Tag: food

Megabites News: Plant Based Mayonnaise

Plant Based Mayonnaise

Something new and different – Just Mayo, a ‘plant based mayonnaise’ that is egg-free contains zero cholesterol and is gluten and soy free… Sounds a little too good to be true. Well oddly in this case it’s not. Hampton Creek a US company has spent over two years researching a replacement for the egg-based emulsifiers found in traditional mayonnaise. After screening over 1500 plants they found it was possible to use a specific variety of the Canadian yellow pea (a type of split pea) to replicate the binding properties of the eggs to create a ‘plant-based’ mayonnaise.

Just Mayo is exclusively available in four flavors: Original, Chipotle, Sriracha and Garlic at Great in Pacific Place (although expect to find it in PARKnSHOP, Fusion, Taste, International , Gourmet and SU-PA-DE-PA stores soon). At the recent product launch Great’s Tim Broderick demonstrated by preparing a range of dishes that beyond the ‘plant-based’ hype Just Mayo is a tasty option for all.

More info: www.hamptoncreek.com/just-mayo

Tasty Vietnamese Cuisine at the Embankment

Embankment - lobster

The healthy simplicity of Vietnamese cuisine with its minimal use of oil and a reliance on herbs and vegetables is evident at the Embankment in Causeway Bay where the dishes on the newly revamped menu look to appeal to our five senses – the aromatic ingredients stimulate the nose, the enticing plates treat the eyes, sounds comes from crisp ingredients, while the texture is felt by our fingers before the five spices are detected on the tongue. While appealing to our senses each Vietnamese dish has a distinctive flavour which reflects one or more of the fundamental taste elements: spicy, sour, bitter, salty and sweet.

The 7000 square foot restaurant on the 2/F of Cigna Tower at 480 Jaffe Road in Causeway Bay has been working hard to eliminate MSG (a common complaint from diners under the previous owners) and enhance the freshness of the ingredients – but as Nelson Tam one of the new owners comments “We’ve done everything we can to eliminate it”. “With the recent change of management, as well as a new team of highly experienced Vietnamese chefs from Vietnam who have joined our team we hope to introduce some of most authentic cuisine from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City available in Hong Kong. We are proud to introduce our new menu and renovation to our customers to create a value for money dinning experience”.

What makes Vietnamese food special – the fish sauce! At Embankment the home made fish sauce features complex but delicate layers of sweetness, lime, garlic, chilli, saltiness of dark fish sauce and vinegar. These fragrant elements and fresh herbs feature in most of Embankments signature dishes which include: Embankment1
Roasted minced prawn w/ sugarcane – the sweet sugarcane juice soaks into minced prawn for a unique flavour when roasted.

Stir fried garlic diced beef & tomato served w/ tomato rice – marble diced beef marinated with sweet basil, garlic, and slightly dark fish sauce, to enhance the original flavour from the beef. Stir fried with fresh basil, tomato, onions, topped with dried garlic, serve with tomato rice.

Deep fried chicken wings w/ butter & garlic seasoning – a unique cooking process merges 3 delicate procedures in order to bring out the prefect butter chicken wings. 1. marinate with lemongrass, garlic, fish sauce. 2. deep fried with precision timing between high and low temperature. 3. low heat stir fried with butter and garlic, in order to absorb the essence of the taste and scent of butter and garlic.

Marbled beef in Vietnamese vinegar hot pot – marbled beef cooked in a vinegar beef soup, merging the original sweetness of the beef, with a soft scent of vinegar and herbs

Nelson is also a foodie and for those new to the delights of Vietnamese dining he offer this piece of advice “When ordering remember a good meal will have balance, where the texture and flavours contrast the temperature and spiciness of the food.”
Embankment2

Embankment
2/F, 470-484 Jaffe Road,
Causeway Bay,
Hong Kong.

Embankment paid for the meals written about in this review.

Megabites: 1 February 2014

Alfresco Terrines and Pâtés  Divino.Patio-pate
Almost two years on from an extensive renovation and rebranding the Causeway Bay Centre – the former Sanlitun – has still to imprint itself on many people’s dining radar. But if you enjoy sitting outside and especially if you have kids it’s worth a look as there’s extensive seating on the spacious walkways – all discretely labelled for general public use so you don’t have to actually buy anything to sit down, but expect some dirty looks if you don’t. A couple of reasons to sit-down at Divino Patio’s comfortable chairs are it’s Italian Aperitivo Buffet and this month’s Terrines and Pâtés promotion. The free (upon purchase of a drink) Aperitivo Buffet is typical of the type you’d find in bars across Italy and is full of nibbles including cheese bites, pizza squares, salmon bites, vegetables in tempura, grissini wrapped with salumi’s, polpette (meat balls), fried fish, pork belly and is available nightly from 5:30-8:30.

