Monday 20 December 2010

Banana "bruffins"


We were recently left with a lot of ripe bananas and I couldn't quite face another banana in my morning cereal so A decided to make a banana loaf from Mary Berry's "Baking Bible".  Unfortunately we realised we didn't have any bread tins in the house so these "bruffins" (bread muffins) were born.

You'll need:

100 g softened butter
175 g caster sugar
2 large eggs
2 ripe bananas
225 self-raising flour
1 level teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons milk

(Makes 12 muffins)

1.  Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees celcius.  Line a 12 x muffin tray with muffin paper cups.

2.  Place all the measured ingredients into a mixing bowl and beat for about 2 minutes until the mixture is just evenly combined.  Be careful not to overbeat the muffin mixture otherwise they will taste a little tough.  Divide the mixture up into the 12 muffin cups evenly.

3.  Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 20 mins until the tops of the muffins are just golden and they are well risen.  A fine skewer inserted should come out clean.  Leave to cool in the muffin trays.

You can serve these with vanilla ice-cream as a dessert or have a couple for breakfast with a tall glass of milk. 

Enjoy! :)


Sunday 19 December 2010

It's just so pretty when it snows

In London ...

We woke up to a blanket of snow on Saturday, which continued throughout the day.  It looked more like a french ski resort than NW London.  Somehow the snow just makes everything look so clean and enchanting, a bit of a winter wonderland.

Very very pretty and great day to stomp outdoors with my mukluks. 


A bit more and we would have gotten out the snowboards I think!

Saturday 30 October 2010

Macadamia nut & white chocolate brownies - recipe

Chocci's Macadamia Nut & White Chocolate Brownies 

This recipe is from Ottolenghi's first cookbook "The Cookbook".  So far I'm really loving the cookbook as the recipes are really spot on.  Apparently the key with baking brownies is not to overbake them.  This means you have to take it out earlier than you think it will be done to avoid it turning into into a cake. 


Ingredients:
  • 300g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
  • 200g unsalted butter, plus some extra for greasing the pan
  • 280g plain flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 free-range eggs
  • 230g caster sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 200g macadamia nuts, toasted for 5 mins
  • 200g white chocolate chips (or chocolate broken into pieces)
Steps:
  1. Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees celcius. 
  2. Brush a 20 cm tin square pan or similar sized round pan with melted butter and line with baking paper.
  3. Melt the dark chocolate with the butter in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water until fully melted.  The bowl should not touch the water, and take the chocolate butter mixture off the heat once it has melted.  If it get too hot, then the brownies can get a bit greasy when it is baked. 
  4. Whisk the eggs, sugar and vanilla essence in a large bowl until just combined.
  5. Add the melted chocolate butter mixture and mix lightly.
  6. Fold in the sifted flour.
  7. Add the macadamia nuts and chocolate chips.
  8. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes or until a skewer comes out with gooey crumbs (not completely dry).  The top of the brownies should be completely dry.
These were my first batch of brownies and when they came out, they were a bit on the greasy side.  But I let them rest overnight and they firmed up very nicely to a rather dense fudgy texture on the next day.  They were so rich I had to cut them into small squares as I was worried people would OD on chocolate. 

For my next batch I'm thinking of adding raspberries, and maybe almonds or hazelnuts.

What's your favourite flavour of brownies?  Let me know!

Wednesday 27 October 2010

Macadamia nut & white chocolate brownies

I'm not sure whether I've never made brownies before yesterday.  After reading a couple of my baking books I discovered that the recipe wasn't as complex as other seemingly simple cakes, like sponges!  Recipe to follow soon.  I promise.  
(Source of recipe: Ottolenghi - The Cookbook)

Macadamia nut & white chocolate brownies
Stack of brownies, which disappeared pretty quickly. Into my tummy.

Monday 25 October 2010

Bakerella Cake Pops

I had no idea what cake pops were when they popped out on my screen this morning, turns out they are gorgeous lollipops that you can stick onto top of your cake.

Bakerella makes these fantastic lil cake pops out with cake, melted candy and fun candy bits like sugar pearls for the sheep below.  Super creative and very cute!

Bahhhhh!


