Reaching out for the stars

Um, I was super hungry that I ate everything before the picture was taken... Running is not very good sometimes.

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Michillin star restaurant in Hong Kong, Caprice. The lunch set is very reasonable, and this is my first experience with star restaurant.

I ordered the fish consomme with Rouille Custard and Melba Toast, Braised Beef Cheek with Vegetable Tagliatelle, Charlotte Potatoes and Red Wine Sauce, finished off with Raspberry Éclair with Tropical Vanilla, Dark Chocolate and Wild Berry Sorbet. I have read so much about consomme, how the broth is carefully prepared, filtered so to be clear as water and full of body. Um, it really tasted like soup with a lot of MSG, I guess French kitchen has nothing of that sort, man, I am drinking a very good bow of soup. The temperature is surprisingly Chinese, I hate lurk warm soup like most western style ones normally are. Many thanks to the jog in the morning, I had 3 pieces of bread that are freshly out of oven, spreaded loads of butter over them, um, I love bread.

The beef cheek is a bit disappointing, I guess it should be fattier, it is lacking the "wow" factor. The texture or something? I think I am more excited with the beef noodle in Din Tai Feng. But it is eatable, fine.

The real climax is the desert. The Eclair is pretty light and elegant. The espresso is just about right to finish off the sweets.

Coming back to Hong Kong (1)

Going through the Hong Kong immigration is an very nice thing to do. All I have to do is to swipe the ID card and let the machine scan my thumb, the gate opens within 10 seconds.

I am staying in the used-to-be famous hotel in Wan-Chai, before the landfill was built in Victoria harbour, I guess this hotel is really right next to the seashore. Right now, it has the red-light district in the back and the huge government building blocking the view of everything. But when I told my mom where I was staying, she was like "Wow". I guess the hotel was pretty cool back when my mom was young.

I had a dinner plan with Uncle Thomas the night, since Chinese food needs to be consumed by a large group of people (dishes are meant to be shared, the quantity cannot be small because heat has to be retained), uncle Lam's family were also joining our feast. I have not met with Uncle Lam's daughters after leaving Toronto, that's almost good 10 years.

Seafood restaurants in Hong Kong have all the living sea creatures in the watertank, we have to pick them and discuss what is the best way to cook them with the chef. The sea snails are done in the sichuan style, the fish will be steamed to just-cook state with thin sliced ginger and scallion. Same treatment for the crabs, they are just cut in half and steamed. The razor claim were also steamed with fermented soy beans. If a Cantonese chef dares to overcook the seafood, he or she would be condamned to death. I have never tasted crab meat so freshly sweet and texture is so tender. I think that's the highlight of the whole meal.