February’s Terrines and Pâtés promotion includes a country style pâté flavoured with guerande “fleur d sel” at HK$118 per 100 grams; Foie gras terrine and yellow wild mushrooms at HK$138/100grams; a traditional duck pâté at HK$168/100g; and a free range chicken breast and fresh tarragon terrine at HK$128/100g. The pates are served with toasted farm bread, gherkins and garden salad and are paired with a selection of wines and beer from the Italian artisan microbrewery 32 Via dei Birrai.
Divino Patio: Shop !1, 1/F Brim 28 Causeway Bay Centre, 28 Harbour Road, Wanchai, Tel: 2877 3552
Divino.Patio-buffet-web

Fondue
Locally fondue has in recent years come to mean dipping marshmallows and other confectionary in chocolate and while that’s nice and incredibly sweet the more traditional dipping medium is cheese (An aside, marshmallows and jelly beans dipped in cheese… intriguingly tasty idea….). fondueNightly through February 28 Divino in Central is offering three delicious cheese fondues to share with friends, Fonduta Svizzera ($300/person) comprising 1⁄2 Gruyere and 1⁄2 Vacherine Fribourgeois with a hint of Kirch wine; Fonduta Alla Valdostana ($280/person) using fontina cheese and Fonduta al Gorgonzola ($250/person) which as the name implies, uses gorgonzola. All are served with a selection of toasted bread cubes and fresh vegetables – including lightly poached Brussel sprouts and pumpkin both of which are delicious when dipped and coated in cheese, especially the gorgonzola. Remember to scrape the bowl, the slightly burnt cheese that sticks to the bowl is a crispy oft forgotten delight. All three fonduta are offered paired with wine or Italian artisan beers.
DiVino: G/F, 73 Wyndham Street, Central, Tel: 2167 8883

A Chinese New Year Option
It’s Chinese New Year, the weather’s sunny and you’re stuck for something to do… Why not check out Ocean Park or Disneyland both have a variety of restaurants offering CNY specials and a wealth of other activities to make for an enjoyable day-out. And with the mainland hordes staying north of the border visiting their relatives crowds should be light and meal prices are not too extravagant.
disney cny

 

In a Grain of Rice: Food & Culture for South & Southeast Asia

The Asia Society Hong Kong is holding a food festival on Sunday 12 January, 2014 to explore the cultural significance of food, particularly rice, from a variety of sociocultural anthropological perspectives. Join artists, writers, culinary experts and scholars to explore eating as a social activity which reflects social and personal identity. Using all types of rice – including blue rice – as a starting point, the two-part one day festival will explore food as a conduit bringing cultures together, a collective narrative about place and time, desire, satiety, heritage and changing traditions.

The full day event is split into two sections: a morning panel discussion starting at 10:15am and an afternoon food tasting & cooking demonstrations from 1pm.

The speakers for morning session are:
  • Tony Cheng, CEO & Founder, Drawing Room Concepts
  • Sidney Cheung, Chairperson, Department of Anthropology, Chinese University of Hong Kong
  • Peter Cuong Franklin, Chef/Partner, Chôm Chôm
  • Rosa Paula “Rochie” Cuevas, Grain Quality and Nutrition Center, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)
  • Michael Leung, Founder & Creative Director, HK Honey
  • Yoshiko Nakano, Associate Professor, Department of Japanese Studies, University of Hong Kong
  • Daisy Tam, Research Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Creative Writing Hong Kong Baptist University
While the afternoon cooking demonstrations includes:
  • Rice tasting with IRRI
  • Asian street food tasting
  • Seafood Laksa by Andy Cheng, Lobby Chef of The Peninsula Hong Kong
  • Hainan chicken rice demonstration by Tony Cheng
  • Shrimp & pork rice paper roll by Peter Cuong Franklin
  • Hakka tea cake demonstration by Tsoi Yuen Village residents

