Sunday, October 25, 2009

The Patio, Renaissance Kowloon (was New World Hotel), Hong Kong

The Patio of New World Hotel was one of my frequently visited place in New World shopping mall. My best friend and I went there almost weekend at our high school time til my 1st job. The other old places are Patisserie of Kowloon Hotel, Cafe of MO HK, Cafe of Plaza Hotel (Causeway Bay) (now Park Lane) and Cafe of Hyatt Regency. So now after almost 25 years, this restaurant still has its old name "the Patio" which is what they have outside the cafe. I am somewhat emotional when I stepped out of the life into the lobby. It's the place my best friend and I used to hang around, talk about everything from an insect to the Universe. Now this time I came here with another 2 best friends.

1/2. the entrance.

3. The lunch buffet is very cheap HK$98+. Though the variety is not that wide, in terms of food quality, everything is quite at above average. Green fresh and chilled enough. The bread roll is nice too. Cold cut and the common sushi are all pretty good. 4. The hot food choices are not much but taste-wise they are all very nice though the fried rice and the duck are a bit dry.

5. your own choices of noodle - the noodle has 6 varieties of noodles and lots of ingredients for your choices. The ingredients are very fresh and the soup base is good. So this little thing tells the chef is concerned about the food quality rather than the variety, which I prefer so. If the food quality is not good, the variety is just to upset you even wider. 6. I tried more and more bread and the Indian dishes are good too though I am not into Indian food much.

7. The mango pastry on the left is awesome - crispy layer with nice mango mouse. Carrot cake on the right has a very nice aroma of carrot. Both NY cheese cake and soft blue berry cheese cake are good too. 8. red wine fruit cocktail - a nice mix of red wine with fruit. Not too much wine and you can taste the fruity aroma.

9. Remember what it used to be? Regent.

*10 amendment - got told I made a mistake on referring this tallest bldg. on the comments section but I don't intend to delete the original mistake as below. Need to confess I made such a mistake rather than immediately deleting it like I have never done so. Sorry about the confusion. Actually the tall bldg. in this photo is called Masterpiece and the below section is where the new Hyatt Regency is.

10. OK, this is the talk of the town recently in HK - HK$70,000 per square foot and if the apt. is 2,000 sq. ft., that means the beautiful bill would be HK$1.4 billion (US$17 million). I really doubt why the HK Gov't tries to cap the 60% limit for mortgage. If they are more down to earth and checking what the clientele is, they shouldn't do such a silly thing. Those buyers are mostly from China (Shanghai) and they pay the full amount and needn't to get mortgage. In their own dictionaries, there is no such word as mortgage. What they want is an easy ID of HK and good for their business travelling with a HK passport. Besides, lately there have been a no. of families' tragedies in Shanghai. Some kids of those rich Shanghai tycoons died in their luxury mansions, e.g. a cute girl got pressed by a 2 ton of marble wall in the living room and died. Her father was totally devastated from losing his girl. He didn't even think at such a luxury mansion, those marble walls are fixed with a $1 glue. So all those negative news on the bad quality of those luxury mansions turn out to be something horrible, it just pushes them to turn their eyes to HK. Those Gov't officers should look into the whole thing from every angle, not just thinking capping the mortgage would help.

14 comments:

Stella said...

I know exactly how emotional and sentimental you are at the "Patio". This has brought you lots of precious moment memory. This is also a bonding with your good old friends. And it is also part of your growing path with your foot prints there.
This is exactly how I feel as soon as I stepped into the HK airport. Lots of overwhelming memories.
Lunch buffet here at $11 US looks like a good deal.

in the sea said...

Yes, it's quite a good deal though the choices are not much.

Anonymous said...

if HK's Donald Duck is capable, then the central government wouldn't choose him, HK's grandpa just want a Queen's Cinema shoe polish boy (and his fellow shoe polish boys) to deliver central concern and orders :(

the Donald Duck team has brain? they r just good at shoe polishing (since our British era) that's all

Donald Duck is nothing less than a small scale Taiwan ex-President Chen, just a lower IQ one

in the sea said...

