Social Place, The L. Place, Hong Kong Central

We heard about Social Place (2/F The L. Place, 139 Queen's Road Central, Central, tel : +852 3568 9666) from social media. It looked like a place where the food is a bit more fun and definitely contemporary with various Chinese influences without taking themselves too seriously. Mostly their rendition of dim sum, small plates and selected Chinese dishes.

Ants on a plate.

Their house made plum wine was sweet. According to the menu, paired well with their roasted pigeon. It did.

That's organic black soya milk.

Foie gras with rice wine was nice. The main flavours came from the foie, the rice wine and salt & pepper.

We enjoyed their flavourful roasted white king pigeons. These didn't have so much meat but made pretty good greasy nibbles with crisp skin.

These tasted to me like mala snails in a sauce with the flavour of Shaoxing wine. I was imagining their texture to be more akin to what I have had of Japanese baigai but these were a little crunchy like gizzards and were more difficult to extract from their shells.

Those were skinned cherry tomatoes with osmanthus sauce. They were chilled and refreshing.

That's chopped up century egg with tofu and sesame sauce. Pretty impressed with how they fanned out those delicate bean curd slices when I couldn't even pick any of them up without breakage.

These were cuttlefish har gow. I don't know if the cuttlefish merely referred to the ink that was used for the skin but there were definitely more than just prawns in the dumpling. Maybe cuttlefish too. Surprisingly tasty.

Pretty impressed by the fried rice with abalone and black truffle. It didn't have the grainy texture of regular fried rice as it was all pretty moist even without the sauce. The abalone flavours permeated  though. I'm usually not big on abalone but I liked this. 

This was known as eggs (ain't) that simple. Apparently a signature dish at Social Place. It's commonly also known as la zhi ji (辣子鸡), a Sichuan dish of spicy fried chicken. Those "eggs" on the side were actually spherified mango puree in a gelatinous skin that held their shape. The chicken weren't as spicy as I would have expected of la zi ji but it wasn't bad. While the serving looked large, there wasn't so much chicken as there were dried chilli. 

Sweet and sour pork on rice and fruits. The skin of the pieces of pork were crispy and the meat had some fat. Rather liked this.

Dessert was double boiled pear with aged mandarin peel. Nice flavour from the mandarin peel. This tasted clean after all the food.

The other stuff we tried was something called the "bayberry". I just Googled it and realized that it looked similar to actual bayberries. The skin was akin to mochi or some chewy Chinese fried pastry. The menu described the filling as custard but it tasted like some berry jam.

ABC Kitchen, Queen Street Cooked Food Market, Sheung Wan

As a Singaporean, I could definitely relate to how this place (Shop 7, 1/F Queen Street Cooked Food Market, 1 Queen Street, Sheung Wan, tel : +852 9278 8227) would be described as a atas western food stall in an air conditioned hawker centre. On top of the red checkered tablecloth that marks their tables and that they take reservations. Also bearing in mind that there are no such places as air conditioned hawker centres in Singapore. At least I haven't heard of or been to one.

From what I could gather, the owners used to come from somewhere which doesn't exist anymore so they banded up and formed A Better Cooking Kitchen in the heart of Sheung Wan. Food's a little French-y but European wouldn't be far off the mark. I read that the menu does rotate with the season with a few signatures dishes that don't.

There's bread. Our loaves were delivered warm.

Starters included stuff like this ham hock terrine which was honestly very decent.

These guys also whipped up a much better Roquefort and pear salad than anything I've come across back home. It even has toasted pecans. I enjoyed this.

Beef Wellington was not bad. I could taste the buttery crust, the foie gras and well....it's not bad. Never had them with prunes before but it does work.

The roasted suckling pig is one of their signature items. It's pretty good. So much better than the related-to-the-1-Michelin-star-bbq-guy rendition at Meatsmith Western BBQ. The skin of the pig here was crisp and flavourful instead of stiff and hard while the meat was moist and tender.

Did anyone notice that their pistachio soufflé doesn't have any pistachio flavour? It was otherwise a pretty well done soufflé.

Mott 32, Des Voeux Road Central, Hong Kong

We've been wanting to visit Mott 32 (Basement, Standard Chartered Bank Building, 4-4A Des Voeux Road Central, tel : +852 2885 8688) for a while now. 

While I've read a number of good things about them, I was still a little apprehensive considering that they're pretty pricey and increased cost at a certain point brings only diminished returns. Even though I had been ready to fork a bit more for this experience, I didn't realize that it would cost almost as it did at Lung King Heen.

We got ourselves some aged Pu'er.

And also snagged one of the last orders of their signature Pluma Iberica char siew with yellow mountain honey. Apparently available in limited portions daily. It's nice. The meat was latticed with fat and each slice was on the verge of falling apart when we picked them up with our chopsticks. It's also pretty expensive. Considering how much they charged for each serving, the impression correspondingly diminished because I had been expecting to be blown away for that kind of price tag.

Dim sum on the whole was competently made but was also oddly muted in flavour. These king prawn har gow were decent, but they were just that. A little more salt or flavouring (say lard?) would have helped.

