bc magazine

Great Food Hall ReOpens to Intoxicate Your Taste Buds

The Cheese room is open again! After an extensive cosmetic makeover, Great Food Hall in the basement of Pacific Place has reopened. The new upmarket concrete with hints of bronze design fits with Pacific Place’s attempt to position itself a premium location, despite the resultant drop in foot traffic.

The renovated store features a lot more ready to eat options, there’s salads, cooked meats, sushi, Korean etc all with portion sizes and prices surprisingly competitive compared to other options. You can also preorder your salad (sadly not any of the other lunch options, maybe that’ll come in the future) on the new Great-to-Go app that hopefully will make getting lunch a quicker and less stressful experience.

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2019/Great-Food-hall-ReOpens-15-October-2019/i-dBRMDWK

Thankfully the cheese room remains, stocked full of tasty fromage from across the globe including France’s Mons Comte and Italy’s Artigiana. There’s sustainable Italian caviar from Calvisius at the ‘Luxury’ counter. As well as a range of fresh smoked salmon from H Forman & Son, the UK oldest salmon curlers. Meat lovers will find the beef, lamb and pork from across the globe including US Brandt Beef from California, Tasmanian Cape Grim Beef and English Yellow Longhorn from The Ginger Pig. This wide selection offers you the chance to buy the same cut from different producers, cook them together and compare the flavours and textures. All are delicious – but also quite unique.

At a US Beef organised meat tasting in the old Great, an artisan butcher from California offered this advice on buying meat – and it’s worth repeating again. “Decide how you are going to cook your meat first, then ask your butcher which cuts are best suited for that cooking method.” Great also still offers a dry-aging and a cooked to order service.

Also along the back wall next to the meat counters, Cosro Italia offers freshly made pasta, pizza and ready to eat meals. For vegetarians, there’s a wide range of salads and many products on the shelves. While Tai Pan Pies offers sweet and savoury options.

Triple O’s remains and there’s a new coffee counter One Shot offering freshly made coffees. Sadly while there’s lots of tea on the shelves we didn’t find a nice cup to ‘lai cha’ to enjoy with our lunch.

The remodelled store looks a lot ‘fancier’, but also feels as though it’s more expensive to shop there. Take a look, there’s a lot to intoxicate and excite your taste buds.

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2019/Great-Food-hall-ReOpens-15-October-2019/i-sGr2vmv

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2019/Great-Food-hall-ReOpens-15-October-2019/i-fwbQMTm

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2019/Great-Food-hall-ReOpens-15-October-2019/i-vWz6Lpk

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2019/Great-Food-hall-ReOpens-15-October-2019/i-GTKFpw8

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2019/Great-Food-hall-ReOpens-15-October-2019/i-rpCjHgJ

Flavours of Europe Cocktail Party @ Renaissance Hotel – 30 November, 2017

Poland is one of the largest producers of beef, pork, chicken and apples in the world. Flavours of Europe is an ongoing campaign to introduce and promote Polish produce, and incidentally Polish cuisine, which can now be bought in many local shops.
Click on any image for the full gallery

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2017/Flavours-of-Europe-Cocktail-Party-Renaissance-Hotel-30/i-Cq9VzDP

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2017/Flavours-of-Europe-Cocktail-Party-Renaissance-Hotel-30/i-WQcRs2r

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2017/Flavours-of-Europe-Cocktail-Party-Renaissance-Hotel-30/i-Q23dsgg

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2017/Flavours-of-Europe-Cocktail-Party-Renaissance-Hotel-30/i-v5c4ScR

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2017/Flavours-of-Europe-Cocktail-Party-Renaissance-Hotel-30/i-dm2gLn2

Megabites: Food & Restaurant News 8 June, 2017

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2017/Carlo-Riva-Wanchai-1-June-2017/i-pXWLcGh

Carlo Riva

There’s a new steakhouse in Wanchai Carlo Riva. The 5,000+ square foot restaurant with an impressive looking open kitchen is spread over two floors at 1 Heard Street, with the upstairs offering several private rooms.

The menu features steak cuts from across the globe: US, Australian, New Zealand, Argentina, France and some fine US tomahawks. Also on the soft opening menu is a range of pasta and vegetarian dishes. And they’re baking their own bread, the brie chunks in black sesame seed flour is rather good! There’s a separate and extensive lunch menu, from $68 up, with unlimited chips.

Style wise, to quote one of the owners “It’s relaxed fine dining with good sized portions at reasonable prices” and we can’t argue with that. Currently there’s no corkage charge so BYOB and no service charge.

Carlo Riva: 1 Heard Street, Wanchai Tel: 3956 2388
Opening Hours: 12-3pm, 6-11pm www.facebook.com/CarloRivaHK/

Brydock Farm Anti-biotic Free Pork

There’s a burgeoning market among the affluent who want to buy and eat meat only from ‘ethically’ reared and ‘healthy’ animals. Looking to cater to that market in the UK and now available locally is Brydock Farms with their range of anti-biotic free pork. Television adverts want us to continue to think of farms as small family-run places. Those simply aren’t economic today, at Brydock’s Farm for example in Aberdeenshire they have 10,500 outdoor sows and produce 4,600 pigs a week.

