Belon, Elgin Street, Central

I just realized that Belon (41 Elgin Street, Central, Hong Kong, tel : +852 2152 2872) is run by the Black Sheep Restaurants group which has more than a dozen joints under their portfolio. My only other experience in their group was Motorino. 

Belon's French. They call themselves neo-Parisian. Classy yet contemporary. Evidenced also by an almost old-ish schooled decor with a clean marble and leather. Not that I'm an expert in interior decor. It had a sort of retro charm that doesn't smell antiquated. That's what it was. The chef's a Daniel Calvert who has a decade of experience working in Michelin starred restaurants. Ok......

They serve Estrella Damm Inedit here. Not that I expected it but I did appreciate that. Light, floral and easy drinking stuff.

I think these were gougères. Filled with 48 month aged Comte cheese. These cheese puffs were pretty damned good.

Bread's chargeable here. Belon serves a naturally leavened sourdough made in house. They tasted very fresh if fresh was the suitable word for a fermented product. Sourdough aroma was very nice and the texture was the pairing of a crispy crust with a chewy yet airy interior that tasted like it was steamed. Great with that Channel Island butter.

There's saucisson from the black pigs of Bigorre - from what I found out, also known as Le Noir de Bigorre. Those black pigs were apparently once on the verge of extinction but are now bred for high quality meat for sausages. It's nice, but I'm not sure what I paid for there.

They have their interpretation of the classic Niçoise salad with sliced shima aji and some dill. This is a half portion that they had thoughtfully split. That anchovy dressing and quantity they used all spoke of control. It wasn't too much and all the ingredients are of good quality. I liked it better than I thought I would.

Foie gras torchon great pairing with the cherries. This came with more of their house made sourdough which made me happy. 

With all the foreplay out of the way, we finally arrived at their pigeon pithivier. The very thing we were looking forward to. Dusky medium rare pigeon layered with spinach and mushrooms in a buttery puff pastry crust. Plus a fig and Amaretto pigeon jus reduction. To keep it respectfully short - this was delicious. Really expensive too. 

We were convinced by the staff that their mille crepe with Périgord black truffle was good. To give them credit, this was a very nice mille crepe. Possibly one of the best I've had with kickass Piedmont hazelnut cream. But we were not getting any of the truffle. Obviously, quite a bit of those thinly sliced fungus had been used - to no effect. 

As a self styled bistro, I smell a little pretentious-ness. Sure the food was nice, the staff friendly and the service very good. But not to kid ourselves, it's not a bistro. It's a finer dining establishment that's not quite fine dining and it's not bistro prices.

Sai Kee Congee (西記粥店), Prince Edward Road West, Mong Kok

I recall this congee shop (133 Prince Edward Road West, Mong Kok, tel : +852 2380 9630) being old and dingy in the past. We were quite surprised when we passed by and the current premise looked like it had gone through some major update. It seemed that their other branches which I wasn't aware of also got the face lift.

So we came for breakfast a couple of times. Got the blood curd congee which was a pretty decent bowl.  

I found myself liking their chewy texture of their mai fun - made even better with a squeeze of the chilli and sweet sauce. Not as flavourful as those smoky ones from Wai Kee though.

Fried noodles was pretty nice too. I wouldn't mind eating them again. I'm liking those firm textures.

Rice rolls had a rustic (read rough) feel and was quite tasty with the dried shrimps.

There was also delicious steamed radish cake to be had. Could taste the sweetness from the shredded strips of radish in there. 

Hoi On Cafe (海安㗎啡室), Connaught Road West, Sheung Wan

If you didn't already know, Hoi On Cafe (17 Connaught Road West, Sheung Wan, tel : +852 2540 6340) is a piece of history that harkened from the days of the original bing sutt in Hong Kong. They opened back in 1952 and from appearances, are still going strong today. We liked the food enough that we came two consecutive days in a row.

Drinks are atypical of the variety in cha chaan teng. We had both their condense milk fuelled 茶走 and lemon tea.

The food at Hoi On Cafe includes a bunch of noodle options amongst others. Their dry noodles with toppings were what we thought kicked ass. Toppings that included sweet caramelized char siew (good stuff!), luncheon meat (what brand is that?!) and flavoursome braised chicken mid wings. It is my not so humble opinion that these guys, for however long they've been serving these lou meen up, have gotten the texture of the noodles pretty much perfect.