People are getting more disappointed with his latest performances, like arguing English grammar on an inappropriate occasion and urging people to buy more "energy saving" light bulbs. If it's mainly on environmental purpose, why don't it be just on "turning air-conditioner at a higher temperature", "drive less"....etc.

Thailand Club said...

pls tell Donald Duck and his shoe polishing team that speaking good EN does not make a good living (anymore), we hv to speak good Mandarin instead, so next time he should show off his CN grammar

don't believe?

c even Secretary Hillary and the President had to borrow some CN ancient wisdom phrases to please State Chairman Hu on his latest State visit to the US

in the sea said...

Yes, some foreigners study Confucius even better than any of us. BTW, he didn't write nor speak proficient English. Then those senior officers speak half-salty and half-tasteless Mandarin.

Stella said...

Both Sea and TC have excellent and to-the-point comments on Donald Duck.
I cannot agree more on what you guys commented on Donald Duck, Hiliary, and the Obama team. Hiliary and Obama are smart enough to use some Chinese terms to please our Grand-Pa in China.

Thank you SEA for showing me the talk of the town, a $70,000 per-square-foot mansion means an average office staff needs to work his full life at least 17 times in order to buy one.(This is assuming he is a high paid office officer instead of a regular clerk.)

in the sea said...

SS, when the TV journalist interviewed a couple who are a doctor and a lawyer, making their total earning more than HK$100k a month, they claimed that they can't even buy a small apt. in down town area. So the irresponsible answer from Donald Duck is "then go to buy apts. in the out skirt of the city area. If it's spoken by a friend, it is ok, but considering it's the CEO of HK Gov't., he shouldn't say such.

BTW, another interesting story is now on his brother's wife who took the advantage for getting back her lost money from Lehman's brother fund before all the others get it. The even worst reply from the CEO's office is "oh, we just relayed the message for her to get a "partial" compensation. So what is "partial" - 99% can still be called "partial". I am not sure if any of their family members would get the gift coupons from Sogo HK.... :)

Anonymous said...

oh sorry we shouldn't compare Donald Duck to Chen Shui-bian, Chen is even one grade higher in IQ and morality, actually that shoe polishing boy is more like Bian's Wife (Wu Shu-chen)

Stella said...

Duck's stupid conversation mentioned in this blog was shown on Jade Channel here(about the doctor/lawyer cannot buy the "ho" mansion and he told them to buy at some remote out-skirt area.....).

Good that HK has Duck and Taiwan has Bien to match our Bush in the US.

Hi SEA,
I am just reading the "East Weekly" Magazine tonight(free magazine by "Sing Tao" every Sunday comes with Sing Tao Newspaper). There is an article about the sky-high "ho" mansion price. Is the HK $70,000 per-square-foot apt you mentioned here referring to the West Half Mountain's "Kong Duck Road"? As this article I am reading now talked about this one. The developer is Li Siu Gate. They said this is like the bubble in LA during 2004-2006. But I think this one in HK is way bigger the LA's bubble.

Anonymous said...

Mr. sea, it should be the top floor 3 floor apartment above W Hotel, called 天璽, not this area. That apartment is the no. 4 tallest apartment in the world.

Anonymous said...

I just saw your below post about hyatt. The tallest building lower part is the new hyatt and above is called masterpiece but it is also very very expensive. I think the top floor is also super expensive if it is open for sale, maybe more than $70,000 one foot.

in the sea said...

Many thanks Anonymous 6:23/37. Actually I was told by my friend when I asked about the tallest bldg. in Hanoi Road, and got told "oh that's the place that the news talked about the 70k sq. foot". OK, will rectify it.

Anonymous said...

That's ok. Mr. Sea, the discussion here is on the non-responsible of our leader in HK. Also, that building company can't make the floor to skip so many floors. If it is 43 floors, no need to change it to 88 floors. How can the firemen check which floor is on fire if they skip so many floors.