雲腿蒸鷄，吊片蒸肉餅 (美心皇宮大酒樓) Steamed chicken with Chinese golden ham & steamed pork patty with dried squid by Maxim's Palace Restaurant Taikooshing, HK

 Tried ordering the dish on photo 1 many times but sold out.  I then called to reserve one.  That told why it was sold out that easily.  Glad that this one was made in such a classic way.  No fancy thing of XXX chicken plus YYY Chinese ham.  The 2nd dish is also a classic one and see how the original Cantonese steamed patty (the thickness and the just right juicy).  I really don't agree to those super thick patty as that would have a strange "suffocating" meat odour.  Don't know why those fusion "mini volcano" patty is such a talk of the town.

Consistently worst at Ruby Tuesday, Taikooshing HK

There are times we might make some X-file mistake of going back to places where we had some horrible time.  Last weekend I did such a X-file return to this place.  A one trip salad bar at HK$88 for some canned fruits and veggie in no-frills salad dressing.  The beef burger (HK$128) can be the more eatable one, but only the burger.  The fries is warm and too wet and oily.  The fish fingers - forget it.  It's soaked in the oil not deep fried.  The waitress kept on asking me to join their membership (payment of HK$250 for 3 months and getting 50% discount).  I kept on replying "no need".

2012 Autumn Review: Maxim's Palace restaurant Taikooshing HK

 4-5 years ago Maxim's group was really a pain to me with those contemporary fusion food.  The situation has turned back with more classic Cantonese dishes and cooking style.  Though the first one   (deep fried pig's knuckle in preserved tofu sauce) isn't very Cantonese but the way it was made is quite Cantonese.  The 2nd one is a very home cooking - steamed chicken with preserved veggie 沖菜蒸鷄.  The 3rd one is braised garoupa fin in casserole 班翅煲 - a very nice one and a classic cooking with roasted pork, dried mushroom and Chinese lettuce.

Maxim's Restaurant, Cityplaza phase II, Taikooshing, HK

This branch of Maxim's has proven a big step forward with their quality classic dishes. This time I tried their signature combo of giant garoupa (龍躉) in chunk slices stir fried with celery and belly/head stewed with garlic casserole (HK$298). The stir fried dish is so good that the fish meat is bouncy and juicy to mix with the refreshing celery light sweetness. The chef made a perfect light chicken stock dressing (玻璃獻) to seal the stir fried. As you can see, no heavy sauce is left on the plate. The stew belly/head casserole was made in a very classic way that some roasted pork was put to mix with the lightly fried garlic. So good to go with steamed rice. I ordered the soup of the day - winter melon, barley (and 茨實) with pork - good for the summer time. Another delightful dish is that sweet and sour spare ribs. I prefer this one with spare ribs to pork, since the spare ribs delivers a better aroma for the dish. The sweet and sour sauce is pretty good that it's not heavily sweet, and deep fried spare ribs was still very crispy.

Nha Trang, Tai Koo Shing, HK

When the old Vietnamese restaurant closed down and the decoration partition had the name "Nha Trang" on it, I asked Nha Trang Wanchai if that's a genuine branch. I got a fond answer "yes". So much looking forward to this new branch. Unfortunately just only a month after it's open, some scandalous news broke out that a group of people got food poisoning and it was found out the shop put some food outside the back lane of the shop. The good part is that I can come here without waiting in line since the news broke out.

After the try, I will only come here again for the beef broth noodle and the Bun (dried noodle with sweet sour fish sauce). Those are still kept at Nha Trang's standard. The cucumber was sliced too thin that it lost the original aroma. The squid is a bit too overcooked. The fish cake is so so.

After typhoon no. 10

We haven't had such a severe typhoon over 13 years. Last night almost every family was busy with cleaning the water pressed thru' the tiny crack of the windows. This morning, we have seen half of the trees pulled down.

Once (the last) in a lifetime - Itacho Sushi, Taikooshing HK

Didn't expect I'd get some nice sushi from this shop. However, the shop often has a long line that aroused my curiosity. Think it's no harm to give a try and the answer is the last try. The sushi is not so bad but it's not worth waiting in line. However, the side dishes like salad, grilled salmon bone...etc. First the grilled salmon bone isn't grilled. It's pan fried and super oily. The deep fried dishes are horrible. Cheap oil used but charged not cheap. Another "forget it".

2012 Spring review: 八方雲集 (Altogether), Quarry Bay, HK

This shop may not be the best in making dumpling but it's the best to me in terms of price and food freshness and cooking in Taiwanese style. I found out a set of pig's intestine soup, 5 dumplings and a soy bean drink at just HK$30. Need to update our overseas friends that right now the food price has been at around 20-30% increase due to the minimum wage implementation. So taking a lunch at a local restaurant cost about HK$40-50 (was HK$25-35). Besides, most waiters and waitresses are always having a black face. Why? Their bosses can't afford so many minimum wage staff and so need to ask 1 staff to work for 2 staffs' job.

So I really get amazed at this shop for keeping the $30 set and yet the quality and service aren't bad, and much beyond my expectation. The pig intestine's noodle soup is my favourite but almost none of my friends would take it. So it's good for me to have this set by myself. Another remark is on their food freshness and freshly made on order. Their beef noodle is also very nice with quite 1 big carrot cut and turnip and a big veggie, as well as 1 big tendon (very well cooked), big brisket and beef chunk. Note that the soup is very authentic Taiwanese in a "hot burnt red oil" soup. Though I don't like it too oily (I would take that out carefully), it's very aromatic in the soup. So it's just HK$39 for such a big bowl of renowned Taiwanese "hot burnt" beef noodle soup (and with some healthy veggie fiber). Highly recommended to get some low cost nice food during this tough time of super jump inflation.

Pizza Express Tai Koo Shing HK

This shop often requires advance reservation or you would wait in line. Or during weekend, I would come here earlier for a table that I need to return at 8pm. Their pizza dough and bread are so good that I wouldn't leave any on the plate. This time I tried their chicken green salad. Crunchy veggie, nice balsamic dressing with juicy tender chicken filet. Then on the photo 2, I had a meat ball dish. Another impressive dish. The tomato sauce is excellent, not too sweet and not too salty, and it is so tomato. Photo 3 is a truffle with mushroom pizza. Needless to say, not a single piece was left on the plate. The dessert is Chocolate cake on the left, fig ice cream in the middle and mini dough with chocolate spread on the right. The fig ice cream is so aromatic with the dried fig flavour. The other 2 are also very nice.