The Great European Carnival 2016

great-european-carnivalweb

The Great European Carnival returns to the Central Harbourfront this winter from the 4th December 2015 – 14th February 2016. As well as games, thrilling rides the midway this year will also feature the unique Udderbelly – a performance venue like no other.

The Udderbelly Festival has already released tickets for some great shows including comedians Rory Bremner, Jason Manford, musicians Gobsmacked, Michael Winslow and shows such as The Boy with Tape on His Face and The Elephant in the Room.

Great European Carnival + Udderbelly Festival
Date: 4 December 2015 – 21 February 2016
Venue: Central Harbourfront
Tickets: various

Genki 20th Anniversary

Genki Kousoku

Genki the name synonymous locally, and globally, with conveyor belt sushi celebrates it’s 20th anniversary in Hong Kong this month. Their first local store opened on 3 August 1995 in the Far East Finance Centre, Admiralty. As part of the celebrations Genki have opened their first Kousoku (Speed Train) store in Tsuen Wan. Instead of trays of sushi and sashimi on a conveyor belt snaking around the restaurant each table is served by a three level Kousoku.

Genki Kousoku - freshly cooked and grilled every timeThe benefits of this to us as customers are that each dish is prepared fresh when you order it and served directly to the table. Ordering is by touch screen pad, with each part of your order limited to four plates (each train only has space for four plates). Individually and for couples this works fine, but with most dishes on the menu only having one item, it might not work so well for groups of four. Each plate is sent when ready and the target is to serve you within 90 seconds of a dish being ordered. The system is fun, portion size, quality and price / value are the same as the conveyor belt stores.
Genki Kousoku Shop B105-108, B1, Tsuen Wan Plaza, Tai Pa Street, Tsuen Wan, Tel: 2499 3172. Opening Hours: 11:30am – 10:30pm

Genki Kousoku Tsuen Wan

Megabites: Sushi Sei

Sushi

Sushi Sei
There are a surprising number of restaurants in IFC, one of the more recent arrivals is Sushi Sei. Offering two quite different menus at lunch and dinner the food we sampled at lunch was fresh, full of interesting flavours and well presented. Head Chef Kaoru Mitsuhashi said his style was based around the traditional Edomae Nigirisushi.

In truth we’re not well enough versed in Japanese cuisine to comment on it’s authenticity, but beyond having a very enjoyable lunch we did learn two interesting things. We’ve been eating our sushi incorrectly for years, instead of picking a piece up and placing it in our mouths we should actually turn each piece so that the fish rather than the rice touches the tongue first so as to appreciate the subtle flavours of the fish before the rice dominates the tastebuds. Very obvious, when you think about it….

In many modern Japanese restaurants the rice is squashed tightly together making more of a block to bite into. Chef Mitsuhashi claims the traditional method is to have the rice loser and served warm so that it ‘crumbles’ in the mouth. Unsurprisingly this creates a completely different flavour experience, again allowing the flavour of the fish to remain on the palate longer.
Sushi Sei: Shop 2016, IFC Mall, 8 Finance Street, Central, Tel: 2387 3377

Sushi Sei

Megabites: Port @ Knutsford Terrace

Port

New on Knutsford Terrace is Port, the third bar from the owners of Zinc and Ra. Hong Kong has been one of the worlds busiest container ports for years but Port is the first bar bc can recall to use the shape and design of a container as it’s underlying theme and decor. The industrial container concept works well to create a unique design with a large outside seating area and a spacious interior.

Port

There’s a small but interesting menu split into five sections – Apps, Soil, Sea, Land, Sweet Tooth – and full of interesting dishes we’ve not seen locally before. From the Apps selection bc sampled several very enjoyable plates the Blistered Shishito Peppers with Lime, Sea Salt ($55) were tasty and tangy and a perfect snack to drink with. The Boudin Arancini (Chorizo Rice Balls, $75) were large and filling and served with aioli sauce, slightly larger chunks of chorizo would improve this fine bar snack. The Chicharones ($98) served with plum and aioli sauce were large meaty and tasty if a little dry.

PortIn the Soil section the Long Beans, Manchego Cheese, Lemon ($68) saw crisp long beans covered in cheese and lemon, simple fresh and crispy. From the Sea the Atlantic Cod Charred with Sweetcorn and Chorizo ($168) was a delicious blend of flavours and textures. Cod is such a delicious fish that we have to hope that stocks will continue to replenish. After so many interesting dishes the Bacon-Grind Sliders, Cheddar, onions and Comeback Sauce ($138) served with spicy fries seemed rather mundane but the sliders are large, with lots of freshly ground beef in the patty topped with good bacon (as a bacon lover a second rasher would have made the dish) and cheddar cheese.

An interesting and varied menu, generous well presented portions and reasonable prices ensure Port is definitely a place worthy of dropping anchor when your next in TST.
Port – 2 Knutsford Terrace, TST. Tel: 2146 2222
Zinc 35 D’Aguilar Street, Lan Kwai Fong. Tel: 2868 3448
Ra  G/F Wing On Plaza, 62 Mody Road, TST East. Tel: 27121 3600

Megabites: 21 August, 2015 – East West Culinary Menu @ Holy Crab

Holy crab - Pond and Pasture Grits

East West Culinary Menu @ Holy Crab
Lan Kwai Fong’s Holy Crab has teamed up with the Canadian and Thai Consulates to offer an eight dish East / West menu daily until 16 September. The culinary exchange menu features dishes from Thai chef Chalee Kader exploring different regional Thai cuisines and Holy Crab’s Executive Chef Mark Kerkstra showcasing Canadian seafood. All the portion sizes are generous, with the Canadian dishes designed to be shared. At the media tasting the four Thai dishes: Kao Soy ($200), Papaya Salad with Salted Duck Egg ($180), Crab Curry ($388) and Chicken Turmeric Soup ($120) were enjoyable, especially the crab curry and the turmeric soup, without being remarkable. The flavours lacked that extra little complexity that a chef who’s been cooking a certain food style for years acquires. The arrival in person from Thailand of Chef Chalee in the kitchen a couple of days after our tasting will surely have remedied that.

