Archive for the 'Wine&Dine' Category

Drinking and Clubing

For the pass few months, Lan Kwai Fong has been the regular weekly visits with a few friends of cousin W’s who had become my own good friends now. Since then, I have gotten to know quite a few other new friends in the capacity of restaurant/bar/club owners, directors, managers, bouncers, bartenders, as well as regular customers. All seems to be very nice and friendly people - fun people to be with as well.

Then there are a few different types of clubs. Some are private clubs with memberships and by invitation only policies, and then others are open to all. Within which there is also unwritten age group classifications and that’s where the sociology interests are.

Obviously, music genre has quite an influence on which age group the place attracts. The different organizers also place a great part in that. Some organizers are modeling agencies so naturally if the agency hosts a greater number of teenage models, teenage and mid 20’s would be the majority of the party’s age group, etc.

One might think that people from different age groups as widely separated as say teenagers and late mid-agers may act differently yet somehow that seems to be limited to men and DJs only where the different age group DJs obviously play different music genre and the different age group men acts differently among women. However, women, aside from different age groups having different attires, they seems to act the same. How so? Let’s just leave that to the readers to have a look see for themselves.

To this writer’s surprise though, unlike the street bar scenario, in clubs, before or after drinks, everyone seems to be quite friendly. Maybe it is this general attitude that keeps such a densely crowded place relatively brawl free even though one must shuffle and shift all evening to get from point A to point B within the club. Dancing, forget it, a can of sardines ain’t gonna be any Michael Jacksons no matter how one cuts them.

Where is the fun in that? Meeting new people. They may act very differently during days time, kinda Jackal and Hyde like but at least most of them were not at all snobby when they were in the club. Too friendly it seems at times as this writer got invited last night by a good friend to one such party of a “pre-reopening” of and other club which was also by invitation only. During the long and difficult walk around  the crowded premises, there were too incidents. One was, 3 ladies in their 40s, I presume, tried to have a few conversations with this writer. While I had my usual and genuinely friendly attitude and they were properly well dressed ladies, I wasn’t interested in having too much a conversation or anything as I know they are, at the very least, not my friend’s type.

While we were strolling the premises, suddenly I was stopped by a white Caucasian male who was sitting by the bar sideways facing the flow of the traffic and was less than a meter from the wall; he had his arm extended up against the wall in between this writer and the guy just in front. He smiled and blocked me for about 5 seconds and then let me pass. That was all happening at the very beginning of the opening around 10:30pm and no one could usually have more than two drinks in the club by then. No harm done and I had a giggle and a cheer with him and my friends that’s about it. Kinda funny though.

I didn’t spend much time there as free rounds of drinks were over and the one any only thing I didn’t like it there was as soon as the free rounds were over, without an indications, when my friend tried to order us a round, the bartender simply told us that free rounds were over and then walked away? Who did he think we were, a couple of hobos?! We hadn’t any capes on our backs! So I held out a five hundred dollar bill and waved at him, and got him a big smile rushing back to our side of the bar all ready to take our orders. I’m sorry but that was to pay for a mere two drinks and no, he wasn’t given the change. I left after that drink, headed back to my usual bar where my other friend was waiting for me alone and continue with our usual 24 hour happy hour deal for the rest of the evening which ended at 1am.

That’s right, this writer is not a late night bar going type.

A Matter of Taste

We are at the turning point of the Chinese New Year now and most companies have made their year end and year start dinner party reservations. Due to this year being a very good year for some businesses and a surge to a record high local security stock market, many restaurants have been fully booked despite have some extremely high prices.

A friend told me a couple of weeks ago that his company has made reservations at a mediocre Chinese chain restaurant at a price of over HKD$9000 per table of 12! This is a place where I would consider expensive if they had charged over $1500 a table. I suppose it has more to do with having a place to gather the company together for an event than having a meal itself. It may even have something more special than their regular menu item, perhaps some Abalone or whatever but it wouldn’t matter how exclusive the food material is, not having a good chef would be a big waste. I’d rather go to a better place and order less food.

Since I enjoy dining with a few friends, there bound to come a time when we simply ran out of ideas of where we would want to go. Some friend are quite picky about the cuisines they have being cooked absolutely ethnically authentic. This is mission impossible here in Hong Kong. We may have the authentic ethnic cooks but we don’t have all the authentic herbs and ingredients. We may not even have the authentic stove. For instance, something as simple as Naan bread, where in Hong Kong does one find a stone pit with charcoal fire? What matter is personal tastes. IMO, it doesn’t matter if any food is being cooked in absolutely ethically authentic way, if it tastes good it tastes good, if it doesn’t it doesn’t.

Our Last Pizza Hut Pizza

We order pizza delivery from Pizza Hut at least once every month and sometime once a week, and always the large Pan Pizza. Our last pizza from Pizza Hut was last month. This evening, after a long discussion on whether we should eat out but couldn’t decide on where to go, we ordered Pizza Hut again as usual.

