me that much needed kick-in-the-gut richness.

Recipe
- bread of your choice (I used 1 small mixed grain bun, sliced to 1 cm thick slices)
- 2 tsp sugar
- 5 tbsp coconut cream
- 3 tbsp butter (salted), melted
- a pinch of salt
- 1 egg, beaten
- a few drops of pandan essence (add bit by bit, I added half a teaspoon)
- some more butter mixed with vegetable oil for frying

Melt butter, let cool for a bit while preparing other ingredients. Mix sugar, salt, coconut cream, pandan essence and melted butter in a bowl, soak bread pieces in the mixture and let them "marinate" in fridge for a couple of hours. Before serving, heat up some butter mixed with a bit of vegetable oil to prevent from burning, pan fry bread pieces until golden.


Rich, fragrant, sweet, and fluffffffy! I really adore the scent and creaminess of coconut milk in these babies.
Enjoy!

Peas and Bacon Crumble

I've been crumble-topping everything eh? I can't help it! It's super easy, it makes everything tasty... and pretty too! I love it.


Recipe
- 2 heaping tablespoon of all purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon of butter
- 1 tsp of grated parmesan
- a bit of sugar, black pepper, nutmeg, grated lemon zest
- 1 small bowl of green peas
- 2 strips of bacon, cut into chunks

In a frying pan, render bacon fat, add peas, mix well and pour into vessel (I chose sturdy paper muffin cups, you can use cute small ramekins). Preheat oven to 200C. Using hands, mix flour, butter, grated parmesan, a bit of sugar, black pepper, nutmeg and grated lemon zest - never mind the chunks. Add on top of the peas and bacon, dump into oven until the top's golden brown.


Yum! Great as a side dish or snack or party food!

Jean-Paul Hevin - All Day Afternoon Tea for Dark Chocolate Lovers

I love dark chocolate (who doesn't?), and if you loved chocolate so much and you want to have a very chocolatey afternoon tea as breakfast, lunch, and dinner, then this is perfect for you :)

This is one of Jean-Paul Hevin's all-day afternoon tea sets. It has two chocolate cakes, two macarons, two chocolate bonbons and two chocolate coated almonds.

The chocolate cake in focus is voted the best chocolate cake in Japan!

I must admit that I've never loved macarons... to me, they are just way too sweet, until I tried Jean-Paul Hevin's macaron last year.

I love how they are not too sweet, and I love the dark chocolate ganache here.


One of the chocolate coated almond had a hint of Earl Grey Tea, which I love.

If you're looking for a nice quiet place to sit down with friends after (well, or before) a crazy shopping around Central, or a place to have dessert after an early bird dinner (just like me - a senior citizen who likes to dine latest by 6:30pm..), before clubbing, or if you just need a good dose of dark chocolate... (you don't need a reason to want chocolate, right?), then check the place out!

Christmas is around the corner, and I know what to get MIL (who's a dark chocolate maniac) for Christmas.

Oh hello, chocolate! Come to mama!

I want to keep the "rustic" wooden box.


And this will surely cure all kinds of Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday blues...

More photos on my Facebook page.

Jean-Paul Hevin
Address etc here.
Afternoon tea set: HK$168.
Chocolate cake: HK$58/slice
Macarons: HK$25/piece

Thank you Jean-Paul Hevin for the invitation! You've brightened up my gloomy weekday night.

Hairy Crab Feast

'Tis the season to get our hands dirty and wrestle with these hairy ones.


Steaming the crab.

Enjoy while still hot.


In SC's family, the boys only eat the roe, and they leave all the crab legs and claws to my MIL.


Here's how SC eats the crab (well... crab roe).

Claws and legs removed... transferred to MIL's plate.


Open the flap (this one's a boy - as can be seen from the pointy flap).


Open the body, discard the lung (those soft pointy bits).


Pour some vinegar with minced ginger onto the roe.


Ready?


Slurp.

Have you had any hairy crab goodness this season?