In a Grain of Rice: Food & Culture for South & Southeast Asia

In a Grain of Rice: Food & Culture for South & Southeast Asia 
When: 12 January, 2014
Morning panel discussions 10:15am – 12:45pm; Afternoon food tasting & cooking demonstrations 1-5pm
Where: Asia Society Hong Kong Center, 9 Justice Drive, Admiralty
How Much: free registration 10am
More Information: http://asiasociety.org/hong-kong/events/grain-rice-food-culture-south-southeast-asia-afternoon-session

Le French GourMay 2013

Le French GourMay 2013
Le FrenchMay has with an ongoing series of high-quality performances and productions over many years established itself as one of the cultural highlights of the year in Hong Kong. Slightly less well known is the Le French GourMay, now in its fifth year, which promotes gastronomy with a french flavour. Each year the festival chooses a region of France to focus its offerings around and in twenty thirteen it’s Bourgogne a thickly forested region in Eastern France – better known to wine lovers as Burgundy – blessed with south-facing slopes and a moist, cool climate perfect for grapes.

The most famous wines produced here—those commonly referred to as “Burgundies” are dry red wines made from Pinot Noir grapes and white wines made from Chardonnay grapes. Burgundy has a higher number of appellations d’origine contrôlée (AOCs) than any other French region, and is often seen as the most terroir-conscious of the French wine regions. Although archeological evidence establishes viticulture in Burgundy as early as the second century AD, the practice of delineating vineyards by their terroir in Burgundy goes back to medieval times, when various monasteries played a key role in developing the Burgundy wine industry – currently Bourgogne has nearly 28,500 hectares of vines in production, over 100 classified Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (A.O.C) and produces about 200 million bottles annually.

Burgundy cuisine is symbolic of so much that is French and Burgundians are as passionate about their food as their wine – Escargots à la Bourgogne (Burgundy Snails), Boeuf Bourguignon, and Coq au Vin are just three of the famous regional dishes. Food in Bourgogne is filled with danger and death. It is not the gentle, vegetable cooking of Provence dribbled in olive oil. Burgundy cuisine is imbued with garlic, violence and what one daintily names ‘variety meats.’ Beef tongue (langue), sweetbreads (ris de veau) or calf’s head (tête de veau) and kidneys (rognons) are among the region’s favorite cuts. Pork feet (pieds), braised jowls (joues), and pork intestine sausage (andouillette) pop up everywhere on Burgundy menus. Hearty meals these, but the regions chefs have also updated their cuisine to appeal to modern tastes, and there are 29 Michelin stared restaurants, including three with three stars, within Burgundy.

There’s a wide range of promotions throughout GourMay and the full programme can be found here www.frenchmay.com/gourmay. At W Hong Kong in West Kowloon GourMay offers include

The Winederlust Date @ Woobar
10 varieties of Burgundy wine paired with tasty regional cheeses and coldcuts to entice any monsieur or madame. From 8pm to 10:30pm every Wednesday in May, HK$258+10% per person

The Star-Crossed Pair @ Sing Yin
West and East converge as Chef Bryan Lee creates a 7-course wine dinner offering local flavors complemented by selected Burgundy wines matched to each dish. Lychee wood-fired crispy skin chicken is the signature dish of Sing Yin. The chicken is seasoned overnight before being roasted with aromatic lychee wood, cinnamon and premium Longjing (Dragon Well) tea leaves. Fired to a golden finish, the tender meat and crispy skin are laced with flavour. This entree is paired with Louis Latour Savigny les Beaune 2003. Its rich bouquet of red fruits draws out the tender taste of the chicken. The entire menu is available at HK$888+10%. (Wine expert Mark Allen will also be there to share about his winery insight on May 23.)

The Chef’s Passion @ Kitchen
Burgundy’s Two Star Michelin Chef Florian Muller will join hands with W’s Culinary Director Gunnar Kuchenbecker from May 16 to 26, to bring a French flair to the international delicacies at Kitchen. The esteemed Chef himself will even be present during this period to interact with guests and talk about his own cooking experience, engaging all in his amour for food while serving specially created GourMay dishes.
Dinner: Monday – Thursday, 6pm – 10pm; HK$498 per adult, HK$249 per child;
Dinner: Friday – Sunday, 6pm – 10pm; HK$538 per adult, HK$269 per child
*All prices are subject to 10% service charge
Bookings at www.w-hongkong.com

GourMay-Amazing Bourgognechure coverFrench GourMay 2013 - W Hong Kong