We are coming to the end of another year, and I hope you had a lovely Christmas! Since we already hosted a festive celebration at home earlier this month with some friends during my sister's visit to Hong Kong, we opted for a low-key Christmas day with Steph and her friend at a restaurant that opened up in the mall downstairs a couple of months ago. Cafe Deco Pizzeria took the place of another restaurant, and so far it looks like it's doing a lot better than the previous tenant did. Since the pizzeria is located opposite the entrance into our building, I always walk by it, and the tables are always full at peak meal periods. The festive menu looked good, the location is conveniently close to home, and it was an opportunity to give this restaurant a try. Despite making reservations a week in advance, the restaurant couldn't find my booking, but we managed to get a table - not the best table for our group, but a table nonetheless. Service was attentive, and both wine and water glasses were kept topped up. We could choose from the festive menu (four courses with a choice for the mains), or go a-la-carte, and all four adults selected the festive menu. The dishes were plated with care, and the food not only looked good, but tasted good too.
The appetizer was Smoked salmon with salmon rillettes, pumpernickel and lemon relish. I love salmon, so I really enjoyed this course. The salmon rillettes were placed on a small piece of thick crunchy toast, with a slice of good quality smoked salmon wrapped around them. The contrast of textures and smoky flavours all combined very nicely on a small plate - a great start to the meal.
Soup course was Light cream of morel with roasted chestnuts. This creamy soup with the earthy flavours of the mushroom and the sweetness of roasted chestnuts was delicious, and I found myself wanting more. Bread would have been a good accompaniment to the soup.
For their main course, the guys chose the Roasted turkey, apricot stuffing, festive vegetables, truffled potato and giblet sauce. The turkey was tender and juicy, and it was pretty good for a turkey dinner.
Steph chose the Fregola risotto with lump crab meat, tiger prawns, pecorino and basil. This was also my first choice, but I gave it up for the pizza to share with my son (hubby thought I was a fool to give it up for pizza, but ordering a full-sized pizza from the a-la-carte menu for a 5-year-old seemed rather excessive). Steph kindly offered me a taste of her bowl, and it tasted good with the umami flavours of the sea. The fregola gave a coarser texture than conventional risotto made with rice, which made us all wonder what kind of grain it was.
The boy and I enjoyed the Festive pizza with butter ball turkey, chestnuts, sweet potato risoles, spinach and cranberry salad, crispy bacon and sage oil. Although it was a full 12-inch size, the 5-year-old easily polished off half the pizza (but not the spinach!). It was a little strange having sweet ingredients like cranberries and chestnuts on a pizza, but there was only a small amount of them - just enough to give a festive flavour every second bite.
Dessert was Chocolate pudding filo with dark cherries and eggnog sabayon. The filo was filled with fruit mincemeat, which Steph said tasted festive. The ice cream was delicious with bits of cherries in it, and the eggnog sabayon pulled all the ingredients together nicely. This was a successful dessert which everyone enjoyed.
We don't usually invite friends to eat at restaurants we haven't been before, hence it was good to hear Steph remark after our meal that we always choose good restaurants to bring her to. We were pleased with our first visit to Cafe Deco Pizzeria, which ensured that it won't be our last.
Cafe Deco Pizzeria
Shop 1005,
1st Floor Elements
(Kowloon MTR Station)
1 Austin Road West
Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon
Hong Kong
Tel. +852 2196 8099
Saturday 28 December 2013
Sunday 22 December 2013
French baked goodies in Dinan
If I felt that our trip to Bali was a lifetime ago, our summer trip to Europe was eons ago. But I still have many many photos waiting to be chronicled, so here I am trudging forward. One of the things I miss the most about France are the delicious baguettes from boulangeries that seem to be on every street corner, whether in a big city like Paris, or a small medieval town like Dinan. I was in foodie heaven every morning in France as we ate freshly baked goodies for breakfast. Here are some of what we ate for breakfast during our short stay in Dinan.
