Dad's Birthday Dinner - Hugo's

We were at Hugo's on the night of my old man's birthday - after changes with our schedules, confirmation, cancellation and re-confirmation with a number of restaurants, buffet places and stuff like that in town, and also a mind-blowing brain-storming process for the most apt birthday cake for him, there we were again at Hugo's.

Best Breakfast ever possible @ Sing Heung Yuen, Central

Sing Heung Yuen is always my favourite spot for breakfast. Despite its outdoor setting and so-so hygiene, I am always more than happy to eat there. The reason is simple: they serve simply the BEST toasts and chui-chuis in HK.

I always prefer thicker slabs of toasts over the paper-thin ones. Although more and more chaa-chen tengs claim that they are switching to the 'thick toasts', a lot arent really doing the job right as the toasts arent thick enough. Even if they were the interior would always be either undertoasted or overtoasted. They could never get the job right from the outside to the inside.

That's why SHY (what?! i just realize the short form spells S.H.Y. is it a joke?) is the best. You should definitely try the thick toasts and you would understand what I mean. The toasts are usually cut diagonally into four smaller triangles, and they are always topped with so much peanut butter/jam/whatever that you think its perhaps over-precipitated.

But the main point lies with the toast: while lightly crunchy and crispy on the outside, the inside maintains a soft, tender, and a little chewy, consistency that sticks onto your teeth as you bite but quickly falls off as you chew. In short-its neither too dry nor too wet, too coarse nor too fine, and it actually tastes good instead of bland as ordinary toasts will. Its mind-blowing. Its just- perfect.

SHY's signature 'dish' got to be their chui-chuis since almost everyone will be ordering one no matter how many ingredients they have already ordered for in their noodles. But when you compare the chui-chui and the toasts, its hard to say which one's better as they are different. While the toast has a more consistent texture and crispiness, the chui-chuis are bipolar as the top crust and the base vary greatly - the top crust is ALWAYS so light and crispy that it just goes 'cheppp' as you bit in. The base is more filling in the interior and it gives a deep 'zeeeep' as you bite, and it tends to be harder but prefect for people who need someone to chew onto. I usually prefer the base over the top.

Now that the breads are already marvellous by themselves, it doesnt reallly matter what you have for toppings, but my favourite combination will always be the golden triangle of butter-honey and lemon zest. But whether it tastes alright or too sour depends on the mood of the toast-maker. Sometimes i do have chui-chui so sour that its unbearable; while sometimes i also have ones as sweet as if theres no lemon zest at all. But sometimes i go have the rightly balanced ones, and they taste GREATT. a must-have if you happen to be here.

As for the drinks, dont expect too much as SHY as they are less professionally made than the toasts and buns. The ying-yeung I had had a rich taste of caffeine but not much of the milk, and the texture was quite thin. So maybe i should have focused on eating the bun instead of poking fingers around the drinks, which is clearly not their field of speciality.

Will come here again and again and again for sureee!

勝香園 Sing Heung Yuen
2 Mei Lun Street, Central
星期一至六: 08:00-17:30; 星期日: 休息

Dinner@ICHIGO Japanese Cutlet Restaurant

Sometimes it makes me wonder what Japan and Japanese means to the Hong Kong people. The word 'Japan' alone is sufficient to provoke a sense of novelty among the local crowd in the past. Now what? With the nuclear crisis largely unresolved, the very same term is now feared, avoided, even dissed upon. Restaurants used to feel privileged using freshly imported ingredients from the country; now they feel pressurized or even prohibited from telling the customers that they are serving foods flew from the now 'dangerous' and radioactive country. A bunch of Japanese restaurants tried to cope with the irrational fear by a making a clarification: we are not importing food from Japan anymore as we never had, and we are just doing the ingredients in the Japanese way. Some felt relieved by their public announcement; some, like me, felt ironic how casually it seems for them to disassociate from Japan and how naive it is for us to imagine we were eating a piece of sashimi from Japan just by paying $30 or so. Even more naive were the bunch who paid $130-ish for an all-you-can-eat Japanese meal, now complaining about not getting Japanese ingredients anymore. Everything's just irrational and unreasonable, and when you think about it, a lot of Hong Kong people aren't really that smart and critical with thinking afterall.