Made with mini and regular sized oreos, how cool is that?

Sunday 24 October 2010

New addition to our family

Fire engine red cast iron Le Creuset casserole pot.  We've put it to use already, but more about that another day!  


It's just so pretty!

Wednesday 20 October 2010

Top 10 tips for food photography

Some really useful tips on food photography:
I particularly like the one about keeping the background clean, I think I definitely need to do that more often!
Sof,

Tuesday 19 October 2010

Mist, Japanese ramen, Hong Kong


Since our trip to Hokkaido in February this year, A and I have been trying to perfect the ni-tamago recipe. A fellow food blogger Chubby Hubby had helpfully posted a recipe which we tried out a few times.

But sometimes you just want to have it without the rigamole of cooking it.  Mist, an up market ramen restaurant in Hong Kong (is that an oxymoron?) gives this satisfaction.

It's the only place in Hong Kong so far where I've had ni-tamago cooked properly, a soft boiled egg marinated with the yolk still gooey inside.  Apparently the ingredients have been sourced from all over the place, with the eggs from Toyama and soy sauce from Chiba.  Well whatever it is, it works and the broth is flavoursome and the ramen tastes ... as good as ramen has ever tasted.

The menu is not cheap at around HK$100 per bowl of ramen but I think its worth every penny.  Try their ramen sushi as well, it's an interesting take on sushi ... who says you can't make sushi out of anything other than rice?

Mist
4 Sun Wui Road, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong  
+852 2881 5006
Reservations recommended 
http://www.mist.com.hk

 

Sunday 17 October 2010

Creamy mushroom puffs

Mushroom puffs with quail egg & thyme

"I think we have a winner!" declared my friend D as he munched his way through this little bite sized canape.  This was the same afternoon tea that I made the prawns with garlic aioli.  "Yes", he nodded, "this is my favourite".

I'd made this mushroom canape many years ago but using short crust pastry as a base.  We already had a strawberry tart on the menu so I decided to use puff pastry instead, which makes this recipe quite similar to the mushroom vol au vents that had their heydays in the 80s.  The good thing is that this version is simpler to make. I like simple.

This recipe makes you about 12 of these little puffs. 

You will need:
  • read made puff pastry, one large sheet (around 30 cm x 30 cm)
  • cookie cutter, around 5-6 cm.  You can use larger puffs of course but
  • regular sized muffin tray
  • 10 large brown mushrooms, sliced
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1 large sprig of parsley
  • 1 small sprig of thyme 
  • 6 quail eggs
  • 4 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1/2 cup of cream
  • 2 tablespoons milk
  •  salt & pepper to taste

Puff pastry shells

You can find the frozen puff pastry in the frozen section of most supermarkets.  It's either rolled up so it comes like cling wrap which you can unroll or flat sheets.  I find that London has the rolled up ones, whereas in Australia they tend to come as flat packs.  Both work fine but with the rolled up variety the important thing is to wait until it's defrosted before you unroll otherwise they will break pretty easily.  I usually let them sit out for about 10-15 mins before I need to use it.  That said, if you leave it too long they will completely defrost and getting a bit soggy which can be hard to handle.

To make the puff pastry shells, cut out the round shapes of the puff pastry with your cookie cutter.  You can use a plain round one or a "scalloped" one shown below.  I had no idea the curly edged ones were called "scalloped" until A looked it up for me but there you go.  Brush the muffin trays with some of the olive oil and place your round puff pastry into each muffin hole, pushing down so it makes a nice little cup shape.  Brush the puff pastry with a little milk.  This will give it the nice golden colour as it bakes.

[Note: At this stage, you can either place the mushroom mixture on top of the puffy pastry (which will help weigh the pastry down, but means your pastry won't be as crisp), or line the pastry with baking paper and baking beans/rice and "blind bake".  I tried the latter but the puff pastry was too strong and puffed up anyway!  I would just let the puff pastry puff up which is kinda fun, and then press it down as described below to create the cavity you need to add the mixture. ]

Place in a pre-heated oven (170 degrees celcius) and bake for 10 mins or until light golden brown.  Now you'll find that it has completely puffed up.  We want to create a hole in the middle of the puff where you want to place the mushroom mixture. So using a spoon or other round heavy object which will leave about half to one cm rim around the pastry shell (I used the top of my wine stopper), push down the middle so that you create a bowl shape.

