A nasi padang from Changi Airport T4's Food Emporium

We were looking food late in the evening at Changi Airport's Food Emporium at Terminal 4. A number of stalls looked like they were either closed or vacant and we ended up with a plate of nasi padang from the stall that sold those. Comfort food.

This was actually much tastier than I had imagined. The sayur lodeh gravy was creamy and rich. Very decent sambal goreng and sambal kang kong which was a little fibrous. I thought the sambal on the side would have been nicer if it packed more heat but while it wasn't kickass, it wasn't a deal breaker either. It was already quite a steal at $4.

This must have been my first meatless nasi padang.

Zheng Dou (正斗粥麵專家) at HKIA

I guess it's obvious that eating at the airport means the end. Of this trip that is. Before we boarded our flight back, we decided to fuel up with some real food from Zheng Dou (7/F, Departures East Hall, Terminal 1, Hong Kong International Airport) which we've eaten before some years back. That's char siew and roasted goose rice. We requested for breast meat for the goose. Very satisfying. Both the barbecued pork and roasted goose were tender and well flavoured.

On the side, a serving of tasty siu yuk. Or is that siu yoke.

And a bowl of sui gao soup which wasn't too bad as well.

It seemed that this shop is related to Ho Hung Kee.

The luncheon meat bun from A-1 Bakery

Came across these at the MTR outlet of the bakery.

Was drawn to them by the thick chunky slice of luncheon meat wedged in the bun.

There's suppose to be black pepper mayo but that mayo was so dry and curdled looking that it might have been black pepper cream cheese. The answer to the unasked question was yes, bun was delicious.

Pork chop rice from Tai Hing

Hmmmm....this pork chop rice from Tai Hing was pretty good. The chop was crusted with the flavour of caramelized soy sauce and the meat was tender. Not to mention the splashes of soy sauce with the molten yolk-ed fried eggs which definitely upped the ante. I had the impression that I liked the one at For Kee better but it's been a while and at this point, I cannot be sure.

Shake Shack, IFC, HK Central

So we succumbed to the siren call of Shake Shack (Shop 4018, Podium Level 4, ifc mall, 8 Finance Street, Central) and their beefy bacon-y aroma. This wasn't planned by the way. For some reasons I still couldn't quite fathom, I wanted to try their hamburgers. Maybe it's to taste the beef without all the creamy salty cheese.

I like it better with cheese.

I thought the patties were a little too lightly salted. More salt would definitely have made them tastier. On the other hand - the pickles, onions and tomato came through without the cheese. But this would likely be a one off and only the ShackBurger for me in the future.

That Monkey King ale from Moonzen - it was described to be "boasting a beautiful heart of caramel and hoppy aroma of Queen Mother's peaches stolen by the Monkey King himself". Didn't taste anything like Queen Mother's peaches (not that I would know) or peaches of any sort. It was hoppy, a little heavier than light and left a metallic aftertaste though. Prefer the ShackMeister.

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.