No matter what, the second half of 2011 will certainly be a tough year for Japanese restaurants. I aint talking about the pseudo-Japanese restaurants, so down-to-earth serving weird-looking chaa-siu ramen and machine-made sushis. Just the more serious ones that rely heavily on fresh ingredients imported from Japan, which could be substituted but not replaced. Ingredients from Japan are costly for a good reason - they are just tastier, prettier, more nutritive, just better. Australian and American beef, for example, cant beat Japanese Wagyu however you cook them.

For this reason I do deeply sympathize those Japanese restaurants who have to operate against the irrational fear plus an acute shortage of ingredients. Those that are freshly opened just for a few month's time suffer even a harder blow for they do not even have the opportunity of establishing their own brand before having to face the immense pressure. Ichigo Japanese Cutlet Restaurant is among one of the many poor restaurants out there, struggling in the tsunami of the dynamic sea in Hong Kong.

Having read a few reviews about how empty the place was even at meal hours, I went to see if that was really the case. At 6:45pm I arrived. The place was deserted. I could not help but sigh. The Japanese waitress, clearly surprised by our visit, greeted us and led us to our table, and laid it with tea, a mysterious-looking basket and the menu. Then she went back to her counter. The place fell dead-silent again.

The menu was simple, printed in 3 languages on both sides. The English was badly translated, perhaps by an online translating software. The choice of food was pretty narrow and there were only the option of either pork, shrimp or crab cream cake. I sighed. After some consideration we ordered a set of Pork tenderloin and a set of 'thin-sliced pork loin cutlet with garlic and cheese' to share. The set comes with not only the main dish but also a miso soup, pickled cabbage, rice and an unlimited supply of shredded cabbages.


The quiet little restaurant was then enliven with the sound of deep-frying oil after we placed the order. Certainly our pork chops were made freshly only when ordered.

The wait was short before they were ready-less than 10 minutes, during which another table of customers, two picky middle-aged women, came in.



We started the meal by drinking the miso soup. It was different from the instant miso soup from powdered mixture you are usually served with. This one is genuinely boiled from point zero. Using white miso, the soup was not salty but has the sweetness of fermented beans. You could find bits and pieces of pork, beef, reddish and fungus in the soup, and they further convinced me that the shop actually made it by themselves instead of making it out of something instant.

The rice was authentically Japanese - the grains were short, round, and pretty sticky. They were sweeter than the long-grained rice we usually have in Hong Kong, and with the sticky glutinous texture it was an excellent side dish to eat with the crispy pork-chop and refreshing cabbages.

Next I moved on to the little peak of cabbages and pickled reddish. Sprinkled some lemon juice and poured the sesame sauce onto the vegetables, it was very refreshing and tasty. The cabbages were a bit too finely shredded and not dry enough for me, for i remember having something tougher back in Japan. The sesame pasta was also too thick to be evenly mixed with the cabbages. Nevertheless I managed to finish the whole pile of cabbages and even asked for a second round of refill. :P I liked the pickled reddish too - too bad it was not available for a refill!



I left the roll of pork cutlet, stuffed with cheese and garlic, to the last. It looked funny in its elongated shape and had I not been told this was pork, I would hardly be able to associate it with the animal since it looked more like a purse to me :P JK. The pork cutlet was molten with the cheese stuffing still in a semi-liquid state, yet it coagulated as it cooled quickly. The cheese might have turned tangy but it was still so rich to taste! The pork was a little coarse in texture but the problem was balanced off by cutting it into thin slices before deep-frying it. The problem of over-cooking was then avoided and juice could be retained in the pork slices - very clever indeed, and it takes a lot of skills to get the job done clean. A little opening here and there would cause the cheese stuffing to burst out and get messy. But the meat itself tasted kinda bland and did not have the distinctive smell and taste of 'pork'. An unavoidable problem with Australian pork i guess?