During the phone order, the gal had us repeat everything 3 to 4 times and she still missed the order upon confirmation. The order was for a single Large Super Hawaiian Pan Pizza with Extra Cheese and that was it! How difficult is that?

Upon delivery, the pizza came in about 1-1/2 inch in diameter smaller! On first thought, we thought the gal missed the order again and had us down for a regular but the receipt does say PL as in Pan-Large. When M called it in, I realized it is bigger than a regular but clearly smaller than our usual large size pizza.

When they returned the first call, I explained that we thought it came in regular but I am pretty sure then it was just smaller than a large but definitely larger than a regular. The gal insisted that they mould all pizzas in the same size pan so they are all regulated. We were watching a movie on Now TV and I didn’t want to talk to them anymore so I just said I know it was smaller and said goodbye.

When they called again the second time, M answered the call. They said they did change the size of their large pizza to a smaller size at one time earlier to save costs. So I told them that that made it too expensive and that would be our very last Pizza Hut order, thank you very much.

Incidentally, the pizza cost HKD$130, plus a $10 tip I always give the delivery guy.

Super Deal

DSCN0627adj500.jpg

Regular price : $15.90. Now just $15.90.
Sure beats this deal.

Recycled Food?

Odd Lunch

I had this Baked Ox Tongue Rice with Tomato Sauce for lunch this afternoon. When I was about half way done there was cream sauce unveiled underneath the tomato sauce!

I have a feeling that the latter half was a left over cream sauce rice dish and new rice was added to refill the plate and then covered with ox tongue and tomato sauce on top before it was baked.

Well… at least it was piping hot.

Indian Lunch in Sai Kung

At the India Carry Hut Bar & Restaurant. The food was excellent. Piping hot yet very tender and cooked just right with just the right amount of spice. About $150 per person with a plate of Mixed Grill, a bowl of Curry Mutton, 3 pieces of Garlic Naan, and a total of 3 beers today.

_DSC5275adj500.jpg

_DSC5277adj500.jpg

_DSC5289adj500.jpg

_DSC5298adj500.jpg

Dinner at the Shanghai Club Last Friday

We were all too busy chatting and eating I forgot to take photos of the dishes. Other than the Honey Ham which was outrageously expensive and only so-so tasting, and the Drunken Chicken was still too sober yet, the rest of the food was quite good. Without Superman and Roy there drinking beer or MM there drinking wine, no one even drank any soft drinks either. Just tea all night for everyone, and it didn’t make the event any less fun if I may add, which brings the cost per person down to a reasonable HKD$200 each all totally stuffed despite the 10 pcs@$400 Honey Ham. We really ought to have our year end gathering soon.

DSCN1226adj500.jpg

DSCN1227adj500.jpg

DSCN1228adj500.jpg

I have always loved Karina but…



DSCN1230adj500.jpg

What Would You Like to Eat?

A friend found this Chinese menu with “English” translation on the Net…

manu.jpg

manu1.jpg

manu2.jpg

manu3.jpg

They even spelled “menu” wrong for their file names.

I had thought about translating them for our non-Chinese readers but I don’t even know how to begin…

Spoiled Buffet

More people came down with stomach flu after eating buffets at yet another restaurant within weeks mainly from eating raw food.

Locals flock like locust at buffets. I never understand why people like buffet so much. At a buffet, the hot food are usually overcooked (or even uncooked at the very first round) and either left cold or still boiling hot. Cold food like sushi are either left staled or soggy and cold noodles stuck together. Even Ice-cream are either frozen and can’t be scooped or melted like milk shakes. It doesn’t matter where and how much they charge for the buffet, I have never had any decent food from anyone of them including the five hundred dollar lunch buffet at the Grand Hyatt.

I used to go to The Avenue at the Holiday Inn Golden Mile on Nathan Rood, TST for lunches quite often. They used to serve a la cart dishes only. The Managing Director there and I talked about how he could improve the food there every time. He once asked me whether he should change the appetizers into buffet style making the lunch a semi-buffet. He said it is because his boss had asked him to make the move since “everyone” (other hotels) are doing so. I told him that was precisely the reason he should not make the change. If I want a buffet or semi buffet, I could have gone to any other hotels. I told him the above reasons why any buffet is no good, and that if he had changed it to full or semi buffet, I would not go anymore.

A year later (just short of 3 years ago) during a visit, I realized the Avenue had changed their lunches into a semi-buffet and the Managing Director was no longer working there. Food was made very poorly as expected and I never went there again since.

NPC Dinner

_DSC1605adj.JPG

A bunch of us ex-NPCers went out for dinner on Thursday at the Little Sheep. Simply put - great lamb, poor service.

They lost an entire sheet of our orders. Took them an hour to figure out how to add more spices to the diluted soup base. The stove was not hot enough so the soup was not boiling most of the evening. One waitress was much more interested and busy in recommending a whole bunch of food we didn’t want than bringing us what we had ordered.

Good thing nothing could ruin our good times whenever we get together. Naturally, gigabytes of photos were taken and here are some more of the photos I took.