Celebrating Eggs Benedict Day @ Bread Street Kitchen & Bar, Hong Kong

Am I the only one who didn't know there is such a thing as Eggs Benedict Day? This year, Eggs Benedict Day fell on 16th April, and I only learnt that because my aunt-in-law forwarded to me an email from Bread Street Kitchen & Bar promoting their special eggs benedict version to celebrate the day. Bread Street Kitchen & Bar is the brainchild of world-renowned (and notoriously foul-mouthed) chef Gordon Ramsay, and it is almost an exact replica of the original Bread Street Kitchen on London's Bread Street. I quite liked the chic industrialist interior with the checkered floors, yellow plush seats and hanging lamps. It opened half a year ago, and it looked like business is going very well for Ramsay here. The staff was dominated by foreign nationals, and service was friendly but professional. It is a family-friendly restaurant, but lack of lift to the mezzanine level makes it difficult for parents with prams and strollers. Nonetheless, I thought that the experience was well worth the effort of carrying the pram up the stairs. We visited with my aunt-in-law and her husband, and we all enjoyed our meal at Bread Street Kitchen.

Casual atmosphere and chic industrialist interior:

Delicious crusty sourdough and mini-ciabatta:

Both hubby and the 6-year-old ordered a Smoked Salmon Eggs Benedict each (HK$128), which was one of the two specials offered in celebration of Eggs Benedict Day. Smoked salmon is my favourite alternative ingredient to the traditional ham or bacon in eggs benedict, so I thought this was yummy:

I went for the other Eggs Benedict Day special, a Roast Pumpkin Eggs Benedict (HK$128) with hollandaise sauce on the side. The poached eggs were served on top of delicious roast pumpkin and a crispy base made of pumpkin seeds, with a salsa that included crunchy bits of pumpkin seeds. I really enjoyed this version and would order it again if it was on the regular menu:

Yummy yolk:

Uncle-in-law had the Full English Breakfast which included a delicious hashbrown which both the aunt and uncle raved about. Hubby wanted to try it, and ordered it as an off-the-menu item (HK$70). It was crispy and cheesy and bursting with flavour!

According to hubby, no meal is complete without dessert, so we ordered a dessert to share, a Citrus Panna Cotta (HK$88) with orange and grapefruit segments. This was a refreshing dessert that is lightly sweetened and doesn't sit heavy on the tummy:

We will be back to try other items on the menu!

[Prices quoted above exclude the 10% service charge.]

Bread Street Kitchen & Bar
Mezzanine Level, LKF Hotel
33 Wyndham Street
Central, Hong Kong
Tel. +852 2230 1800

Beach fun @ Venice Beach and Santa Monica Pier, Los Angeles (USA)

California is known for sunny weather and beaches, and it was only fitting to spend our first day in Los Angeles at the beach! We stayed in a vacation rental near Venice Beach, and I selected this location because I remembered my older sister raving about Venice Beach when she visited LA more than a decade ago. Venice Beach was not quite like any beach I've been to before. The busy promenade was interesting, eccentric and a little crazy, with a cool and fun vibe. The beach itself was very wide a lot of sand! We had to walk a long way in the sand to get to the water. The kids got right into sand play, but the water was too cold to swim in. It was a nice beach, but it didn't quite compare to the beautiful white sandy beaches of Western Australia. We explored the promenade, ate a delicious lunch and then checked out the artificial but beautiful Venice Canals. It was late afternoon by the time we hired bikes to ride into Santa Monica, and we stayed only a short while before heading back to Venice Beach for dinner, bath and bedtime. It was the perfect laidback way to spend the day after enduring a 13-hour flight crossing many timezones. Here are some snapshots of what we saw.

Sand, sand, sand everywhere:

We don't get much sand in Hong Kong, so sand was a novelty for the kids:

The busy promenade, facing north:

Facing south on the promenade:

Muscle Beach Venice! The perfect place for weight-training and body-building for the exhibitionists! (I get enough attention being Asian, female and lifting weights at the gym by fellow gymgoers; I don't think I can handle spectators watching (and taking photos!) while I am doing my workout.)

Picture-perfect Venice Canals:

We even saw a resident getting around in the canal on his surfboard and a pole like the gondoliers we saw in real Venice!

A happy snap on our way to the bike rental shop:

Very good bike path connecting Venice Beach and Santa Monica Pier:

Rode a tandem with my boy (baby girl enjoyed riding with hubby in a carrier attached to the front of his rental bike). In this shot I think hubby caught me mid-sentence while getting my boy to smile for the camera:

Lots of bikes and even more cars on that Saturday afternoon:

At the end of Santa Monica Pier looking towards Colorado Ave (the late afternoon sun did not let me have a good shot of the pier itself):

That was a great start to a great trip! Stay tuned for more.

Yummy kamameshi @ Fukutei, New Chitose Airport (Hokkaido, Japan)

It has only been two months since we were in Japan, yet I already miss it so. Especially the dining experience - the ever polite greeting and excellent service, the oshibori (wet towel, warm in winter, cold in summer) to refresh and clean, and the consistently excellent quality of ingredients. We can experience that same level of Japanese dining experience in Hong Kong too, but at a dear price. We ate this seafood meal at the airport just prior to boarding the plane back to Hong Kong. We wanted to eat one last Japanese meal before we departed, and we had to walk from the International Terminal to the Domestic Terminal before we found some traditional Japanese restaurants. We chose Fukutei because there wasn't a wait for a table (we were kinda in a hurry), and it was a decent choice. There are several Fukutei restaurants around Hokkaido, and this particular one specialised in seafood and kamameshi ("kettle rice"), a type of rice dish cooked in an iron pot called kama. Service was brisk and efficient, and we were in and out with plenty of time to make our way back to the international terminal for our flight. The food was delicious, and I wish we could enjoy such meals regularly without breaking the bank!

