Shirokuma Japanese Curry, Tsing Yi - Super Yummy! Must Try!

Too yummy not to mention! This is a beef burger curry (two huge burger patties), served on top of rice, with dark curry sauce and melted creamy cheese sauce. HEAVEN!


A huge pork ball served on top of moist, perfectly cooked omelette, on a bed of rice, drenched in pork curry sauce with creamy melted cheese. OMG! Too yummy to be true! Very satisfying!


Their desserts are lovely too! This is Hokkaido milk ice cream served with strawberries, blueberries, chocolate corn balls, and mango. There are green tea ones too. Absolutely heavenly!

The place is kids friendly too, they provide baby seats and kids utensils, and the servers would tell the kids to finish their food first before they can enjoy the desserts. They have an ice cream counter too if you don't feel like curry. WE ADORE THIS PLACE!

The only small thing is.. you have to wait to get seats. My solution would be... be the early birds. Or while one parent wait, the other can bring the kid to play the toy cars near Log-On. For couples, well you can either do some extreme public display of affection, or play with your own phone until you get your table.

Shirokuma Curry
Shop 218A, 2/F Maritime Square, Tsing Yi, Hong Kong.
Tel: +852 2432 9988 (too bad you can't book)
The other branch is in Tuen Mun.
About HK$100 per person for curry + dessert to share

Most Elegant Ramen Meal I've Ever Had - MIST, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong - Closed

The title says it all.
I've never thought a ramen meal could be this elegant. Normally, elegant is the #98763474 priority for me when it comes to food, and I always have this suspicion that elegance = pretentious =/= good. But I am so pleased to say that the food at MIST is super mega delicious!

SC and I ordered 1 set dinner (to share) + 1 additional bowl of ramen. It's the perfect amount of food for both of us.

The meal started with one spoon rahmen of sea urchin (the above picture) and chicken broth gelee with caviar.

Both absolutely delicious!


The lobster & crab meat tartare was sweet and refreshing. Lovely!


The smoked chicken thigh with black pepper sauce? Whew! Best black pepper sauce I've tasted in my life! It gave me quite a good kick, and the chicken meat was cooked to perfection. Wonderful!

Now...the ramen...look at how gorgeous this bowl of ramen is!

Karamiso Ramen.

The noodles had just the perfect amount of chewiness, the broth's super rich with flavor but not overwhelmingly greasy, the pork slices were melt-in-your-mouth tender.

Yummy!


Although I adore the richness of the karamiso ramen broth, surprisingly, I preferred this ume shio ramen.


Don't be tricked by its paler color. It's very flavorful, with a hint of sourness from the plum. Love it!


I am not a big fan of tofu desserts, but this one was so silky smooth, mildly sweet, lightly creamy with a lovely of something floral....I adore!


I ended my delicious meal with a cup of coffee.
Very satisfied.
It's so worth the elegant price tag.

A set dinner costs HK$428 and a bowl of ramen costs HK$120-140 (+10% service charge)
CLOSED :(
MIST (創作麵工房)
G/F, 4 Sun Wui Road, Causeway Bay
銅鑼灣新會道4號地下
Tel: +852 2881 5006

Japanese Golden Curry - Beef & Veggie

I've made Japanese curry before, using House instant curry seasoning, and it was a little too sweet for me. A friend of mine highly recommended S&B. In fact, she swears by it.

One fine day, I wanted to give it a try.
Actually, it was my day off but I was too lazy to whip up anything more complicated that throwing instant curry and ingredients into a pot :D

I blame Hong Kong's humidity and summer heat, as always.

You don't need a recipe for this...but let me share how did I do mine.

Recipe
(serves 4)
- 1 lb beef cubes (I used cubes from brisket)
- half an onion, chop into chunks
- 1 carrot, peeled and chopped into bite sized pieces
- 1 pack of straw mushrooms, sliced
- 1 zucchini, peeled and chopped into 5mm thick chunks
- 1 pack of S&B Golden Curry (Hot)
- olive oil, hot water, paprika (optional), black pepper (optional)

Since I used brisket, I used my pressure cooker.
Sautee onion in a bit of olive oil, add mushrooms, add beef, mix about, add carrots, add hot water, a sprinkle of black pepper, and pressure cook for 25 minutes. If you are using other kinds of meat (chicken, beef tenderloin, pork, etc, simply let the meat cook through and you're done). Once the pressure cooking was done, oh my! The beef stock you get...delicious even without any seasoning. Add zucchini chunks at this stage as we don't want to overcook them. Add curry seasoning a few blocks at a time and mix well, add more water if necessary, sprinkle a bit more black pepper and paprika (optional)...and pour curry over a bed of steamed rice.