In Place des Merciers in the middle of the town centre, there's a boulangerie called Fournil des Cordeliers which belongs to the Ronde des Pains network.
Fournil des Cordeliers, where we bought...
... a pain au chocolat (chocolate bread, one of my son's favourite)...
... a pain aux raisins (raisin bread, another one my son always chose for breakfast in France)...
... and finally a multigrain baguette for hubby and I. There's nothing quite like biting the crispy crust of a freshly baked baguette into the soft chewy middle of a tasty baguette, and the multigrain factor was an added healthful plus for protein and fibre:
Fournil des Cordeliers
8 Place des Cordeliers
22100 Dinan
France
Tel. +33 2 96 39 11 23
For breakfast on our second morning, we got our breakfast goods from three different spots.
First boulangerie we hit up was La Mie Caline, where we bought...
... a pain au chocolat for the boy...:
... and a chocolate bread for hubby:
La Mie Caline
22 Rue du Marchix
22100 Dinan
France
Tel. +33 2 96 87 52 43
Next we went a couple of shops down the street to La Flûte Gana:
From there we bought a pain aux raisins for the boy:
La Flûte Gana
26 Rue Marchix
22100 Dinan
France
Tel. +33 2 96 85 29 76
Finally we went to the boulangerie inside one of the oldest remaining markets in Dinan known as La Cohue (where there are many other shops selling everything like fresh fruits and vegetables, charcuterie and cheese, and you can also eat-in or take-away food from a bistro, a café-crêperie and a rotisserie-friterie):
A cheese baguette from the boulangerie inside the covered market for me:
La Cohue
Les Halles
Entrance via Rue du Petit Pain or Rue de la Ferroniere
(between Rue de la Chaux and Rue de la Mittrie)
22100 Dinan
France
There were a few more boulangeries in Dinan that we missed but would have loved to try. Perhaps next time if we ever find ourselves back here!
In Place des Merciers in the middle of the town centre, there's a boulangerie called Fournil des Cordeliers which belongs to the Ronde des Pains network.
Fournil des Cordeliers, where we bought...
... a pain au chocolat (chocolate bread, one of my son's favourite)...
... a pain aux raisins (raisin bread, another one my son always chose for breakfast in France)...
... and finally a multigrain baguette for hubby and I. There's nothing quite like biting the crispy crust of a freshly baked baguette into the soft chewy middle of a tasty baguette, and the multigrain factor was an added healthful plus for protein and fibre:
Fournil des Cordeliers
8 Place des Cordeliers
22100 Dinan
France
Tel. +33 2 96 39 11 23
For breakfast on our second morning, we got our breakfast goods from three different spots.
First boulangerie we hit up was La Mie Caline, where we bought...
... a pain au chocolat for the boy...:
... and a chocolate bread for hubby:
La Mie Caline
22 Rue du Marchix
22100 Dinan
France
Tel. +33 2 96 87 52 43
Next we went a couple of shops down the street to La Flûte Gana:
From there we bought a pain aux raisins for the boy:
La Flûte Gana
26 Rue Marchix
22100 Dinan
France
Tel. +33 2 96 85 29 76
Finally we went to the boulangerie inside one of the oldest remaining markets in Dinan known as La Cohue (where there are many other shops selling everything like fresh fruits and vegetables, charcuterie and cheese, and you can also eat-in or take-away food from a bistro, a café-crêperie and a rotisserie-friterie):
A cheese baguette from the boulangerie inside the covered market for me:
La Cohue
Les Halles
Entrance via Rue du Petit Pain or Rue de la Ferroniere
(between Rue de la Chaux and Rue de la Mittrie)
22100 Dinan
France
There were a few more boulangeries in Dinan that we missed but would have loved to try. Perhaps next time if we ever find ourselves back here!
