to the moon and back

For me, Alan Yau’s latest opening was perhaps the most exciting one because it’s based on the concept of a Chinese (mostly Hong Kong-style) noodle bar, something I’m more than familiar with. I also felt like there was a lack of decent noodle bars here in London (which is why every time I go back home to HK, one of the first things I always have is a big steaming bowl of wonton or ngau lam – beef brisket – noodles), and with the success of Yauatcha and Hakkasan, I couldn’t wait to see how he interpreted this classic streetfood.

A more general overview of my thoughts on Cha Cha Moon are already outlined in my review in Time Out, but in reality I tried far more dishes than what were mentioned (I wanted to try so many dishes, I went back 3 more times), so this is an ‘extended’ review if you will!

i choo choo choose tuna

There are only two things in life that can get me up early in the morning, and that is food, or obligation. The people who know me well probably think that rising in the early morn to the crow of a cockerel is far beyond my capability, but on at least one occasion, I proved them wrong. One of the highlights of my trip to Tokyo in the winter of 2006 was the trip to Tsukiji market, which meant getting up at 4am (though, in reality, having slept at 2:30am we ended up dragging our unhappy, unconscious bodies out of our snug, warm hotel beds at 5:00). It wasn’t all bad though. There’s something very satisfying about getting up at such an ungodly hour in pursuit of food… it gives you bragging rights and a smug look on your face as you recount the story to your friends (or, they could just look at you with a raised eyebrow and think you’re mad).

We missed the tuna auction, but rest assured we had loads of fun dodging death at every corner (slippery surfaces and people shouting at you to get out of the way as their fast-moving karts loom towards you), photographing all the strange and wonderful seafood, and watching young apprentices being taught how to handle a sashimi knife. It was also the first time I actually realised how massive a whole tuna was. At the end of it all, we congratulated ourselves (especially me) for making the effort and sacrificing a few zees to come to this amazing place. Because seriously, who needs sleep when you get to have this for breakfast?

It doesn’t look like the greatest piece of tuna in the world, but I remember how pleased we were as we chowed down on our bounty, as a kindly obaa-san watched us with a bemused look on her face. This is what travelling is all about – screw sleep!

So if you haven’t guessed it by now, I’m a bit of a tuna enthusiast. A bad time to be one, considering the over-fishing of bluefin tuna, but in the end my gut won out – I had to visit Doraya, a Japanese restaurant specialising in just that (er, tuna, not my gut). It sounded like a dream come true. Also, it was recommended not only by my own mother (queen of good recommendations), but my (Japanese) boyfriend who usually snubs most Japanese restaurants in Hong Kong. So after a happy reunion with friends, we trooped over to the restaurant just a bit before 7pm.

We went to the branch in Causeway Bay (there’s also one in Tsim Sha Tsui), which is a seriously modest restaurant on Lockhart Road where not many people really go. Doraya, thus, is pretty much a hidden gem. It looks like any other Japanese joint you get around this town, but there are no flashy signs or clean-cut modern menus. It looks ordinary. Inside, there isn’t a lot of space either, it probably seats around 30 people at the most, with a tiny kitchen in the back. Their menu is a tattered, laminated affair, a few pages listing various incarnations of tuna dishes – there’s fatty tuna, seared tuna, tuna steak, minced toro and a smattering of other dishes (I think I remember seeing swordfish and mackerel). Prices for the dinner sets range from around $78HKD to around $200 for the most expensive one – It’s been a week since that dinner and I don’t have a menu, so my memory is a bit hazy.

I ordered the ‘double tuna’ set, which comes with luscious pieces of otoro as well as akami maguro. All sets come with a small dish of simmered vegetables, egg rolls, pickles and a bowl of miso soup.

The tuna was simply gorgeous. The otoro was, as expected, meltingly tender but without an overpowering fishiness or oiliness – perfection. The akami was the best I’d had for a long time – also melt-in-your-mouth, though obviously not to the extent that the otoro was! Both were rich with what I can only stupidly describe as ‘tuna-y’ – and unlike much of the tuna sold in Hong Kong (especially buffets, gah!), it didn’t taste bloody and metallic. It was fresh and just wonderful. Period. You’d think I could stop there, but no – there was quite a lot of rice and I was worried about being sick of eating all of it. But, get this: it was bloody amazing. Turns out Doraya uses top-quality koshihikari rice, from Niigata Prefecture, thought to be the best rice in Japan. It’s delicious simply eaten on it’s own, and has a tender, but slightly al dente texture and a subtle sweet flavour. I could have easily polished off a plain bowl of that rice. The whole set cost me $128HKD (£8.40!), which is tuppence considering the amount of tuna I got in there, along with the added bonus of the Niigata rice.

So, I wish I had something bad to say so this doesn’t sound like a gushing advertisement for Doraya. If only I could say that the service was rubbish, and that the waitresses wanted us out as soon as possible so they could cram more hungry hordes into the small restaurant and make a fatter profit. But no. Even after they’d cleared away our plates, they noticed our cups were half-empty and offered us some more tea – a small gesture, but an enormous one considering (as we later found out) the queue that was beginning to form outside of the restaurant. We were thankful that we weren’t pressurised to leave the place as soon as possible, and appropriately paid for our bill after we’d finished our tea.

It’s awfully rare to be completely happy with a restaurant here – sometimes it’s like an unbalanced see-saw; good food, bad service, or vice versa. At Doraya, everything was faultless. And the kicker? They open until 2am. Now you know where to get your midnight otoro fixes.

