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NiccoloM
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Name: Perry
Gender: Male
Interests: Hockey, softball/baseball, team sports in general, skiing, rollerblading.
Expertise: Managing various sport pools. So if you want insights into the NHL and MLB, you might want to contact me.
Occupation: Graduate Student
Industry: Education/Research
Message: message me
Member Since:
8/9/2005
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| 重慶森林 ChungKing ExpressThis is the first time I've been to Chungking Mansions. That place has a reputation of being the safe haven for criminals of all nationalities. It was also notorious for numerous murders and robberies inside the buildings, and it was also known for being the place of one of the biggest fires inside a building in Hong Kong.
Apparently, everything has changed in recent years, when a five-year building renovationl program was completed. 208 closed-circuit cameras were installed, so it seemed to be a much safer place.
The restaurant I went to was Khyber Pass. It turned out that everything was just average, but it was nonetheless an interesting adventure into a world-famous building that was once featured by the Time magazine.
The following is the lamb masala. It was really spicy (as in lots of spice, not the hot kind of spicy), but there wasn't enough meat. There was also the butter chicken, which was really creamy.
The best part is the naan. They have many flavours of them, such as cheese, garlic, green onion, etc.. Plain naan is good enough to go with curry sauce, but these flavoured ones are good to eat even without curry sauce. The fried rice seemed to have a lot of spices in it, but somehow it wasn't as flavourful as the naan.
The bill for 4 adults and a child was just under $400. It was probably what you'd get for what you paid.
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| This is when advertisements backfire. Fatburger
灣仔皇后大道東202號 QRE Plaza 地舖
First of all, I didn't like the burger that much.
I know this food blog is supposed to be used for good food, but the irony in the following picture makes this entry an exception.
If your burger is that small, you really shouldn't put such a magnified and glorified version of its picture on the tray cover sheet. It really makes your own product look bad -- real bad.
The burger tastes alright, but it is not worth HKD$40, mostly due to its size for being not bigger than a McDonald's burger. For that price, I'd rather have McDonald's. The combo costs HKD$65, includes a pop and a side (fat fries, normal-cut fries or onion rings)
To be fair, though, their fat fries are pretty good. I compare it with those from Red Robins in Vancouver. I don't like those from RR because there's too much "stuff" inside. It breaks the contrast between the crispy outer layer and softer centre, and makes it too filling at the same time. The balance is just right for the Fatburger thick fries.
The onion rings, on the other hand, were warm at best when served. It could have been much better if it was fresh.
At least they give free refills for the pop. They better do if they charge me that much for that burger!
It's disappointing for a burger joint that have people lining up to towards the entrance. Probably should have gone to the Shake'em Buns, which was a few streets down, as originally planned.
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| ... And I ate my bowl!In an attempt to move back to Hong Kong, I came back in mid-December, and I tasted some food that I've never tasted before.
The first place happened the day after I arrived. Thanks to Yumi's awesome recommendation, we went to a French private kitchen (私房菜). It has got to be the most romantic dinner I've ever had. The restaurant was dimly lit as expected of any French restaurants, with nice decorations on the walls, including photos of the two very cute puppies that runs around the restaurant. It's a quiet place except when the puppies bark. There was also a Christmas tree in the corner. That flat seats about 20 people at most, and you also have to tell them about your choices of courses ahead of time, therefore you must call ahead of time and make reservations.
And I have no idea how much the six-course dinner cost, because Yumi knows the owner and secretly paid. Thanks Yumi!
(From the info I found on the internet, it costs a bit over $400 per person.)
The Legend Concept 地址: 灣仔皇后大道東72-76號3樓3A室 Address: Flat A, third floor, 72-76 Queen's Road East, Wan Chai, Hong Kong.
訂座熱線 (reservation): 9028-0696/3171-5498 Piann Fung (A lot of websites still list its location on Russell Street. They have moved to the current location.)
First dish was an appetizer made with smoked salmon. Next up was some foie gras. I normally don't eat animal guts, but foie gras does taste interesting, even though I don't think I've developed a taste of it just yet. It had a crispy skin layer, but once it's broken, the liver just oozes out as if it melted. Third up was this soup with two big prawns in it.
Next up was an octopus (I think) dumpling. Its cross section can be seen in the next picture.
The white one is my dumpling as I gave Yumi the missing half, and Yumi shared her fried scallop thing with me. The black stuff on top was caviar. Under the scallop, there was some delicious paste made with vegetable and herb that complimented the scallop's taste very well.
The main courses were a rack of lamb for me and one quarter of a fried goose for Yumi. They were both cooked to perfection... Of course... The chef, Andy, used to work in a hotel under a French master.
The last item in our four-hour get-together was the dessert, which consists of some vanilla ice-cream and a piece of chocolate cake.
The only missing thing was my piece of luggage. They left it in Vancouver, causing me to look pretty bad that night, as I had my airplane clothes on, without contact lenses, and I had to borrow my cousin's hair spray. The luggage arrived while I was at the restaurant.
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Next up was Kenneth and Florence's wedding. Every dish at Conrad was great, including the 海虎翅 shark fin. But what caught my attention was this stuffed seashell in Portuguese sauce. It looked awesome, smelled great, and tasted delicious. It had the chewy bits of seashell meat among other spices. Picking the last bit of food from inside the shell was fun.
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Next up was Christmas Day at Jolie's home. She was pregnant at the time, just a few days away from giving birth, that's why she had to celebrate Christmas at home. She has since given birth to a second boy. And this handsome and smart kid, Trevor, has himself a new baby brother.
The following is the food that we had. There were the pasta, a salad, and some chicken wings. Then there was this truffle (黑松露菌) pizza from Pizza Hut. The truffle is supposed to be something valuable, so I was quite surprised to find it on this vegetarian pizza. The best thing about it is the huge amount of cheese...... I didn't expect that I would like a vegetarian pizza...
I'd like to thank Jolie and her family here for rescuing me from what would otherwise be a lonely Christmas.
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Now we're in 2009. In fact, this was from two days ago. Jolie, Trevor and I went to the APM, and ended up in Genki Sushi for afternoon tea. Their $39 tea set is very good value. It consists of three items: five choices on a four-piece combo of sushi, three choices on a small side-dish, and a choice of unagi-don or udon.
The surprise, though, was what you can add for $9 with the purchase of the tea combo. I don't know how this can happen, but apparently there exists some sort of "twin scallop", and I couldn't tell if that white stuff in between was real or artificial.
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The last item is fresh from tonight. The curry in a bread bowl, from 澳門翠苑茶餐廳 in 旺角熟食中心. Bread bowl in Hong Kong... Wow. And this stall in a relatively-dirty Chinese food court actually somehow made it to #2 of the openrice.com fan rating. Very special indeed. The combo costs $43 (+$2 for cold drink). It comes with a bowl of Russian broth, a bowl of curry sauce for dipping the bread and drink.
 
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