Mushroom filling

Pan fry the sliced onions in hot olive oil with the chopped garlic and parsley until the mushrooms are nice and golden brown.  Add the cream and cook for another 10 mins until you get a thick consistency, add the salt & pepper to taste.

Boil the quail eggs for 3 mins and peel like normal hard boiled eggs, or 1 mins for a soft runny yolk. Slice in half.  Be careful to spoon the quail eggs gently into the pan of boiling water and not to cook them for too long otherwise they will implode, the shells are incredibly thin.  You'll see in the picture below that I had that accident with a few of my eggs!



Putting it all together

This is my favourite part.  Spoon the mushroom mixture into the puff pastry shell until it is just full.  Top with the halved quail egg and a sprig of thyme.  Voila!  Ready to be served.

What I like about this canape is that the puff pastry is incredibly light but when you bite into it you get this burst of creamy herby mushrooms.  The quail egg on top adds an extra richness and luxe factor as a canape.

King prawn toast with whole grain mustard aioli


Perfect for afternoon tea or canapes
This was a bit of an experiment for an afternoon tea we had at our place recently.  The whole recipe is very simple though, and will only take about 20 mins to put together.

Ingredients:
(makes 12)

  • 6 pieces of sliced bread (I used white but you could use wholemeal)
  • a scalloped cookie cutter around 5-6 cm
  • 12 pieces of cooked king prawn (they came pre-cooked from my supermarket but you can gently cook them until they are pink if you can't find the cooked variety)
  • 1 cucumber, thinly sliced into 3-4 mm slices
  • sprigs of fresh parsley to decorate
For the aioli: 
  • 1/2 cup mayonnaise
  • 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  • 2 tablespoons whole grain mustard
  • 2 table spoons lemon juice
  • salt & pepper to taste
Aioli is basically garlic mayonnaise.  I first discovered it in Spain when it was served on top of a tortilla, and then together with fiduea, which I call the noodle version of paella.  Fiduea is deserving of its own post some other day when I manage to make it!  Anyway back to aioli, the creamy mayo with the garlic kick just brings out the flavour of foods, particularly seafood, so well.  Now I find it hard to have tortilla without it.  Aioli goes really well with prawns but I didn't have time to make the aioli from scratch so I experimented a bit with the store bought mayo.
    1. Scalloped cookie cutter
      Using the cookie cutter, cut two rings of bread from each slice of bread.
    2. Toast the bread in the oven at around 180 degrees celcius until just golden brown, which should take around 5-10 mins.
    3. While the bread is toasting, you can make your aioli.  Chop your garlic as finely as possible, using a food processor if possible.  Add the rest of the ingredients and mix thoroughly - it should be a nice thick consistency.  You can vary the quantities of the ingredients depending on your taste, e.g. whether you like it more tangy (more lemon) or garlicky! 
    4. Place a slice of cucumber on the toast, topped by a small spoonful of aioli and then the king prawn.  The aioli will help keep the prawn in place.
    5. Add a sprig of parsley.
    6. Serve within 2-3 hours. 


      Thursday 14 October 2010

      Tang yuan recipe

      Going to try this sometime soon!

      • 50g of raw unsalted peanut
      • 1tbsp of peanut butter
      • 1tbsp of icing sugar (taste and add more if you like it sweeter)
      • 1 pinch of cinnamon
      • 1/2 tsp of grounded ginger

      Ginger syrup

      • 50g of fresh ginger
      • 80g of sugarcane rock sugar
      • 10g of pandan leaves
      • 10g of chrysanthemum flowers
      • 3 cups of water

      National Restaurant Awards

      The Ledbury was named National Restaurant of the Year 2010, led by Australian chef Brett Graham, the Notting Hill restaurant also received the Best Front of House Award.
      Other awards handed out by Restaurant Magazine included The Restaurateurs' Choice, which went to Restaurant Nathan Outlaw (at the St Enodoc Hotel in Cornwall), and Best Gastropub, which went to The Hardwick in Abergavenny (in Wales, near Cardiff).

