[Review 3753] Hairy crab delights at New Shanghai @ 新滬坊 New Shanghai

16/10/2014
新滬坊 New Shanghai
灣仔港灣道1號香港會議展覽中心1樓
1/F, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, 1 Harbour Road, Wan Chai
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/hairy-crab-delights-at-new-shanghai-e2399214

Every time I go to the exhibition centre I am always busy looking at the leaflets to notice any restaurants here.
New Shanghai on the first floor near the entrance.

The restaurant was spacious with high ceilings that you forget you are at the exhibition centre.

That night we had some special dishes from their hairy crab menu.

Here was what we had.

We started off with the soup.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
蟹粉白玉羹
Winter Melon Thick Soup with Hairy Crab
 This was a filling soup with a scoop of wintermelon mash in the middle.
It was warming and light with pieces of crab roe in it which was further enhanced by the vinegar.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Steamed hairy crab:
I really liked this place because they helped you the crab.
Within a flash, the crabs were ready to eat.
The crab roe was sinfully delicious just like sticky egg yolk, while the crabmeat was sweet and made even more appetizing when it was dipped in vinegar.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
湖光泛影 This was an assortment of Sautéed Egg White with Fresh Crab Roe, sautéed Mandarin Fish Slices and crispy prawns coated in salted egg yolk.

Started off with the mandarin fish slices which were silky and delicious, then I had the sauteed egg white which was topped generously with crab roe and crab meat.
I finished off with the crispy prawns which had the strongest flavour coated in delicious fragrant and crispy salty egg yolk that was not too salty.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Fried Hairy Crab with Bean Paste and Glutinous Rice Cake
When this was served, you could smell the lovely aroma of bean paste, each glutinous rice cake was thickly covered in this deliciously sweet and savoury sauce paired with crab roe rich crabs.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Poached garland chrysanthemum vegetables:

I loved the vegetables because it was in delicious broth with shreds of Chinese ham yet the grassy taste of garland chrysanthemum came through.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Steamed Pork Dumpling with Fresh Crab Roe:

The dumplings were perfect with lots of broth inside and fresh minced pork filling.
When I took a bite, the broth oozed out.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
ginger tea:

Ginger tea is always served with hairy crabs, it had a nice warming fiery ginger taste without being too sweet.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Dumplings in ginger tea soup:

To finish off, dessert was dumplings in ginger soup. The ginger soup was similar to the ginger tea but the fiery taste was amplified.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★

[Review 3752] fishy and stingy @ 福助居日本料理

15/10/2014
福助居日本料理
鰂魚涌海光街11號漢威大廈地下6號舖
Shop 6, G/F, Hon Way Mansion, 11 Hoi Kwong Street, Quarry Bay
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/fishy-and-stingy-e2399030

Don't bother getting takeaways because they prefer you to dine there as it costs double the price.
For the assorted sashimi, you can see they are really generous, but the problem was that the sashimi was not that fresh.
The egg was too sweet and the rice was too hard.
There was only one piece of tuna so that must be really expensive.

[Review 3751] 666 @ Pizzeria Jacomax Jacomax

15/10/2014
Pizzeria Jacomax  Jacomax
鰂魚涌芬尼街2D號僑英大廈地下3號舖
Shop 3, G/F., Kiu Ying Building, 2D Finnie Street, Quarry Bay
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/666-e2398804

Halloween is drawing closer so I had the Halloween set which costs a devilish $666 that includes chicken wings, garlic bread, four non alcoholic drinks, ONE Halloween pizza, pasta and a dessert.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
There are three different Halloween pizzas: Ghost house pizza, Spider web and spooky eyes!!

Ghost house pizza :

The ghost pizza was the simplest but most delicious because it had 'Nduja' which is a spicy, spreadable pork sausage from Italy.
It was a salty and meaty chili sauce which really gave life to a dead pizza that had so many ghosts on it!!

Spider web:
The spider web has ham, olives and mushrooms

Spooky eyes:

The spooky eyes has salami, olives and mascarpone on a charcoal dough pizza.
I liked this one because of the creamy mascarpone and smoked salami.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Torture:

A plate of torture!!!
Delicious al-dente pasta with a thneringer sausage and pieces of bacon.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Dessert:
The Halloween feast was finished with a burning dessert, crisp pizza slices paired with icecream.

★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★

[Review 3750] Sensational modern Sichuan food @ 霸王川莊 Sichuan House

14/10/2014
霸王川莊 Sichuan House
中環威靈頓街2-8號威靈頓廣場M88 7樓
7/F, M88, Wellington Place, 2-8 Wellington Street, Central
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/sensational-modern-sichuan-food-e2398803

Previously tried King's Taste which is under the same group as Sichuan House and I really enjoyed the food so I knew the food was going to be great here.

When you sit down, they will give you Eight treasure tea which has eight nourishing ingredients such as wolfberries, dried longan, dates, Chrysanthemum flowers and more.
The tea is seasonal so it changes to suit the season.

The tea is Jasmine based and there is a sweet aftertaste with a hint of Chrysanthemum to soothe your palate after eating spicy food.

There were various of appetizers such a spicy cashew nuts and broad beans to start your hunger.