They have a toast that's topped with fried egg, corned beef and a generous infusion of chopped spring onions. One could just imagine a light hit of umami from the beef coupled with that fragrance from those spring onions on hearty eggs and toast. The very thing to have here.

Dacha, Hollywood Road, Central

Yes we had Eastern European food in Hong Kong. Possibly the one and only Eastern European restaurant/bar in the country. Dacha's (G/F, 38-40 Hollywood Road, Central, tel : +852 2420 3555) menu as the hostess asserted, has a little from Ukrainian, Russian, Georgian, Polish and Romanian cuisine.

We were served some dark rye bread with lard.

And sipped kvas while waiting for the food. This kvas was actually very good drinking. I dare say that it was as good or even more enjoyable than the one from Beerfest. At least it was for me that I got another bottle.

The first cold starter was shuba, or also known as "herring under a fur coat". This was layered pickled herring, beetroot, carrot and potatoes with chopped eggs. Flavoured with a bit of dill and what appeared to be salmon roe. This was quite delicious.

Then came the killer khachapuri - a Georgian dish of cheese filled bread in the shape of a boat. Killer because it was very tasty and it also killed us with the portions. As a warm starter item, it could have easily fed four. According to our favourite crowdsourced internet encyclopedia, this was an Adjarian variety served with a pat of butter and raw egg. The bread appeared fresh out of the oven, was piping hot, soft and had a nice crust.

We had an order of gołąbki. It was okay. I wasn't getting a defining texture from the stuffings. The rice and the meat weren't separately identifiable and a bit of salt was in order. I thought that the one from After The Tears were tastier.

Then came what I guessed to be an Uzbekistan lamb plov - a pilaf like dish with what the menu described as "Caucasian spices". No idea what those were. The flavours were Indian/Middle Eastern-ish. Rice was a little sticky but not as much as the glutinous variety. There were delicious little chunks of charred lamb in the rice. This plate was on hindsight, a shocking kind of tasty. We were already pretty stuffed at this point and I found myself spooning mouthful after mouthful till the plate was empty. 

A quick lunch at 連和燒味餐廳

As said, a quick lunch shortly after checking into the hotel. We've bought some roasted pork from this shop (222 Sai Yeung Choi Street South, Prince Edward, tel : +852 2390 3218) before and remembered them being pretty good. As much as I would prefer not to compare, this wasn't Yat Lok. They were also not as expensive. It was decent and delicious enough though for a quick fix of roasted goose and pork with rice.

Update 02/02/2018

Their char siew rice was pretty good too. Loved those nice fat laced slices. I didn't think so much of their chicken rice. HK steamed/boiled chicken is different from one ones back home and I accept that. We've had pretty okay ones but this was probably not one of them.

Revisiting Nalan Restaurant

We were in the vicinity and Indian vegetarian sounded good. Sounded like it would be a happy meal so Nalan it was.

This was their South Indian meal. Same but different from the other South Indian meals because it's a similar configuration with slightly different dishes. We got accompanying sambar, rasam, curd, some tomato based thingy and kheer. Their vegetable dishes on the side were delicious. I'll leave the description as that because it's never easy nor accurate with the usual array of adjectives. There are simply too many flavours going on.

Here's a tip. Mash some of the curd into the rice. Swipe in a small amount of the achar and mix before eating. The curd mellows the sharpness from the pickles and the pickles enhances the curd.

We had an order of dal pancharatan. A dal curry/stew made with five types of lentils. There was even finely slice bits of green chilli in there. I thought the taste was good. The only thing I disliked were the bits of coriander in the dal. But it wasn't excessive so I could overlook them.

Some cheese naan to mop up the dal. These were not bad. The cheese stuffing was oozy and salty.

Here's a serving of their carrot halwa for sweets. It was served piping hot. Like most of the other Indian desserts that's made with ghee, milk and sugar - it had a very familiar flavour profile. The buttery milky sweet profile. That and the scent of cardamom with the bit of tart sweetness from raisins. Yes, it's called carrot halwa because it is made with mostly carrots. This stuff was soaked with ghee.

Because we already had gheer and the halwa, some sugarless masala tea was in order to wash the meal down.