      Rest of the details here: http://www.nationalrestaurantawards.co.uk/.

      Tuesday 12 October 2010

      My first stamp image

      Created from a photo I took of some David Austin flowers and tea light lanterns, using photoshop.

      Love how easy it was to create a stamp!

      Saturday 9 October 2010

      Pear, chocolate and hazelnut cake



      L Mama made an awesome apple cake over Xmas last year in Pittsburgh. She kindly sent through the recipe and I'd been meaning to make it for a while.

      I dug it out tonight and made a few change, swapping it for ingredients I had in the kitchen which turned out quite well. It's amazing that this cake which has no butter tastes so moist.

      Here's the original recipe

      1973 Teddie's Apple Cake

      All purpose flour, 3 cup plus more for dusting cake-pan & butter for greasing pan
      veg oil, 1 cup
      sugar, 2 cup
      eggs, 3 large
      salt, 1 tsp
      cinnamon, 1 tsp

      baking soda, 1 tsp
      vanilla, 1 tsp
      apples, 3 cup peeled, cored & thickly sliced tart apples [ like Honeycrisp or Granny Smith]
      walnuts,1 cup chopped
      raisins, 1 cup
      1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
      2. Butter and flour a 9-inch bundt/ring pan.
      3. Beat the oil and sugar together in a mixer
      4. Add the eggs and beat until the mixture is creamy.
      5. Sift together flour, salt, cinnamon and baking soda. Stir into the batter.
      6. Add the vanilla, apples, walnuts and raisins and stir.
      7. Transfer the mixture to the prepared pan.
      8. Bake for 1 h 15 min, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
      9. Cool in the pan before turning out.
      10. Serve at room temperature with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream, if desired.



      To make my variation, simply substitute the pear for the apple, 1/2 cup hazelhuts for the walnuts and 1/2 cup chocolate pieces for the raisins. It's quite sweet so you can also reduce the amount of sugar, say by half a cup.

      Friday 8 October 2010

      Gorgeous stamps


      from http://www.craftpudding.com/
      It's a shame but her shop is closed for now. That said, it's inspired me to collect some stamps from other designers on Etsy, maybe one day create my own.

      Saturday 2 October 2010

      Mother of all curry cookbooks?


      A's mates invited us over for a very yummy Spanish dinner and had this book by Madhur Jeffrey on their shelves.  Browsing through it it looks like the mother of all curry bibles.  I couldn't bring myself to buy this copy seeing as I still have so many bookcooks which are unused, but it did inspire us to buy a couple of (cheaper) curry recipe paperbacks including the Curry Secret and An Indian Housewive's Recipe Book.  Really looking forward to trying these out!

      Thursday 30 September 2010

      Back to basics food photography

      Styled by Carl Kleiner: http://www.carlkleiner.com/ these series of back to basics food photography were produced for the Ikea cookbook (which is apparently free in Sweden). Love the creativity.

      Digital Photography School & Food Photography

      Great website by Melbourne based guy with forum and tips for photography, this is an article about food photography

      Monday 27 September 2010

      Top 50 food blogs to check out

      From
      February 17, 2009

      50 of the world's best food blogs

      Change the way you cook and eat for ever with Times Online's guide to the world's tastiest food blogs

      This list comprises 50 of our favourite food blogs but is by no means exhaustive. Times Online invites users to submit their favourites for a follow-up article using the comment box below.

      1. Orangette The ultimate food lovers' blog. The seductive powers of food writing are not to be underestimated - Molly Wizenberg's words even helped to find her a husband. I cooked for almost 12 hours straight after discovering this blog - recipes range from the simple to the delectable: tomato sauce, hasselback potatoes, chickpea salad, chocolate granola. Wizenberg redeems the most uninteresting food – her cabbage gratin is one of my culinary hits of the year.

      Molly Wizenberg shares food secrets in our exclusive Meet the Food Bloggers interview

      2. Cannelle et Vanille The recipes say it all: salted caramel ice-cream, roasted fig frozen mousse, lemon verbena with chamomile crème brulee. This visually stunning site was started by Spanish pastry chef Aran Goyoaga in January last year to satisfy her career-break cravings. Even a snacky peek explains its overnight success.