Doraya (定食のどらや)
G/F, 451 Lockhart Rd, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong
Tel: 2834 8851

Basement, Grand Right Centre, 10 Cameron Rd, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon
Tel: 2366 8072

good vietnamese food? nha.

Yeah, I should have known better than to trust a hyped-up food critic way past his day. Or one simply of his standing – one of the most recognised critics in Hong Kong – as if a restaurant would dare serve him substandard crap! His glowing review of Cafe Locomotive, however, caught our eye. If you’re interested in why, he deemed their beef broth to be as glorious as the ones he’d had in Vietnam. We’re always on the lookout for decent Vietnamese joints in Hong Kong, since they’re few and far between and always erring on the side of inauthenticity. We decided that we’d troop all the way there like lemmings to indulge in the fabled broth.

As is usual with me, I woke up late and took even longer to paint my face; by the time we’d gotten on the bus my mom was fretting over the fact that we’d hit the restaurant during the lunch peak. At 12:45, the place was full, but there were no visible queues or anyone loitering around for a seat. The waitress took our name down and we waited for just 5 minutes before a table was ready.

It looked promising – all airy and with dark wooden furniture, high ceilings and some interesting decor. On a warm winter’s day (?!) in Hong Kong, this is the perfect kind of environment for a laid back lunch. There aren’t very many seats, but at least the high ceilings and semi-al fresco seating helps eliminate any inklings of claustrophobia.
I absolutely loved the decor. It was modern meets traditional – the restaurant itself is based on the story of a street stall based near a train station in Vietnam that would attract hordes of people with their mouthwatering pho, and a gigantic photographic print of the station in question hangs on one wall (as the only photo with the print in it includes my unsightly mug, it is not shown here). The two walls are also lined with luggage racks to simulate the inside of train carriages – charming! If only the food was as inspiring.

The menu boasts ‘authentic Vietnamese beef soup & chicken stock’, and the big seller is the ‘Locomotive signature rice noodle soup’, but we were far from impressed. The stock, to put it bluntly, lacked BEEFINESS – it was also surprisingly sweet, unappetisingly so. Squeezes of lime helped slightly, but overall it was a disappointment, considering this was their supposed selling point. I prefer a simple pho bo, but their signature dish included beef balls, beef tripe and beef tendons. My mom found the beef tendons in the noodles undercooked and bland, and I don’t think either of us touched the tripe – it looked exactly as what we thought it would taste – rubbery and flavourless. I’m tempted to say this was possibly the most underwhelming pho I’ve ever eaten in Hong Kong, but I’m not sure if it’s because of its own failings or due to my high expectations.

Moving on… after a disappointing encounter with a prawn and pomelo salad at Nha Trang earlier in the week, I ordered Locomotive’s version, which came beautifully presented. So pretty that the couple next to us were whispering loudly about it and subsequently asked the waiter to tell them what it was (side note: are Hong Kongers so unfriendly towards each other that a simple question to the table next door is totally impossible?). Its looks, however, belied its less-than-gorgeous taste. I expected a flavour explosion here – crisp, juicy pomelo contrasting with salty-sweet cabbage and carrots, a tang from the limes, a subtle aniseedy kick from the Asian basil… you get the picture. What resulted was a half-hearted assault on the tastebuds from limp flavours and way too much of the basil (bad memories of liquorice allsorts came flooding back…). The prawns were tepid and would have benefited from a bit of grilling; instead they seemed to have just been brought back from the freezer-dead and boiled. What I found at the bottom was a large amount of extremely watery nuoc cham, which didn’t help at all in the flavour stakes.

I was really confused about it all. Alas, Choi Lan, I knew better than to trust you and your smarmy ways. If only I’d read the 37 bad reviews (versus 9 good ones) over at OpenRice beforehand. The common folk are, again, the ones to trust. I always feel sad about writing off a place, especially one as nicely done as Locomotive – but as usual, the food speaks volumes. Sometimes it’s hard to know who’s really right, though (the media are positively fawning over the place), and who knows – maybe you’d like it. Perhaps I’ll give it another go somewhere along the line… maybe.

Cafe Locomotive (Contemporary Vietnamese Cuisine)
11 Wun Sha Rd, Tai Hang, Hong Kong
2882 8227
www.cafelocomotive.com

alain ducasse at the dorchester

There is, perhaps, no right way for me to go about reviewing Ducasse’s latest gastronomic offering. Save for the fact that I do like my food a little bit more than the average person, there’s nothing about my repertoire that says I can write a worthy play-by-play of a meal that probably cost more than all my meals in the past month. But then again, why not? Does one have to be brought up on caviar and truffles to tell what is good and what is not? I guess there will be some people who will disagree with me, but ultimately I was just slightly underwhelmed by the food today, though there were some brilliant instances of some serious culinary know-how.

hazuki

I’ve been noticing a pattern here. Every time I choose to go out for dinner, I find myself gravitating towards asian and oriental food. Korean, Thai and Japanese in one week – luckily for me the quality of such cuisines in London are far from terrible. Unfortunately though, a large part of my criterion for eating out is whether or not it’s affordable (meaning, £20 or under these days – it’s lucky I rarely ever have alcohol with my dinner), which can make it sometimes a bit tricky when dining out in London.

So, I was pleasantly surprised by Hazuki – even with its quality central location in Charing Cross’ Chandos Place (and next to the buzzing Harp pub where a friend of mine works), the printed prices didn’t make me want to commit harikiri upon contact with my retinas.