Tamoya Udon, Liang Court

This is apparently another one of those first of overseas outlet (177 River Valley Road, #01-32 Liang Court, tel : +65 6337 0301) of a Japanese chain; specializing in udon and coming from the Kagawa Prefecture. I used to avoid these thick chewy noodles for some reason, but have gotten to appreciate them in the recent years after some good experiences. Tamoya is yet another positive turn and I certainly liked what I had.

Which was a beef bukkake udon. One could snigger at the thought process of initiated men who has to vocalize the order. I was surprised, in a positive manner that is, by how sweet and savory the flavor of the broth. The trinity of dashi, mirin and shoyu perhaps? The udon was chewy and the slices of beef were definitively beefy. To soak up all that broth was also addons of tempura and kushiage options that one could choose along the order line. Of these, were just a focused selection that were pretty decent.

Will return for more.

Update 13/04/2013 :

This wasn't planned, but I had come back much faster than I expected. Here's a quick dinner of the kama-tama udon - basically a bowl that came with a raw egg and a shoyu broth on the side. It wasn't as rich as I had hoped, but I guess it did the job. If anyone is wondering about their tempura, I recommend the sweet potato.

Ythu Wendy Authentic Vietnamese Cuisine, Food Opera @ ION Orchard

Believe it or not, this was the third or fourth time this year I've been ordering the chicken chop rice from this stall (Stall #5 Food Opera, Basement 4). It all started off with running out of ideas on what to eat in a place filled with food. So I gave them a try and subsequently, their lemongrass and orange marinated chicken that was oven grilled got me hooked. I'm not sure why even though it was a mediocre grill. Maybe it's the whole thing with the marinade, the fish sauce and chilli on the side and the appetizing mango salad with a breath of basil and mint with the crunch of toasted peanuts.

The simplicity of it all resonated with what street food really was. Albeit it was all at premium food court prices. This will not be my last visit.

Le Bistrot Du Sommelier, Armenian Street

I've been wanting to visit this place (53 Armenian Street, tel : +65 6333 1982) for quite a while. To be a little more accurate, it was since the time they've opened up at Prinsep Street. Never happened until now. The current location is at the space where Fi53fty Three used to be.

We were aware that Le Bistrot du Sommelier was known for their house made charcuterie, so we ordered up a bunch to taste what they had to offer. Namely their duck rillette, pig tongue terrine, chicken liver pâté with port wine and a current off the menu special of pig sausage with pistachio baked in a brioche.

Believe me when I say that every bit of the greens helped there. The food was rich from the fat meaty flavours and salt that the sour from the gherkins help cut all the richness that was building up from every bite. Every delicious bite that is. Their brioche was altogether buttery, dry and crumbly, but I thought that had worked pretty well with their fatty pistachio and pork sausage for textures.

All that meat was further bolstered by a serving of oven roasted Mangalica pork chop served with a gratin of pig trotter and macaroni. The exterior of the pork chop was caramelised lightly which added smokiness to the moist interior along with a light hit of rosemary. The gratin had unfortunately (or maybe fortunately at this point) contained little of the meat from the pig trotters.

This was definitely one heavy meal. Thankfully there was wine as well.

As stuffed as we were, we managed a dessert of profiteroles. I like this. The choux pastry was crisp and light. Will come back again for other stuff.

Stick 'em up intestines and other miscellaneous eats

These are deep fried pig intestines on sticks that are sold off snack shops in the streets. There's virtually nothing else but salt to flavor them chewy bites. Got them somewhere around Mongkok.

Near where we got the intestines along Mong Kok Road, there's a little corner where more food on sticks were being sold. This time, from the grill and not a deep fryer. These were labelled as Xinjiang lamb skewers. The meat did taste like lamb, albeit rather spiced up, so no questions on any dubious origins there. I've never had the real thing before, not even in Geylang so I don't know how exactly are they suppose to taste like.

Walking down Central, we spied a cart selling pak tong ko. The name translates to white sugar cakes.

They looked pretty good and we bought some back to the hotel. I remember eating them pretty often as a kid, but these seems to have been elevated into an endangered treat these days back home.

In the crowded streets of Sham Shui Po not too far from the MTR exit, a cart sold quail eggs and sweet potato. The sweet potato weren't as sweet as I had expected, but they were pretty soft and very hot off the coals. Wished I had some butter to go with that.

Paid a visit to Kung Woo Bean Products again for their delicious bean snacks.