      3. The Wednesday Chef New York-based Luisa Weiss started this blog as a way of documenting her trawl through clippings of recipes from the New York and LA Times. A mix of recipes and humorous anecdotes - her boyfriend thinks he is pre-hypertensive so she reduces the salt to avoid confronting the issue of male hypochrondria - it's a charming blog packed with information (indeed, a whole 700 words about coleslaw).

      4. Delicious Days Authored by Munich-based Nicky Stich, this blog has a huge following, currently at number 127 in Technorati's Top 100 blogs (the highest ranking food blog.) Well-conceived, with an international flavour but healthy dose of German influence and easy to navigate sections including a food news feed. DD features the author's own recipes, as well as adaptations from other cookbooks. An invaluable article offers tips for budding food bloggers.

      5. David Lebovitz Another megablog, this witty food reportage by the established cookbook author and ex-pastry chef David Lebovitz has up to 25,000 visitors a day. Now based in Paris, he covers recipes, restaurants and interviews with other foodie heavyweights. Head to his FAQ page for all the culinary secrets on Paris you could wish for.

      David Lebovitz reveals more secrets in our exclusive Meet the Food Bloggers interview

      6. Chez Pim Not much of a foodie secret, blog celebrity and big-hitter Pim quit her Silicon Valley job in 2005 to pursue her foodie calling. And a good move it was too; more than 142,000 regular readers have signed up for daily doses of her recipes, restaurant reviews and authoritative all-round food comment. My favourite recent post? An election recipe; chicken soup for the American soul.

      7. Matt Bites When blog photos are taken by a professional photographer, it really shows – see his recent molasses-glazed acorn squash, for example. One of the select number of male food bloggers, Matt is charming and humorous, and has a recent Martha Stewart TV appearance to boot.

      Matt reveals more food secrets in our exclusive Meet the Food Bloggers interview

      8. Serious Eats Practically everything you need to know about food can be found on this multi-contributor food website, started by New York Times journalist Ed Levine. The focus is on American foods such as hot dogs, there are restaurant and gadget reviews, food videos and recipes, including an easy recipe every afternoon to inspire that evening's dinner.

      9. 101 Cookbooks One of the most established food blogs, five years old and counting; this is the chronicle of a blogger with an overindulged habit of buying cookbooks. This Californian blog is primarily a conduit for savoury recipes, mostly vegetarian, and using natural foods - the most popular include caramelised tofu, black bean brownies and lemon-scented quinoa salad. It's technologically literate, too, with i-Phone compatible recipes, and there is a convenient index of recipes by ingredient, and by category (ie gluten-free, cookies, drinks etc).

      Saturday 25 September 2010

      Tomatoes with garlic breadcrumbs

      Simple tasty addition to any main course dinner

      Ingredients:

      - 1 cup breadcrumbs
      - 1 large sprig of parsley
      - half cup olive oil
      - 5 cloves garlic
      - 4 medium size tomatoes, halved
      - one tea spoon sea salt

      Pulse all ingredients together until it is a light mixture, then scoop a large spoonful onto the tomatoes.  Grill for 20 mins or until tops of breadcrumbs are browned.

      Tuesday 10 August 2010

      Earl Grey Tea Macaroons



      I'd always read about macaroons in Enid Blyton's books but it wasn't until Le Gouter Bernerdaud opened up in IFC, Hong Kong that I fell in love with them. I'm not sure whether it's the beautiful crisp shell that bursts into the light chewy centre or the stunning display of macaroons in full range of colours. I thought I'd try to make it with one of my favourite dessert flavours of late, which is Earl Grey tea. I was hoping that I can replicate the delicate Earl Grey tea chocolate from Pierre Marcolini.

      There are many variations of the basic macaroon recipe but I decided to use the one from Ottolenghi’s cookbook. They always have these amazing giant meringues in the window and I figure they can’t go too wrong with their macaroons, and its worked out pretty well for me.