Wednesday 18 December 2013
Exploring Bali: monkeys, kopi luwak, volcano and rice terraces
Our trip to Bali seems like a lifetime ago - baby was still in belly, and we were still a family of three. I still have photos to share from that trip, and here are some of the shots I took on our 1-day drive around Bali. A good way to get around Bali is to hire a driver for the whole day, which also works out much cheaper than using a taxi between destinations. Using a driver is not how we usually travel, but being 8 months pregnant, I was quite happy to sit back for once and get driven around. My friend Steph had been to Bali a couple of weeks prior to us, and she'd recommended the driver service she used, along with a list of sights she thought was worth seeing. I narrowed the list down to what we as a family with a 5-year-old boy were interested in, and emailed our preferences to the driver before our trip. It was a successful day - we covered a lot of ground in 8 hours, and the kid had a pretty good time seeing the monkeys, drinking hot chocolate in a coffee and cocoa farm, viewing an active volcano (from a distance), and seeing where rice (one of his favourite foods) comes from. Hubby and I personally thought the visit to the kopi luwak farm was the highlight of our Bali trip, as we learnt a lot about both coffee and cocoa, both of which we have special interest in.
Ubud Monkey Forest
First stop was the monkey forest (aka Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary). The monkeys were cute, but I was wary about going near them because the monkeys can get quite aggressive if you carry food and withhold food from the monkeys. There are stuff you can catch from monkeys, and I was quite keen not to get in contact with any. There were plenty of tourists who aren't concerned, as they held out food and monkeys climbed all over them. I was happy keeping my distance from the monkeys, and made sure the boy did not touch them.
An adult male monkey:
More monkeys:
Mummy monkey with her little ones:
The site of the temple:
The temple gates (but we didn't enter):
Cantik Agriculture
Next, we dropped by a coffee farm called Cantik Agriculture which also grows cacao, ginseng, ginger, lemongrass, cinnamon, vanilla, and chili among others. We found the tour to be highly educational, and the best part was coffee appreciation through sampling a wide variety of coffee and tea infusions.
Coffee cherries/berries on a tree:
A large cacao pod:
More cacao pods:
A luwak (civet) that eats the red coffee cherries, and poops them out to give us kopi luwak, the world's most expensive coffee. It was sad to see it caged, but we were told that the luwak chooses the best cherries to eat, so I hope that these nocturnal creatures get to go out and roam at night to feed:
Kopi luwak beans, washed and ready for roasting. In other baskets were other foodstuff also grown and processed on this farm:
Raw cocoa beans:
Here the coffee beans are being roasted in a big wok over an open fire, and then pounded to a fine powder ready for consumption:
Taking a closer look at the roasted coffee beans and the finished ground product:
Sampling the various teas, coffees and cocoa drinks available on the farm - at no cost. A good way to "try before you buy", and we could purchase the ones we like in the shop. We tried Bali coffee, Bali cocoa, ginseng coffee, lemongrass tea, coconut coffee, ginger tea, vanilla coffee, rosella tea and Bali coffee and cocoa. We liked and bought the lemongrass tea, coconut coffee and rosella tea:
For a small charge, we could also enjoy a cup of kopi luwak. It was milder and more aromatic than the Bali coffee:
The farm owner introduced to us the snakeskin fruit, a native to Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. We liked the sweet and crisp texture, and he kindly gave us a few to bring back with us - our boy ate most of them (the only fruit he willingly ate on our trip)!
Apparently there are "male" and "female" coffee beans, and here we are being shown the two types of cherries containing each. The male beans are found inside cherries with one chamber, and are called peaberries. Peaberries are not as abundant as the female beans, hence cost more:
Mount Batur
After the coffee farm, we hopped in the car again and got driven to Kintamani where we could view Mount Batur, one of two active volcanoes in Bali.
A panoramic shot of our view from the roadside in Kintamani. Click on image to view larger image:
Zooming in on the volcano peak:
Tegallalang Rice Terraces
Then we drove a bit more to see the Tegallalang Rice Terraces. It was beautiful, in a different way to the one we saw in Japan.