As for the coating it was very,very thin and nicely fried -so skillfully fried that all oil had been fried out of the flesh,making it so light and crispy. It kinda reminded me of the goodies I had back in Japan. There was no problem of a detaching crust and the flesh as some prior reviews had revealed. I think it tasted even better than the one i had at Tonkichi two years ago!


Then there was the deep-fried pork tenderloin my mum ordered. I was completely startled by the thinness of the coating as it appeared to be even thinner than mine! :o The pork chop had a stronger flavour but was equally tender. There was some fat along the side of the meat but i couldnt care about calories anymore but to bite into it hard - yum!

One thing you shouldnt miss is their house pork cutlet sauce for dipping - it tasted sweet and sour and help relived the guilty oilish feeling the meat carries-delicious!



Four new customers had come in as we busily ate. A pretty good record-and please keep it up! I am sure that with the quality of the cutlet, the prime location it has and the good service would it be able to attract more business in future. It could be a serious competitor against Tonkichi as the pork chops i had tasted even better than theirs! Its just a matter of time before HK peeps' love for Japanese food returns, and from past observation most of us have a pretty short memory span that we tend to forget soon. Before that comes, please stay strong and keep on! :)
The place is a little expensive for me tho - not a place where i would just pop in casually for a comfty meal alone. Its worth giving a try tho:)

ICHIGO Japanese Cutlet Restaurant
11/F, The Loop, 33 Wellington Street, Central

香芒脆撻@Maxim's Cakes

Cakes from Maxim's arent really that bad - afterall, the very same bakery supplies for both Maxim's bakery, Starbucks, Simplylife and a lot more restaurants in the group. And periodically Maxim's do put up promotions that feature specialist breads and cakes. In early April I noticed the very eye-catching yellowish poster featuring desserts and cakes that use Philippine mangoes....yummm.

Mango are now available year-round, thanks to some advancements in agricultural technologies, but the mangoes you have are usually either too sour or too ripe. Yuck. But when mangoes are in season they would be available in plentiful and at an incredibly cheap price, and extremely SWEEET. I LOVE mango but i do not quite enjoy the process of dissecting the soft fruit into wedges, always ending up making a mess, tainting my fingers and nails with the strong juice. Too much mango consumption will also result in constipation....at least in my case. That's why I usually prefer having a little bit of mango in desserts instead of eating one whole piece. There is then no reason to miss the promotion from Maxims!

Three or four special desserts are available only during the promotional period and I am only interested in the Crunchy Mango Tart, as I dont usually have panna cotta nor cream cakes very seriously. But I do am a fan for pastries - after two years of training as a home economics student, I admire the art of pastry making as I know how hard it is to make a really crunchy pastry. So i was there one afternoon, buying two tarts which I have much anticipation for.

[caption id="attachment_255" align="alignleft" width="604" caption="香芒脆撻"][/caption]

I only got a glimpse of the tarts after dinner as the shopkeeper was really quick in packing. The tarts cost $15 each - moderately priced. The mango flesh formed shiny little peaks on the tarts. They smelt sweet. Oh lord, I cannot recall when the last cake from Maxim's that actually excited me was. Was it the birthday cake my grandma bought me like, ten years ago? Or was it the chestnut cake my friends bought me for my birthday two years ago? I disremember. But i think the reason why a lot of Hong Kong people like Maxims is not just because of its unbeatable price, but also the memories they have with the products.

Back to the tarts. I worried if over-freezing would soften the pastry and make them soggy, but my worries were casted away when i could cut the thing with a crisping sound. NICE. The pastry was obviously not the crumbing kind as it was hard enough to withstand the force of a chopping knife, yet not hard enough to resist to the force.