      Base recipe for macaroons


      110g icing super
      60g ground almonds (or almond meal)
      2 free range egg whites (60 g)
      40g caster sugar
      2 tablespoons of ground earl grey tea leaves

      Chocolate ganache

      250g double cream
      250g Greenbecks chocolate 66% cocoa (dark chocolate) chopped roughly
      50g unsalted cold butter
      4 tablespoons earl grey tea leaves

      1. Heat up the oven until 170 degrees Celsius. (If your oven tends to overheat a bit, I would take it down a notch to 150 or 160 degrees Celsius because you don’t want your macaroons to burn without the inside cooking.)
      2. Sift the icing sugar and almond meal together. You can either use the almond meal, or grind it down finer so that it gives the macaroons a finer texture.
      3. Place the egg whites and caster sugar in the bowl of a freestanding electric mixer (that is, not a handheld one) and start whisking at full speed until the whites have formed a thick, aerated meringue. Don’t overbeat the egg whites, you want soft peaks rather than stiff peaks.
      4. Take a third of the meringue and fold it gently into the sift almond and icing sugar mix. Once incorporated, add another third of the meringue and continue similarly until all the meringue has been added and the mix appears smooth and glossy. Don’t worry if you have knocked some of the air out of the batter, that’s the way it should be, it should be deflated by this point.
      5. Take a sheet of baking parchment and “glue” it onto a baking tray by dotting the tray in a few places with a tiny amount of macaroon mix. Using a piping bag and a nozzle around 1 cm, pipe small rounds of macaroons mixture onto the tray spaced apart.
      6. The macaroon mixture will spread a little, and then rise as well. You can make them as little or as big as you like. Mini ones are actually pretty cute! Ottolenghi has a good tip which is to draw circles onto paper to help keep the sizes consistent.
      7. Now hold the tray firmly and tap the underside vigorously. This step is quite important - it should help to spread and smooth out the biscuits.
      8. Leave the macaroons out and uncovered at least 15 mins before baking. This is apparently to give it a nice “skin” on the macaroon which will be the nice glossy shell.
      9. To bake, place the macaroons in the pre-heated oven and leave for about 12 minutes. They may take a bit longer, depending on your oven. The macaroons are ready when they come freely off the paper when lifted with a palette knife. Remove from the oven as soon as they reach this stage, so you don’t overbake them and leave aside to cool completely. Don’t remove the macaroons from the paper until it has fully cooled, otherwise it will break easily.

      While the macaroons are cooling, you can make the Earl Grey tea chocolate ganache.
      1. Place the chocolate in a metal bowl which is large enough to sit comfortably over a saucepan of simmering water without the base touching the water. Slowly melt the chocolate, stirring steadily.
      2. In another saucepan (preferably at the same time) heat up the double cream with the Earl Grey tea leaves over medium heat.
      3. Let the tea leaves infuse into the cream until the cream is a lovely milky tea colour. The cream will taste quite bitter but it will be balanced by the chocolate and the macaroon.
      4. Strain the double cream and slowly mix into the melted chocolate. Stir until the cream has been mixed into the chocolate.
      5. Add in the butter and stir, you can either use a hand blender or mix by hand. Apparently using a hand blender you end up with a more glossy ganache!
      6. Pop it into the fridge to cool until it firms up a little so that it is easier to pipe into your macaroons.
      7. To assemble the macaroons, pipe the ganache onto the flat side of half the biscuits. Sandwich them with the other half, squeezing them together. Leave at room tempeture to set within a couple of hours.
      Macaroons are best served at room temperature.


      Thursday 20 May 2010

      Yin Yang, private kitchen, Hong Kong

      
      
      Yin Yang entrance
       
      My talented friend, a food blogger, travel writer and budding cooking show host all rolled into one, Nanamoose has already written about the owner and chef of Yin Yang, Margaret Xu in this article in Muse magazine, so I will not go into Margaret's background and her foray into private kitchen cooking.  What I will do is describe our experience at her little speakeasy in the heart of Wanchai.

      Nanamoose and I had been planning to go there for lunch for the past year but always ended up cancelling for one reason or another.  It came close to the month that I was leaving Hong Kong: it was quite difficult to get a booking at Yin Yang at short notice, so we were lucky that Nanamoose managed to pull some strings to get us a table for dinner one Saturday night.  As she does with all guests, Margaret sent us the menu in advance so that we could pick a few of the dishes from the various options.