These black truffle siew mai with quail eggs were pretty good. Those eggs in the dumpling even had molten yolk. But if I hadn't read the menu, I wouldn't have realized that it's Iberico pork that they used. There you go.

That's the lobster har gow. With Yunnan ham according to the menu. And in spite of that it was so bland I could taste the rice flavour on the skin. Texture was good though. The capsules stuck in the dumpling were supposed to contain lobster oil. Didn't seem to help much. Rather disappointing this one.

Mott 32's pan fried turnip cakes were described to contain dried scallop, shrimp and Dong Guan sausages. It tasted as good as many cheaper ones that can easily be found elsewhere.

Got the crab roe noodles from their autumn/winter menu. Didn't turned out to be the type of noodles I had imagined. This was way too greasy with too much other flavours going on that the crab roe pretty much went out the window. I thought that this was poorly thought out not worth even half of what they had charged.

Then came the dish with a flourish.

We were recommended their signature smoked black cod because it was their #2 bestseller. Glad we took their recommendation. This was so good. The crispy skinned chunks of cod both smelt and tasted smokey - pairing up very well with the sweet and sour sauce that coated the fish.

If there were anything I could consider a new experience in taste, it would be their soy sauce ice cream. This was very good. Creamy, salty with the aroma of light soy sauce and sweetness from those cookie crumble things they served the ice cream with.

Trailing closely behind was their steam ginger ice cream which was also well done. This reminded me of a frozen ginger milk.

Yuet Lai Shun (粵來順), Dundas Street, Mong Kok

I've had this old school Cantonese restaurant (2 Dundas Street, Mong Kok, tel : +852 2788 3078) in my radar for a few years now. It has nothing to do with the fact that they're Bib Gourmand in the Michelin guide but they are. I've also stopped wondering why I keep overlooking places for obvious reasons and started feeling glad that I eventually made the visits.

We got ourselves a nice strong pot of jasmine tea in preparation of the food to come.

This was pig lung and almond milk soup. Pretty awesome. Could understand why so many people come here for this.

There're also a bunch of other ingredients that went into making this delicious soup. Like pork, chicken parts and water chestnuts.

Carbs came in the form of noodles stir fried in soy sauce and squid tentacles. Those squid tentacles didn't taste like they were stir fried. They look like they were boiled separately, added to the noodles and tossed. Pity cuz it would have been much tastier if they had that squid char aroma.

There was a plate of mixed braised parts which included goose, pork belly and some tofu. The braising broth was spiced and sweet like they should be. With that flavourful broth, no sauces were necessary for the sliced meats.

That's steamed tofu with scallops and preserved/fermented black bean....salsa? That black bean thing had a strong and awesome flavour. It also reminded me of dried mandarin peel for some reasons. Couldn't get past the stalks of kailan on the side which were superb. They were so tender, sweet and didn't have any chewy fibres.

Am definitely considering a return in the future.

Shake Shack, Pacific Place, Admiralty

I was wondering if it was worth the time against the crowd at Shake Shack at IFC for this trip under the assumption that there would be a crowd because it was Shake Shack and this was Hong Kong. But by happenstance we came across a newer outlet at Pacific Place (Shop 105A, L1 Pacific Place, 88 Queensway, Admiralty, tel : +852 2810 8928).

So we came for lunch with the works. A pair of doubles for the ShackBurger and SmokeShack along with cheese fries, the ShackMeister ale and the milk tea shake that's exclusive to Hong Kong. That ale was a light and smooth brew from Brooklyn Brewery. Tasted like their Brooklyn Lager. 

Burgers were nice. But these didn't have the smashed patty look with the crusty caramelized edges one would expect coming from them. It seemed that they're new and still failing to achieve consistency with their product. Which led me to wonder if the beef was the same blend that they do in NYC.

I'm a sucker for exclusives. I mean real exclusives like this one because I don't think anywhere else would go for a nai cha (奶茶) shake. I could be wrong. 

It's not bad. Not as good as the actual milk tea since this was a lot milkier but I suppose there's enough flavour in there to be recognizeable. A stronger tea flavour - perhaps one that would even introduce a bit of astringency have be awesome though.

The other vegetarian meal at Po Lin Monastery's

The last time we were here at Po Lin Monastery Vegetarian Restaurant, we had bought the tickets for the deluxe vegetarian meal. This time round, it wasn't available for some reasons so we tried the regular vegetarian meal instead.

I liked this soup better than the one we were served the last time. The flavour was oddly very similar to sweet potatoes with a hint of dried mandarin peel and there were some hairy gourd in it. Along with a side of reflection from the fluorescent lights from the ceiling.

Their tofu with preserved olive and green peas was delicious. The flavour from the tofu itself was outstanding. My favourite dish from this meal.

There was stir fried capsicums, celery and more pressed bean curd things. Not too shabby.

My second favourite item was their deep fried spring rolls. I had some reservations initially because they were deep fried and I'm not exactly a big fan of deep fried spring rolls. After having them, I came to the conclusion that they were well stuffed and the fried batter was pretty tasty. Well worth the grease that went into them.

Some obligatory leafy stir fried vegetables with mushrooms were part of the menu as well. Never been much of a fan for these Chinese mushrooms.