From this you could see the different layers. Topmost: mango and shining syrup. Then a layer of cream, followed by some spongecake. On the pastry was a thin layer of chocolate syrup. Last was of course the tart base.

Very typically Hong Kongese I would say, with the spongecake and cream and stuff. It sorta reminded me of the birthday cakes i used to see at some really local bakeries when i was small-you know, that kind of cream spongecakes with all sorts of weird jelly-looking stuff and enlongated 'Happy Birthday' written on them, sometimes beside a Hello-Kitty or whatever.  I thought there would be something like custard instead of the annoyingly fluffy cream which actually does not taste good but weirdly empty and sweet. And the idea of putting a log of spongecake into a tart is just..weird to me. I wouldnt have done that had i been the chef.

The tart was not as tasty as i had anticipated either. The mangoes were certainly sweet but i thought the shining thing on top was not very necessary - just let them shine naturally instead of adding a awkward artistic sweetness to it. Then there was the problem with the cream and spongecake which I had mentioned - they were just-odd.They shouldnt be there. Custard and something crunchy would be a better alternative.

The layer of chocolate syrup was quite crispy and gave a nice little twist on the flavour of the tart (choco v. tropical), but the tart pastry was just-well, a tart. Its actually the one used by Tai Cheung in their famous egg tarts ie. the so-called cookie pastry. This one was less buttery and more crispy, and although it was not bad to eat there was nothing surprising or worth 'ah'-ing about it. Its just a tart. Period.

All in all - the tart is nothing more than a tart. Perhaps i should not have expected too much from Maxims. Afterall, they are just charging you $15 for each of the stuff. So maybe i should just shut up and eat.

Or perhaps not at Maxims anymore. I could have used up my pitiful quota for desserts elsewhere.

Lunch at Angel's Share Whisky Bar & Restaurant - a groupon experience

I bought a groupon at Valuup a month ago for a discounted lunch at Angel's Share, Central - and since then had been tracking its lunch menu on its Facebook page (rotated on a weekly basis) until the choice of lamb chop and tenderloin came up, at last. Determined to utilize the discount (and fear for a sudden closure/suffering due to some irresponsible Groupon companies) as soon as possible, we quickly booked a table in advance (as required) and ate on a Friday.

Angel's Share is actually one floor above Jashan, an Indian restaurant i really like, serving authentic and extremely tasty Indian cuisine and a mega-lunch buffet at $98. I didn't pay much attention to the quiet bar-and-restaurant during my last Indian lunch and I knew more about it only after reading some media coverings, mostly focusing on its impressive collection of and dedication to whiskey, much less on its food. It was thus quite a bet on the quality of food (and the true value of the bargain), to be honest.

Upon arrival at the dimly lit (and cool) bar-cum-restaurant, a friendly waitress greeted us and brought us to our table, a nice,decent rectangular table by the window which is meant to be used for some serious eating (instead of drinking and lounging). The coupon I bought ($128 for two set lunches) allows us to upgrade to the $148 main dish by paying an extra of $20. Since the $98 choice of pasta did not sound tasty (octopus..uh), and we were interested in both the lamb and the beef, we paid $20 in extra. The soup of the day was the pumpkin soup - perfectly my cup of tea - and we both had that instead of the Avocado Tortilla Salad.

Sesame and poppyseed bun with herb butter

The wait was brief before the bread arrived, luckily warmed. The sesame and poppyseed bun looked delicious and smell great. The crust was a little tougher and it required a little wrestling to tear the bun open, but the interior had a dense but soft texture, which i really like - i am not really fond of the xtra-soft milk buns or whatsoever. The butter with herbs which came with the bread was chilled for too long and could not be spread on the bread, but as time lapsed it melted and could assimilate into the bread perfectly, giving it an additional buttery, lightly salted aroma on top of its wheaty taste.