      As my 10-7 job (yes those were the hours I worked) was in Wanchai, I had passed Yin Yang in a cab or walked past it many a time and never noticed it.  It is housed in an old Chinese building, with a sign of "Yuen Hap" construction co., above the restaurant. You would miss it except for the black and white flag hanging above (what appears to be) the doorway.  The decor is homely and eclectic, with jars and pots tucked in one corner and colourful shopping bags on the landing near the kitchen.  On another corner is a basket of organic vegetables which have come from Margaret's garden in Yuen Long. 

      The dining room is made up of two rooms, one on the ground floor with an open counter / bar area, complete with a SMEG fridge that walked out of a 50s TV show, and a 2nd floor with a small balcony that looks onto Ship street.  The old "tang lau" windows have been kept intact.
      Smokey roast chicken

      The restaurant had received mixed reviews so I was slightly apprehensive.  Once the banquet started, it was a feast.  The food is gorgeous to look at, Margaret's obviously had fun preparing the colourful range of bite sized appetizers.  There's no fighting required cos there's enough for each guest to sample each and every one of them.  Some concoctions are a little strange, I can't say its fusion, I guess its a modern style of cooking using traditional methods.  Then the main courses follow, Margaret comes to our table to rip up the roast chicken with pride.  It was very good: crispy on the outside with moist and smokey meat.  We had razor clams which had been satisfying large and cooked till tender, then came the deep fried whole mandarin fish which was then lit on a bed of salt for that extra zing.  The flavours were all there ... I'd say the only thing which could be improved is the table service, some of the food was cold by the time it reached our table. 
      Otherwise a really lovely dining experience that I like to relieve again, soon.





      Yin Yang
      18 Ship Street
      Wanchai
      Telephone +852 2866 0868
      Cost: set menu starts from HK$550 per head

      Monday 1 February 2010

      Sushi Kuu, Central, Hong kong

      Fresh sushi in Lan Kwai Fong, sit at the bar and let the chef work his
      magic. They have a full menu of hot dishes as well but the raw fish is
      still the goer.

      L'atelier de Robuchon, Central, Hong Kong

      We heard from a little bird that the great chef himself was in town an
      supervising the kitchen so finally checked it out one lunchtime.
      Funky red and black bar tables overlooking the kitchens are def the
      way to go. Fun watching the calm manner in which they execute the
      dishes.
      On the bright side the service was excellent - maybe the great chefs
      presence was a factor - which is almost as hard to come by as white
      truffle in HK and unlike white truffle money doesn't guarantee it.
      Loved the fresh bread basket which was constantly topped up. Amuse
      Bouche of foie gras cappuccino was lovely. I was a little disappointed
      with the toast (dry, hard, cold) that came with my foie gras au
      natural but the main of beef cheek was lovely.

      Complete deelite cupcakes, Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong

      Deep pan pear tarte tatin

      Peace Cafe, Wanchai, Hong Kong

      It was my friend N's vegetarian day today so she suggested that we have our girl's lunch at Peace Cafe. I must admit that I never venture beyond Ship Street (towards CWB) so I nearly got lost looking for this restaurant, which actually has a pretty prominent sign. It is located on Tai Wong East Street (the one next to Ship Street), and a little quiet oasis away from the hustle and bustle of Queens Road East and Johnston Street.

      The food served here is an eclectic fusion vegetarian cuisine. Today we started off with a pumpkin soup with plump sweet wolfberries, followed by large round discs of beetroot topped with tofu. Our mains were eggplant ragu angelli pasta and a banana and zucchini curry with rice. The banana curry was mild, akin to a katsu curry, although my least favourite (I don't like cooked bananas usually), it was still very good. Serving size is generous, so three of us shared 2 main set meals.

      Really liked this place and will definitely be back soon.

      21-23 Tai Wong Street East Wanchai HK
      Tel: 2527-5870
      Email: info@worldpeacecafe.hk
      HK$80 per head
      http://www.worldpeacecafe.hk/eng/index.php