Super Easy Mini French Toasts

The first French Toasts I tried was the Hong Kong style golden brown deep fried one. I do love it, but I didn't realize that I'd love these non-deep-fried ones, and they are so simple to make too!

Recipe
(yields 6 mini french toasts. they are very rich and filling tho)
- 1 egg, beaten
- half cup of milk
- 1cm thick slice of butter, cut from 1 stick - melted, and 1 tsp for frying (mixed with cooking oil)
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 small mixed grain bun, cut into 1 cm thick pieces

Mix beaten egg, milk, melted butter and sugar, add slices of bread, make sure the bread pieces are fully soaked in the mixture, let them "marinate" for at least 15 minutes. Heat up frying pan with cooking oil and butter, pan fry pieces of bread until golden brown.

You should get very fluffy, creamy, eggy inner part and crispy outer part. Very yum! And as if these aren't sinful enough...I ate mine with peanut butter, cream cheese, and Nutella. Perfect for breakfast or tea time.

Super Easy Choy Sum Shrimp Stir Fry

Another dish my MIL always makes, super sweet veggie, fresh shrimps. Beautiful. Finally I saw her making it recently. It's amazing how she can make the dish taste so good without even using aromatics like ginger or garlic. Very minimal, and the ingredients shine through.

Recipe
- 1 cup shrimps, deshelled, deveined, butterflied
- a pack of choy sum
- vegetable oil, salt, and pepper

Season shrimps with salt and pepper. Heat up frying pan with some vegetable oil, stir fry shrimps until half done and set aside. Stir fry choy sum until they reach the level of tenderness that you like (don't let them turn yellow), season with a bit of salt, add shrimps, stir fry until shrimps are just cooked, and serve.

Perfect for a light meal!

Crabtastic Dinner at Man Wah, Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong

Hello, yummy crab roe, come to mama!
Hairy crab season is here, and this is a preview to Mandarin Oriental's Man Wah hairy crab menu.

Ohhh... where do we start?

Smoked black cod. Tasty and succulent. I like.


Crispy "eel" - actually they are mushrooms. I always love anything crispy.


Drunken crab. Actually, it's more like drunken me. My face was red, I turned giggly and loudly obnoxious after eating this. Yep, it is that easy to get me drunk. Oppps.

The star of the show.

"Dismantling" a hairy crab beautifully in less than 3 minutes. Oh man, may I take her home?


YEAH BABY! Check out the crab roe. Slurpppp. I had to remind myself that I was not alone and... must... not... grab... all... the... roeeee. Argh!

Now, my top favorite dish of the night.

Crab tart. Oh my! I loveeeeeeeeeeeee!


Crab meat and crab roe in crispy shell, served piping hot. Abso-bloody-lutely delicious! I almost wanted to steal my neighbor's when he stepped outside. Too bad he came back too quickly.


Braised Shanghaiese cabbage with crab meat. Seriously scrumptious! Love love love it!


Stir fried hairy crabs with rice cake & salted fish.
Normally, I am not a big fan of sticky rice cakes.... and would avoid it, except for this one! They are wonderfully chewy and the super tasty sauce clings to them. So yummy, I even had seconds!


Crab broth with tomatoes, wood fungus and baby greens. Adore the broth, and was also in love with the fish tofu cake.


Premier crab roe with steamed rice. Rich roe and fragrant rice. Love it!

Pleasantly full, now it's time for something sweet!
And breakfast was served.

Huh? Oh yes, this dessert's inspired by Shanghaiese breakfast. How adorable!
Soy milk ice cream with crispy Chinese fritter and fried sticky rice cake. I always love a combination of sweet and savory. So, this is perfect! Satiny smooth and light soy milk ice cream with crispy savory fritters. Amazing!

Thank you so much for the invitation, Man Wah!

Wanna try?
Call Man Wah.
Hairy crab menu starting from HK$558/person for lunch, or HK$988/person for dinner +10%

Wanna read what other bloggers think of the dinner?
Hong Kong Fashion Geek
joie de vivre