The last time round, I hadn't realised that there were additions of dried orange peel in the fried tofu. This was a pleasant surprise.

Hot and comforting bowls of ethereal steamed milk with lotus seeds from Yee Shun Milk Company.

And luncheon meat sandwiches to tide the marches of the night.

So that pretty much rounds up the random eats along the way for this trip.

Yardbird, Bridges Street, Hong Kong

I categorized Yardbird (33-35 Bridges St, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong, tel : +852 2547 9273) as Japanese for the food that they serve, namely yakitori and good ones at that, rather than what its background truly represents. For one, it's New York-esque chic-styled double storied compound is located in Sheung Wan, Hong Kong. The owners of the restaurant, one Chinese from Canada and the other a Morrocan Israeli have done stints in Masa and Nobu in New York. One would be at a loss to count the ticks of subliminal multicultural influences that has created the beast bird that rears its head today.

It's Japanese food. At heart. Using chickens that are delivered fresh daily from the New Territories.

If anyone has noticed, there's a beer from Catalunya with Ferran Adria's name on it. I'm not sure how much he was involved, if at all, in the crafting of the brew. It was malty, pretty light and made good easy drinking.

Tried the Hitachino Nest Ginger Ale. This stuff is real ale. Hoppy and mild in gingery taste. Not the Schweppes kind.

We ordered some corn tempura for starters. This was basically a ball of corn kernels bound by batter, fried to a crisp on the exterior. The corn kernels on the inside were still hot, sweet and juicy. Pretty tasty stuff.

Next up was their chicken liver mousse that was served with buttered and toasted milk bread and crispy bits of fried shallots. This was excellent liver mousse. The textures were undulating for mousse, more like a crushed up terrine and had a robust livery flavour that paired well the shallots. I liked this!

There was a torikatsu sandwich that was off the menu. Minced chicken, deep fried and not over doused with tonkatsu sauce.

chicken oysters

chicken skin

lamb ribs

chicken wings

chicken hearts

chicken liver

Yardbird's yakitori items were well done. The ingredients tasted fresh and they had pretty much stuck to the original style of grilled meat on sticks with only the occasional traditional dressings and little to confuse the flavours. The chicken oysters felt especially premium with the juicy ball of meat wrapped in a bit of chicken skin

Korean Fried Cauliflowers

These were labelled KFC on the menu. I thought it was rather well done. The cauliflowers were coated in a tangy spicy yuzu sauce on the outside and must have been fried briefly for a light crunch above the moist vegetable. The sesame seeds added some dimension to the sauce that had actually packed some heat.

tsukune with egg yolk in shoyu

chicken and egg rice

The chicken and egg rice seemed like something that quite a number of people were ordering. Beside the deliciously crispy deep fried chicken skins, this actually tasted quite healthy (even after the egg was mixed in) considering all other previous stuff we had ordered. I guess it must have been the lack of heavy hand on the salt and that those little green peas really shone.

Wah Fung (華豐燒臘專家), Wellington Street, Central, Hong Kong

Well well.....we're back here in Wellington Street again. After having passed by this place (112-114 Wellington Street, Central, Hong Kong, tel : +852 2544 3466) a number of times over the course of the past week, we finally decided to step in. Sold by the images of the roasts and waxed meats hanging at the front of the shop .

I ordered a milk soda from the menu, imagining it to be something similar to a soda susu. I was slightly surprised when it arrived....erm, deconstructed. But all's good.

Starter was deep fried century eggs wrapped in squid paste.  These were delicious and easy to pop in the mouth one after the other.

We had deep fried pigeon which made pretty good snacks keeping our mouths and fingers busy while waiting for the other food to arrive.

Sweet and sour pork from Wah Fung was pretty tasty. Each of us have our own idiosyncratic preferences to this almost ubiquitous dish. While this didn't fall within my regular spectrum of ideal textures and flavour, I enjoyed these no less. The cut of the meat used was fat laced rather than fat lined so the effect was juicy cuts of tender sweet pork. They had stir fried this dish with peaches here too it seemed.

Usually waxed meats products are minimally a notch up in HK compared to the ones back home. This claypot rice with mixed waxed meats were just okay.

This was baked shrimp and garoupa with some cheese and ee fu noodles. The top with the cheese was briefly torched for a smokey taste. Portion was huge. We were pretty glad that only two carb dishes were ordered for the four of us as there was no way that we could have managed one each. I'm generally not big on starchy sauces but this was ok.