A panorama of the Tegllalang Rice Terraces. Click on image to view larger image:
Ubud Monkey Forest
First stop was the monkey forest (aka Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary). The monkeys were cute, but I was wary about going near them because the monkeys can get quite aggressive if you carry food and withhold food from the monkeys. There are stuff you can catch from monkeys, and I was quite keen not to get in contact with any. There were plenty of tourists who aren't concerned, as they held out food and monkeys climbed all over them. I was happy keeping my distance from the monkeys, and made sure the boy did not touch them.
An adult male monkey:
More monkeys:
Mummy monkey with her little ones:
The site of the temple:
The temple gates (but we didn't enter):
Cantik Agriculture
Next, we dropped by a coffee farm called Cantik Agriculture which also grows cacao, ginseng, ginger, lemongrass, cinnamon, vanilla, and chili among others. We found the tour to be highly educational, and the best part was coffee appreciation through sampling a wide variety of coffee and tea infusions.
Coffee cherries/berries on a tree:
A large cacao pod:
More cacao pods:
A luwak (civet) that eats the red coffee cherries, and poops them out to give us kopi luwak, the world's most expensive coffee. It was sad to see it caged, but we were told that the luwak chooses the best cherries to eat, so I hope that these nocturnal creatures get to go out and roam at night to feed:
Kopi luwak beans, washed and ready for roasting. In other baskets were other foodstuff also grown and processed on this farm:
Raw cocoa beans:
Here the coffee beans are being roasted in a big wok over an open fire, and then pounded to a fine powder ready for consumption:
Taking a closer look at the roasted coffee beans and the finished ground product:
Sampling the various teas, coffees and cocoa drinks available on the farm - at no cost. A good way to "try before you buy", and we could purchase the ones we like in the shop. We tried Bali coffee, Bali cocoa, ginseng coffee, lemongrass tea, coconut coffee, ginger tea, vanilla coffee, rosella tea and Bali coffee and cocoa. We liked and bought the lemongrass tea, coconut coffee and rosella tea:
For a small charge, we could also enjoy a cup of kopi luwak. It was milder and more aromatic than the Bali coffee:
The farm owner introduced to us the snakeskin fruit, a native to Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. We liked the sweet and crisp texture, and he kindly gave us a few to bring back with us - our boy ate most of them (the only fruit he willingly ate on our trip)!
Apparently there are "male" and "female" coffee beans, and here we are being shown the two types of cherries containing each. The male beans are found inside cherries with one chamber, and are called peaberries. Peaberries are not as abundant as the female beans, hence cost more:
Mount Batur
After the coffee farm, we hopped in the car again and got driven to Kintamani where we could view Mount Batur, one of two active volcanoes in Bali.
A panoramic shot of our view from the roadside in Kintamani. Click on image to view larger image:
Zooming in on the volcano peak:
Tegallalang Rice Terraces
Then we drove a bit more to see the Tegallalang Rice Terraces. It was beautiful, in a different way to the one we saw in Japan.
A panorama of the Tegllalang Rice Terraces. Click on image to view larger image:
Monday 9 December 2013
Celebrating Christmas early
My younger sister came from Sydney to visit us for about a week and a half, mostly to meet the new baby and spend some time with her nephew. I was grateful to have her around to help, and the timing worked out well because she arrived on the night before my husband went back to work. She was great especially with my 5-year-old son who has no doubt felt the effects of having a baby sister at home and occupying a lot of my time. My sister has spent a lot of time with all her nephews and nieces (including a year of living with us in Japan and helping out with our son just after his 1st birthday), and I think she is well-primed and prepared for when the time comes for her to have her own kids! Since we had family around, we decided to celebrate Christmas early this year. Once again, the timing was good because it was around Thanksgiving, which we don't celebrate, but it meant that turkeys were aplenty. Home with a 1-week-old newborn obviously meant that I wasn't going down the DIY route, nor were we going to take the newly born bub out to a restaurant and risk exposure to all sorts of airborne germs and pollution (the crowds and poor air quality in Hong Kong are especially bad), so a takeaway turkey it would have to be.