I love S&B's savory curry flavor. Perfect!

Golden curry eaten overlooking a gloriously golden sunset...
One bowl was definitely not enough ^_^

Amazing Yakitori at Yakitoritei (燒鳥亭), Tin Hau

If you're in Hong Kong, and you haven't tried Yakitoritei, a charming and cozy yakitori (Japanese BBQ) joint in Tin Hau/Happy Valley...
Seriously. Go!

I could've summarized my so-called "review" with just one word, delicious.
But let me show you what kind of mad MAD meal we had.
It started with our server asking "foie gras, anyone?" and almost all of us raised our hand, and it only went downhill from there ;)

We started with...

Cod roe salad, super fresh, perfect for the hot and sticky weather that day...and the ginkgo nuts yakitori, very very interesting...nutty with a touch of bitterness. We were hungry for more!

Now...the seafood...

Succulent scallops grilled to perfection, super succulent sword fish and eel with deliciously crispy skin. Nothing but yum!

On to something rich...

The foie gras, super rich, mega creamy and tasty! Juicy and tender duck breast with sweet onions. Quack quack!

Moving on to the chicken group...

Grilled chicken with crab roe was really interesting. Perfectly grilled chicken meat with creamy sauce and little pops of sea freshness. Gotta give them a try. The grilled chicken with mustard sauce was super delish too...and we were pleasantly surprised by the grilled chicken gizzards. They look dry and miserable, but they were wonderfully crunchy and tasty!

Next...
|
The grilled quail eggs made you forget any cholesterol fears, the grilled sausages on chicken bone were as tasty as they looked, and we love the bacon wrapped asparagus.

Before we knew it...

...we've gathered quite a lot of skewers...and we're not even half way yet!

Now, some more meaty goodness...

Japanese grilled pork with herbs, juicy, tender, delicious! Lamb lovers, you gotta order their lamb chops, absolutely divine!...and the grilled thick cut ox tongue is not to be missed! All delicious!

We didn't go meat-crazy all the way, we remembered to order some veggies and mushrooms, and here are some highlights...

Spinach with bonito, a refreshing touch to a super rich meal. Grilled zucchini with cheese, sweet and crunchy with mild cheesy topping, yum!...and hello, carb...sweet, tender and smoky sweet potatoes.

Now...my absolute favorite...

The beef! Grilled with butter, with Japanese BBQ sauce or with good plain ol' salt and pepper. Juicy, absolutely tender, extremely delicious, it's...hello, meat heaven!

Almost everything was super mega delicious...except for these few items, which we didn't exactly adore...

Grilled bacon wrapped salmon, the bacon part was good, but the salmon was pretty dry. The chicken wings stuffed with foie gras and cheese, they tasted nothing like what the name promised. It tasted like a regular chicken wings stuffed with minced meat...we'll skip this next time. The grilled clams were...beachy. We like our beach sandy, but not our shellfish, so...nono.

Now...with all those skewers...the boys couldn't help but do this...

What were they asking?
a. Will I win betting on FIFA World Cup this year?
b. Who will have to eat all the remaining corn and sweet potatoes? (They were delish, but we ordered wayy too much!)
c. Who's cuter, V or SC?
d. Who pays for this meal?

Yakitori offers set dinners for about HK$290 per person, but since we were so crazy and almost ordered everything on the menu, we ended up spending about HK$460 per person, without even ordering a single drop of alcohol :D
But believe me, it was worth it.

Remember to make a reservation, the place is rather small and is always packed. We saw a small group of walk in patrons who had to come back three times before they got a seat ^_^

Oh, not that you care, but in case you wanna know, this is what I wore that night :D

Yakitoritei (燒鳥亭)
G/F Tsing Fung Building
10 Tsing Fung Street
Tin Hau
Hong Kong
天后清風街10號清風大廈地下
Tel: +852 2566 9982

Ramen Lunch at Wakayama, IFC, Central

I heard so much about this place, and since I am always in search for a good ramen place in Hong Kong, I dragged sc's ass to give this high-end ramen joint a try.