Chef Kerkstra’s four Canadian dishes: Dungeness Crab Popover ($140), Crown and Maple Canadian Seafood Trio ($200), Pond and Pasture Grits ($200) and Canard Poutine ($230) are a riot of flavours and textures. The Quebec maple syrup glaze makes the seafood trio appetiser super sweet but a perfect balance to the spicy turmeric soup. If there’s a quibble about the coffee grilled Ontario pork loin and tiger prawns that top some wonderful cheddar cheese grits it’s that the pork is cut a bit thin and the pork gets lost within the coffee grilling. The coffee adds a nice sharpness to the cheese flavour of the grits. The canard poutine is a massive wonderful dish of gruyere cheese, duck confit and Quebec foie gras slathered over thick french fries. There’ll be those who will not like this menu the Canadian dishes do not match the prevailing trend of dainty, light, almost not there flavours – these are hearty Canadian dishes and all the better for being so.

Holy Crab - Crab Curry

 

Holy Crab
3/F, Cosmos Building, 8-11 Lan Kwai Fong, Central, Hong Kong
Tel: 2110 0100

Megabites: Great UK Food Festival

Shropshire Blue Cheese

The latest promotion from Great in the basement of Pacifc Place is the UK Food Festival which features over 300 new products. Filling Great’s wonderful cheese room is an expanded range of UK cheese from Neal’s Yard, which sources farmhouse made cheese from across the Isles. Amongst others there’s Keen’s Cheddar, Kirkham Lancashire, Appleby’s Double Gloucester, Colston Bassett Blue Stilton and an interesting Shropshire blue as well as Ticklemore’s Goat’s Cheese…

Also featuring in the promotion are Dickinson & Morris pork pies. The humble British pork pie is actually a complicated culinary delight as anyone who has tried to make one at home can attest. Sealing the filling in the dough to create the jelly is an art unto itself. In the bakery there’s also a range of scones – perfect for afternoon tea, topped with jam and clotted cream, and yes Great is selling real clotted cream! Enough with this fake overly sweet stuff that masquerades as ‘cream’ in Asia and destroys so many fine cakes and deserts. There’s also battenberg cake, an English delight that features squares of sponge cake surrounded in marzipan.

Welsh lamb and Scottish seafood offer options and flavours to the more traditional sources available locally and of course there’s trifle…. The Great UK promotion runs until 3 SeptemberUK Food Festival

Megabites: 17 August, 2015 – Hattendo

HK Food Expo - Hattendo

The bridges from Wanchai MTR station to the Convention Centre almost 800m away are a solid heaving mass of sweaty humanity… and why not for what waits inside the HK Food Expo 2015 are discounts galore and a wide range of new food and drinks not yet (and maybe never to be) available in Hong Kong. Halls 1 and 3 of the Food Expo are the public halls, where new and old products are for sale at attractive discounts. Hall 5 is the trade/media closed to the public until lunch time on Saturday.

Hattendo Matcha

HK Food Expo - HattendoWithin minutes of the trade hall opening to the public, there’s a crowd 10 deep surrounding the small Hattendo stand. These whipped cream filled buns are massively popular in Japan with shops recently opening in Korea and Manila. The bun is made from a blend of bread and cake mix and has a lovely soft feel and texture which never lets the creamy filling drip out. There’s a range of fillings custard, whipped cream, matcha, sweet bean and chocolate. In Japan, you’re only allowed to sell soft serve ice-cream in restaurants, but no such rules exist here in Hong Kong so take your regular Hattendo and fill it full of ice-cream. Delicious, hopefully we’ll see the first store open in Hong Kong soon! http://hattendo.jp/cream-buns

European Meat: Polish Cocktails – 12 August, 2015

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/Polish-Meats-Cocktail-12/51275665_XFVztn#!i=4272677888&k=KTqkQVL

As part of the Food Expo, European Meat hosted a cocktail party with The Association of Butchers and Producers of Processed Meat of the Republic of Poland, The Polish Chamber of Commerce HK and the Polish Association of Butchers and Charcuterie to raise awareness of the quality of Polish meat. They also served up a delightful section of hot and cold Polish dishes, so tasty that the question is – why isn’t there a Polish restaurant in Hong Kong?
Click on any photo to see the full gallery

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/Polish-Meats-Cocktail-12/51275665_XFVztn#!i=4272670877&k=ZLBrTdm

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/Polish-Meats-Cocktail-12/51275665_XFVztn#!i=4272662088&k=Fw9wstf

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/Polish-Meats-Cocktail-12/51275665_XFVztn#!i=4272669817&k=7kVjtKk

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/Polish-Meats-Cocktail-12/51275665_XFVztn#!i=4272665177&k=2H7KmNV