Hubby and I were keen to try the turkey from the Mandarin Cake Shop, which we'd heard was a really good choice and has been on our must-try list for three years now. The "small" turkey was 7kg (HK$1988), which I was told could feed about 10 mouths. It was obvious that we needed to invite a few more people to help out. I certainly didn't think we would be entertaining guests at home less than a week after getting discharged from the hospital, but I did make it easier for us by using disposable plates, cups and cutlery, and asking a friend to bring salad. We kept to our Christmas tradition of inviting a Japanese family, and our friends told us that this was their first time having roast turkey for Christmas. We also invited an Australian friend who had recently relocated to HK for work, a good friend of my sister's from her childhood. We all had a good time, especially the kids who had a ball making a huge mess of the living room with my son's toys. The turkey itself was really good, a lot better than the one we ordered for Christmas in 2010 (which was pretty good too). The sides that came with the turkey - roast pumpkin, mashed potatoes, nut-free stuffing (as we requested for our allergic son), giblet gravy and cranberry sauce - also got our thumbs' ups. The turkey and the trimmings fed six adults and three kids at lunch, with enough leftovers for dinner for four adults and one kid, both meals supplemented with vegetables and one large baguette.
The huge box that the turkey and accompaniments came in, and the smaller one that held the pumpkin pie we'd also ordered from the Cake Shop:
It was like unwrapping a Christmas present:
The 7kg roast turkey:
The kids were more interested in playing than eating...
... but the adults had their priorities straight:
The pumpkin pie (HK$298) was very good, and there were none leftover to enjoy the next day. I especially loved the buttery pastry crust:
Good company, delicious food and a Christmas tree - all that's needed for a good Christmas celebration at home!
The Mandarin Cake Shop
Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong
5 Connaught Road
Central, Hong Kong
Tel. +852 2825 4008
Email: mohkg-cakeshop@mohg.com
Hubby and I were keen to try the turkey from the Mandarin Cake Shop, which we'd heard was a really good choice and has been on our must-try list for three years now. The "small" turkey was 7kg (HK$1988), which I was told could feed about 10 mouths. It was obvious that we needed to invite a few more people to help out. I certainly didn't think we would be entertaining guests at home less than a week after getting discharged from the hospital, but I did make it easier for us by using disposable plates, cups and cutlery, and asking a friend to bring salad. We kept to our Christmas tradition of inviting a Japanese family, and our friends told us that this was their first time having roast turkey for Christmas. We also invited an Australian friend who had recently relocated to HK for work, a good friend of my sister's from her childhood. We all had a good time, especially the kids who had a ball making a huge mess of the living room with my son's toys. The turkey itself was really good, a lot better than the one we ordered for Christmas in 2010 (which was pretty good too). The sides that came with the turkey - roast pumpkin, mashed potatoes, nut-free stuffing (as we requested for our allergic son), giblet gravy and cranberry sauce - also got our thumbs' ups. The turkey and the trimmings fed six adults and three kids at lunch, with enough leftovers for dinner for four adults and one kid, both meals supplemented with vegetables and one large baguette.
The huge box that the turkey and accompaniments came in, and the smaller one that held the pumpkin pie we'd also ordered from the Cake Shop:
It was like unwrapping a Christmas present:
The 7kg roast turkey:
The kids were more interested in playing than eating...
... but the adults had their priorities straight:
The pumpkin pie (HK$298) was very good, and there were none leftover to enjoy the next day. I especially loved the buttery pastry crust:
Good company, delicious food and a Christmas tree - all that's needed for a good Christmas celebration at home!
The Mandarin Cake Shop
Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong
5 Connaught Road
Central, Hong Kong
Tel. +852 2825 4008
Email: mohkg-cakeshop@mohg.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)