What has also changed are the government regulations, these are now very strict in the UK and cover all aspects of food production including animal feed, transportation, welfare, they also track each individual animal from the farm through the slaughterhouse. You can read more about this at www.redtractor.org.uk which looks to ensure promote clearer labeling and ensure food originates from a trustworthy source. Not only are these regulations in-place to prevent disease, they also ensure that if a farm claims for example that it’s pigs are anti-biotic free they can be tracked and tested to confirm it’s true. Brydock Farms anti-biotic free pork can be found in the freezers of your local supermarkets.

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2017/Geyre-Grand-Opening-3-June-2017/i-7Vkvsf6

Organic Fusion Bar G.Eyre

Newly opened in Wanchai is Genie Chan’s ‘organic fusion bar’ G.Eyre. All the ingredients are claimed to be organically sourced, principally from Australia, but unlike many other recently opened ‘organic places’ it’s refreshingly very much not vegetarian.

Appertisers include stewed potatoes with black dates ($78), mussels w/cider ($108). Mains feature organic chicken, cod, salmon, prawns and ribs but sides dishes are extra. A range of light meals with quinoa and brown rice cater to the calorie counters among you including teriyaki tofu w/cucumbers (228 calories) and spicy American beef stew (325 calories). Coffees and flower teas range from $20-$42. There’s also various set lunches daily. A 10% service charge is added.

G.eyre: 69 Hennessy Road, Wanchai. Tel: 2818 6992.
Opening hours: 11:30am-10pm
www.g.eyreorganic.com.hk

Opened a new restaurant, running a promotion, launched a new food product. Send the information to [email protected]

Food Glorious Food @ Hofex 2017

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2017/Hofex-HKCEC-9-May-2017/i-L2mjwh9

The biannual Hofex descended on Hong Kong last week and bc went for a look see, here’s some of what we found. There’s a lot of food at Hofex but the majority of the suppliers, from across the globe, are food service orientated. That’s the provision of the food we enjoy in restaurants, cafes and hotels, from the raw ingredients to machines to technology.

In many smaller places, restaurant groups, but also even in hotel buffets, much of what you eat is outsourced and prepared in a factory or communal kitchens and reheated or finished just before you consume it.

The technology and cooking techniques in the food production area have improved massively in recent years – a simple local example would be the improved quality and options in the bread basket, where very few restaurants have the space/time to make their own – to the extent that with most dishes you shouldn’t be aware of the difference.

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2017/HOFEX-HKCEC-11-May-2017/i-mFrFHHQ

Pizza is now a Hong Kong diet staple, with a plethora of different choices from low end to high end. As the big ‘specialist chains have expanded though the quality of many has noticeably dropped. You can even find frozen Tesco’s pizza in some supermarkets. At Hofex though Cypriot importer and online store www.greekdeli.com.hk was showcasing a frozen Greek pizza from Elliniki Nostimia. It’s tasty, full of flavour, loaded with cheese and available with a range of toppings and an estimated retail price of between $40-60. It should be available soon from outlets around town and also from their online store. And while you’re shopping there try out the various flavours of Greek yoghurts.

One of the big local food factories is Sims and among the many tasty things they were showcasing was a delicious chocolate dome comprising a hard chocolate outer shell, filled with soft moist chocolate sponge and then a liquid chocolate center. A difficult combination to execute successfully on a small scale let alone on a production line. Yet it was delicious. Not too sweet, the sponge moist, and so good we went back for a second later in the week.

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2017/Hofex-HKCEC-9-May-2017/i-DrH4nwv

Brand extensions have been all the range among marketeers for a long time with many hoping to replicate, even on a small scale the phenomenal succe$$ of Hello Kitty. You’ll soon find on your supermarket shelves Jack Daniels BBQ sauces and Guinness Beer Brats and meatballs (Park n Shop, Jusco).

From Lativa comes Nelleulla chocolate flavoured with freeze dried fruit and lovely truffles coated with gold and filled with a range of flavours. The Taiwanese know how gold can help sell, and a company created a hand made nougat with a gold topping. Also from Taiwan for coffee lovers is a range of indigenous coffee with unusual flavours including sea salt coffee.

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2017/Hofex-HKCEC-9-May-2017/i-69VfnDC

Melbourne cheese makers That’s Amore Cheese showcased several cheeses including Drunken Buffalo (a matured Buffalo milk cheese encased in Nebbiolo grape skins and lees and matured for six months) and Secrets of the Forest (a handcrafted Buffalo milk cheese mixed with winter truffles and matured in wild hay for six months) both are wonderful cheeses with unique flavours and we hope to see both available locally soon.

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2017/HOFEX-HKCEC-11-May-2017/i-b8hfrGB

Not all of these are available now, but many should be in a retail or online store near you in the next few months.

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2017/Hofex-HKCEC-10-May-2017/i-cV3qt4C