Gerry's Grill, Cuppage Road

Get a load of those murals of aromatic char, scorched along the sides of the squid. These alone made it worth the wait at Gerry's Grill (Ground floor, StarHub Centre, 51 Cuppage Road, tel : +65 8348 7431). Dare I say that Gerry's here has one of the bigger and better tasting grilled squids in town. It's actually kind of sad for this country that attempts to compete for best aviation services and seaport logistics, while claiming to be first world and yet, created an socioeconomic climate where a affordable and delicious grill squid is a rarity. No need to go figure.

I would come back just to have these mouthfuls of sweet, char grilled and chewy goodness.

Their garlic rice was pretty decent. The flavors of the spice was not over the top and the rice was both light and moist.

Gerry's grilled pork belly was another one of those that shouldn't be passed up on. This was the porky and soy savory take of offerings from their char grills. The meat texture was hearty, doused with smokey flavors and fat on the belly that was slightly chewy. Nothing of those melt in your mouth nonsense here to be found in their down to earth grills.

Yes, these chicharron (deep fried pork rinds) were very good indeed. For something that was deep fried, it certainly tasted neither overly greasy nor heavy even without the vinegar dips. Each mouthful was full of crisp and fragrant porkiness. Needless to say, these would make excellent bar food.

As much as I like San Miguel Light for a light thirst quenching make believe that helps to wash off all that excess cholesterol, the green mango shake here was really a much better option. It was certainly also sweeter than the one at 7107, a place which also charged a lot more for food.

Lau Dai Hua Minced Pork Noodles, Food Opera @ ION Orchard

I wonder if this has any relations with Tai Hwa down at Crawford Lane. The names sound almost alike and the noodles that both stalls used are remarkably similar in appearances. But then again, Tai Hwa still does claim that they do not have any other branches, don't they?

I think latter place has better texture for the noodles and there was vinegar going on where this one simply presented vinegar as an option you could help yourself with. This bowl wasn't cheap as ba chor mee goes, but it tasted pretty good and the larger sized orders are pretty generous. I liked the bits of dried sole they added to the wantons. And yes, soup with bits of minced meat on the side that I actually do bother to drink.

Home made roti john

Re-visiting Pizzeria Mozza

I remember being quite impressed with Pizzeria Mozza from the first visit so here's a second one to reinforce that thought.

Their fried squash blossoms stuffed with ricotta were very good. While I had some idea how they might have tasted, I still ended up pretty impressed. Especially by the savoury and piping hot ricotta cheese. One has to be careful not to pop these things into your mouth too early.

Damn, these oven roasted calamari were fragrant. We picked them today because we remembered their smell from the last visit and they tasted as good as we had expected. Especially the charred bits. I'll be hard pressed not to want to order them again the next time.

I'm not complaining but I thought that the oven roasted bone marrow was quite heavy on the oils. Oil from the unctuous bone marrow and the butter soaked toast that they provided for accompaniment. Great stuff which I loved that had robust flavours. But I dread what it is doing to my arteries.

What drew me to Pizzeria Mozza's bianca with fontina, mozzarella, sottocenere & sage for me was mostly just the sottocenere. I hadn't known what to expect out of it but the truffle flavour from the cheese was a little too mild. The sage broke monotony, While it was a pretty decent pie, it was also quite a bit of nothing for what they were charging.

I was as impressed with the desserts this time round as the previous time. What I thought was great were the rich flavours from the dark chocolate sauce, fragrant caramel with almond brittle and the nice crumble base that was all caught up in the light banana gelato. What really left an impression were the quality of those flavours and the fact that amidst all of that, it was never at any point overly sweet.

An obligatory shot of Tai Cheong's egg tart

The last time I had these was a couple of years or so ago when I had the luxury of having a friend waking up early to buy them for us for breakfast after a late night of drinks. This time round, we stumbled upon the bakery (35 Lyndhurst Terrace, Central, Hong Kong, tel : +852 544 3475 ) whilst wandering a long Central. While this wasn't as amazing as many people have over hyped, it was a very very decent egg tart. It just didn't seem right that we would just walk past and not get one "for the road".

More airport food from Terminal 2, Hong Kong

These were the last meals we had before leaving. The top picture features char siew and siew yoke from the food court in the airport. My take on this is as before, never to knock on them until you've tried them. While it wasn't the best representative of roast meats and rice to be had, it wasn't shabby at all. One can see from looks alone that the fat is ready to dissolve once you popped the meat into the mouth. The crackling was a little below the usual expectations though. The roast goose was missing from the above because the stall had ran out of them for the day.

The below came about in the departure hall where there were more eateries and we were determined to have that last bite of roast goose before we left. This particular twin roast was from 正斗, where we got back the awesomely crispy cracking off the roast pork belly and also crispy fragrant skin from the roasted goose. It was a lot more expensive than the food court, but since it was the last time we'll be having some decent goose, I'm not gonna complain. I hear that they have a restaurant that have made it into the Michelin guide.