Mind you, sc and I aren't exactly fond of, nor fit the term high-end very well :P

What happens when we put an iPhone freak + 3G Internet access + not-knowing-what-to-order together?

You get SC browsing openrice.com to see did others order and what did they love.
Handy!

We are suckers for meal sets, so we went for their lunch sets, a bowl of ramen + a side dish.
The side dishes...

Gyoza (Japanese dumplings)...they're ok, nothing out of the ordinary.


My favorite, karaage (deep fried chicken), flavorful and crispy, but you get good karaage very easily in Hong Kong. So, again, nothing special.

Are we paying high prices for a bunch of nothing-specials?

Let's see if their ramen lived up to our high expectation.

The soft bone pork ramen may look ever so humble and ordinary...


...but it is anything but ordinary.
My photograph may not do the noodle justice. It's really wonderfully springy, cooked to perfection. The broth's flavorful, and the pork...

OMG..

The pork...how tender was it?

So tender...

A large chunk of it fell right back into the bowl when sc was "posing" it for photographs.
Yumza!

Now...

Pretending to be Going high-end, I decided to order the most expensive ramen on the menu. The wagyu beef ramen. The same wonderful noodles, the same flavorful broth (I should've chosen a different broth. Opps), perfectly done egg, different sort of vegetables from the ones you get from random ramen shops...and of course...

Tha beef!

Tender, juicy, beautiful, flavorful, delicious slices of beef.
Don't try to eat the beef too rare, let them "cook" in the broth for a bit and they'll get even more tender, juicy and delicious.
For me, this bowl of ramen absolutely lived up to its high-end price tag (around HK$1xx per lunch set).
Totally worth it!

Wakayama Japanese Restaurant
Unit 3020, 3/F, IFC Mall, IFC Mall, Central
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2295 1221

BBQ Japanese Wagyu Beef at Iroha, Causeway Bay

I am not a food expert or a food reviewer.
But I know deliciousness when I taste it.
My dinner at Iroha last night?
Nothing but delicious.

I don't care what management grade you are at work....but tonight, you're my photo bitch :P
Hold that menu still for me, please :)

Set for dinner for two, HK$360 from 6-8pm.
Go for it.


Giant prawns. Good.


Thinly sliced ox tongue and pork neck meat. Good good.


Super sweet corn, onion, mushrooms, green pepper, pumpkin.
Good.
These "good-good" are shaping this post to be the worst food review ever written?


Marinated beef. Damn good.


Salad. I'm gonna write refreshing instead of "good".
I know, you crave a variety of adjectives.


Marinated pork and chicken.
Hmmm....ggggggggood.


Picked vegetables. Good.
Shall we see how long I can limit myself to writing just "good good"?


Spring onion pancake.
Ohhhh...grrrr..extrem..e...l..y good.
(Sorry couldn't help it)
Server reminded us to enjoy it while it's hot.
Appreciated that.

That's the set dinner, which will be enough for two greedy suckers.
But we weren't normal greedy suckers, so we had to order more.
Perhaps something from this page?

Maybe later...
I need some tongue action!
No Jap grill for me without some tongue action.
It's like...(find your own tongue-action-equivalent analogy, I won't go there ^_^)

Thick slabs of tongue.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh.......................bloody gooddddddd.

Now, must order something from this page.

Some beer drinking, spoilt to the bone, massage therapied Jap wagyu.


Oh...mama.
More marbled than my kitchen countertop (but your kitchen countertop is not made of marble? opps)

Wanna see some grilling action?

Watchaaaa!!!


Hello, French kiss....tongue, please. Tongue!


It doesn't get any better than this.

Except when this wagyuness happened...

It's.....bloody-freaking-unbelievably-extremely-undeniably-unimaginably-intolerably-amazingly-darn...
good.
:)


Visit Iroha and please write better adjectives.
They deserve them.

2/F, Jardine Center
50 Jardine's Bazaar
Causeway Bay
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 28229877

We ordered all of the above plus 2 bowls of rice, 3 draft beer and 1 plate of ginger sauteed vegetables. Costs HK$998 (with a discount card).
HSBC credit cards get 10% off.