Here was what we had.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
奇味粒粒酥* $98:
Crispy pork jowls

These were cubes of pork neck meat which were leaner than I anticipated.
They had a sweet bite followed by fragrant Sichuan peppercorn which slowly came through.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
蒜泥白肉卷香蔬* $108:
pork belly in crushed garlic and coriander herb

I don't normally eat Sichuan style pork belly slices because they are fat but here they were paired with a special coriander from Sichuan that does not have such a strong aroma.
This light coriander aroma was great for balancing the fatty pork.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
川莊口水雞*$138:
mouth watering chicken

The chicken was great because it was boneless and each piece was on a cocktail stick which made them easy to eat!!
They were tender with a fragrant spicy taste that did not linger.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
老四川燈影牛肉 * $108:
old Sichuan translucent beef slices


These were sweet crispy beef slices which had a spicy aftertaste.
The beef was frozen and sliced by the Chef which shows their fines skills.
Although nowadays you can buy laboratory microtomes to thinly slice things.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
冰鎮鮮天麻 $118:
Chilled fresh gastrodia elata slices

Gastrodia elata is a herb normally found in soups in dried form.
Here they serve them like sashimi and I recommend ordering it because they are hard to come by.
There were a choice of two sauces but I liked trying them without sauces to see what they taste like natrually.
Without the sauce, the smell was similar to bamboo shoots and the texture and taste were like water chestnuts with a slight bitterness.


★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
茶香雞鴨戀 $158:
tea flavoured duck with chicken filling


This was duck stuffed with chicken which reminds me of Turducken.
Turducken is a deboned chicken stuffed into a deboned duck, which is in turn stuffed into a deboned turkey.
The one here was just chicken and duck hence it can be called a Ducken!!!!!!!
The duck part was crispy and delicious with tasty chicken pattie adhered to it.
On the side, there were fried iron buddha tea leaves which were crispy and sweet.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
成都水煮桂花魚 **** $288:
fish fillets in hot chili oil

The spiciness is not as spicy as it looks and the fish fillets were silky and smooth with a strong fish taste that you can still taste even though it is drenched in chili oil.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
郫縣紅油豆瓣魚 ** $248:
pi county fish in douban sauce

The fish was chunky with tasty bean sauce that was not cloyingly sweet.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
內江乾燒京遼參 * $288香辣
Neijiang Fried Sea Cucumber

The sea cucumber was soft and delicious complemented by stirfried garlic and mince.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
巴蜀香辣爆蝦球 *** $220:
Bashu spicy prawn

When it came, you could see a dish of glowing fiery red prawns in chili powder and I could feel my face radiate. I did not try it because I know I will be in trouble the next day.
The other people tried it and said it was extremely hot!! Phew!!
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
紫蘇蒜香牛肉飯$128
Fried Rice with Beef and Perilla Leaves

Didn't try this because I was leaving some room for dessert.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
滋潤香菓潤喉露 $48:
Malva nut sweet soup


It was my first time trying the Malva nut which was grounded and served as a dessert with orange peel in it.
The texture of the Malva nut was like agar and bird's nest jelly and the taste was exactly like marmalade in a thin watery dessert form.
I found it interesting as well as delicious because I have not had anything like this before so I would recommend this dish to people who like marmalade and it would be great if they had other flavours like apple.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
拔絲香蕉 $88:
Candied banana fritters

This is basically a China town dessert with fruit covered in batter and deep fried coated with caramelized sugar.
The Oriental version in Hong Kong involves pulling caramel silk which is why in Chinese it is called butsee meaning pulling silk!
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Can't wait to take my expat friends there.

[Review 3749] Bingo it's Bingco from the Food Expo 2014! @ Bingco

14/10/2014
Bingco
天后留仙街3號地下A2舖
Shop A2, G/F, 3 Lau Sin Street, Tin Hau
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/bingo-its-bingco-from-the-food-expo-2014-e2398769


Bingo it's Bingco from the Food Expo 2014!
2014-10-14  729 瀏覽
Bingco got the most attention at the recent food expo because of the huge long extruded icecream cones that could be made in any shape.

[Photos from Food and Expo 2014]
Now you can get them at Tin Hau, just left of the MTR exit.
The display J cones look like deep fried fish gas bladders (炸鱼鳔)!
When I went, the cones were not ready and the media were there doing a shoot so I left and visited another day.
They didn't have any cones that day so I got the softserve.

There were two flavours: banana and milk or vitasoy which happen to be both that I don't like.

Out of the two I chose vitasoy because banana usually has an artificial taste.

★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Vitasoy softserve:
The vitasoy softserve was actually quite nice because it tasted like a creamy version of vitasoy and it was not too sweet.
I would have preferred plain vitasoy softserve because I found the cereal and ovaltine powder too distracting.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★

[Review 3748] Reggae and food in Central @ Rummin' Tings

11/10/2014
Rummin' Tings
中環蘇豪荷里活道28號地舖
G/F., 28 Hollywood Road, Soho, Central
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/reggae-and-food-in-central-e2397850

As my town was no where near Birmingham in the UK I did not get to try the Caribbean joints there which served the basics such as curry goat, beef stew and jerk chicken.

Finally tried my first dose of Caribbean food in Sai Kung, a famous Caribbean restaurant that initially started out as a private kitchen.
Since then I have been addicted to Caribbean cuisine so when this opened I had to try it out.

Rummin' Tings is a bar pumping amazing Reggae music with a variety of rum cocktails.
I only tried the saltfish accra that night because I already had dinner.
It was crispy on the outside and soft on the inside with a delicious piping hot filling revved up by the spicy sauce and tamarind sauce.
I couldn't quite taste the saltfish but you could feel the silky fish texture in it.
◎ⓢⓤⓟⓔⓡⓢⓤⓟⓔⓡⓖⓘⓡⓛ◎
The bill: $70