Pumpkin soup

Our pumpkin soup were served in a shallow bowl and smelt great. The final touch of olive oil gave the soup a shiny appearance. It felt thick upon stirred, albeit not creamy. Suspected to be made of simply pumpkin puree without adding in cream, the soup tasted nice and sweet. The consistency was nice and i drank the soup while dipping the sesame bun into the soup. The two went extremely well together - yummmm! The soup was also huge in portion and I could only manage to finish 3/4 of the bowl. It was a pity really for the soup was really nice, but I could not risk bursting my stomach at such an early stage, for the main course and desserts had yet come.

Mixed Herbs Crusted US Tenderloin w/ Sherry gravy

Mixed Herbs Crusted US Tenderloin w/ Sherry gravy - this was my pick, but mum and I basically exchanged the meat to have a taste of both. It did not look medium rare to me tho. It was quite tender to cut, juicy, and yet bland and flavourful at the same time - flavoured as the meat was coated with a thin layer of strong herbs, and bland as the meat itself did not have much taste in it. Strangely it did not even taste like beef - I would be convinced if you told me it was veal, or pork, albeit badly cooked to wash away the distinctive aroma of porkchops. It was just a piece of - meat, unidentifiable. The sherry gravy was also ambiguous and tasted just like any gravy to me. The vegetables were nicely toasted, and I could not stop forking the roasted half new potatoes into my mouth.

NZ Grilled Lamb Chops w/ grand marnier sauce

NZ Grilled Lamb Chops w/ grand marnier sauce - another reason why we were here on that day. We were served with three rib-ful of lamb and it was, too, overcooked (unless i was colourblind and could not tell brown from pink!) despite being tender to cut. Similar to the beef it tasted bland. As a matter of fact I could not distinguish the lamb from the beef. Could it be consider as a total failure of the dish?

Coffee Mousse Cake

The dessert of that day was coffee mousse cake. I was slightly disappointed as I am not really into coffee-flavoured desserts and mousse cakes. The slices of cake served did not look great either, with the big pores in the mousse (which might mean not-so-smooth mousse). However it turned out to be surprisingly tasty-the mousse was quite heavy(which i like) genuinely resembled coffee, and it tasted (wickedly) like tiramisu to me. I didnt expect that! The alternative layers of mousse and sponge cake was well-balanced and, all in all, tasted marvelous. Shoving the whole thing in (which was not very me, now wheres that sense of guiltiness for eating too much?), I even wanted more of the cake!!!

Skimmed Latte

A drink was included in the lunch set and we could have either tea or coffee. I asked what coffee I could have, and they said latte and cappuccino were also fine. So I had a skimmed latte and mum ordered a plain coffee. It was the second biggest disappointment of the meal as the milk foam was extremely thin and watery. The coffee tasted bland as if it had been diluted. I could do a better job than they did with my crappy espresso machine at home, and I left 3/4 of the cup unattended. Yet to be fair, AS is a bar and not a coffee shop afterall, and we should not be expecting too much from the bar, not being specialized in making caffeine but liquor.

A $20 note was sufficient to settle our bill, in addition to the $128 already paid while buying the groupon. Was it worth it? Hm...I'd say yes. The meal costed only $74 per head and you wont probably find meals of comparable quality (with similar services, decor etc) anywhere else in Central. But if i were to pay the full fare for the meal I'd say it is overpriced. The main dishes we had could not convince me to pay, say, $100. The soup and the dessert were fine but i wont come back just for these 2 courses.

In short - won't come back for lunch, but there's a possibility for a revisit for a drink. The wine list is seriously impressive.

Angel’s Share
2/F, Amber Lodge
23 Hollywood Road
Central, Hong Kong

T: 852 2805 8388
F: 852 2805 2866
info @ angelsshare.hk

Opening Hours: Monday to Saturday 12:00pm to 2am
Sunday Closed
http://www.angelsshare.hk/
Angel's Share on Openrice