Oyster and Scallops Kamameshi (1460yen) with a bowl of miso soup, hot dashi in a thermal flask and various toppings (nori, green onion, wasabi and sesame seeds). I ate half the kamameshi as it was in the pot, and then ate the remaining half as an ochazuke with the dashi and toppings:

Plump oyster and scallops on a flavourful rice base:

Ginshari Prawn Tempura (1940yen), included miso soup and rice (ginshari ("silver rice") is the Japanese term for white rice). I don't like deep fried foods, but I do appreciate that tempura are crispy without being too greasy:

All trips must come to an end, but we made sure we ended this trip on a belly full of Japanese seafood!

Fukutei
3rd Floor
Domestic Terminal Building
New Chitose Airport
Tel. +81 (123) 25 8222

Brunch date @ Brunch Club & Supper, Hong Kong

I never envisioned myself to pick up such a strong coffee habit. In fact I used to dislike the stuff, but I began drinking the stuff after my son was weaned from breastfeeding, to deal with the seemingly never-ending sleep deprivation. What started out as necessity eventually grew into appreciation as I discovered that I actually do enjoy drinking a well-brewed coffee from good beans. Hubby indulged me with a Nespresso machine for my birthday a few months ago, which means I get to enjoy a good cuppa every morning! What does coffee have to do with this blog post? Well, this post features three types of coffees from one visit. Before we went on our trip to California, hubby and I snuck in another brunch date, this time at the Brunch Club & Supper in Causeway Bay. Again, we met after my BJJ class and after hubby had dropped our 6-year-old off in his two back-to-back lessons - Lego Robotics and Space Kids - and we enjoyed a little more than one hour brunching and chatting. We have been to the Brunch Club in Central a few times before, so it was good to finally try out the Causeway Bay branch. The interior was spacious with a grungy urban style that was strangely cosy and comfortable. I thought the service was a notch better than at the Central branch, and staff was friendly and cheerful. The brunch menu was the same, and I would say that the quality of the food and coffee was also quite similar. This is a popular joint, so expect a wait during peak meal periods on weekends. The following photos were taken with my phone camera (I don't pack my camera to the gym!), and fortunately the quality is not too shabby!

The urban loft design of Brunch Club & Supper:

This brunch club has a bar too:

Hubby's cappuccino and my mocha:

Hubby had a Mix Grill (HK$105) which included two eggs any style (scrambled), choice of bread (walnut & raisin), bacon, chicken breast, gammon ham, pork sausage, fried onions, grilled tomato, baked beans and hash brown. This is certainly not for those on a weight-loss diet!

I ordered a Two Eggs & Two Toppings on Toast (HK$72), and chose poached eggs and English muffin with avocado and smoked salmon. Essentially an eggs benedict with my favourite extras but without the hollandaise, which I don't like anyway. The yolks were a lovely bright orange, and runny - yay!

Hubby and I shared the Iced Mocha (which we agreed didn't taste as nice as the hot version - I think coffee is best drunk hot):

We also indulged in a stack of pancakes with berries and chocolate Movenpick ice cream:

We enjoyed our brunch at the Brunch Club & Supper, and will probably be back again for future brunch dates!

[The prices above do not include the 10% service charge.]

Brunch Club & Supper
1st Floor
13 Leighton Road
Causeway Bay, Hong Kong
Tel. +85 2 2890 2125

Hawaiian poke @ The Big Daddy Shack; and burrito @ The Flyin' Jalapeno, Venice Beach (LA, California)

I am back from California, and what a trip that was! It was a combination of exhilarating and exhausting, as it is never easy travelling across so many timezones with youngsters. Indeed, it was an experience I won't forget any time soon, and I have many photos to share in the weeks/months to come. Our first stop on the trip was Los Angeles, and we stayed in a rental house near Venice Beach. I tasked hubby with the job of doing up the itinerary of our two days in LA, and he did a fab job of it! We spent our first morning in LA at the beach, then we headed over to Big Daddy Shack for lunch. This was our first time eating Hawaiian poke, a raw fish salad heavily influenced by the Japanese cuisine. Big Daddy Shack is a small eatery mainly catering for take-away orders, though there were a handful of seats and some tables for the option to dine in. The girl serving at the counter was very sweet, friendly and helpful, and I loved her purple micro braids! The staff in general were lovely and amicable, so this place gets the thumbs ups for good service.

The Big Daddy Shack's shopfront:

The order counter and kitchen:

The front page of the take-out menu:

The menu was a pictorial instruction on how to build/design your poke bowl: choose a size (Lil Daddy for US$9 that comes with one topping of your choice, and Big Daddy for US$12 that includes two toppings), pick white or brown rice, decide between ahi tuna or salmon, and finally select one sauce. For those who don't fancy raw fish, there are a few seared and grilled options to choose from, and even a grilled chicken bowl for non-fish eaters. Also available were hand rolls, salads and fruit smoothies. Hubby and I are big fans of the poke bowls. The combination of flavours, textures aromas were excellent, and I liked how nutritious these poke bowls were.

Hubby's Big Daddy poke bowl of ahi tuna with brown rice, mango and macadamia nuts, drizzled with house shoyu sauce. Mango gave some sweetness, the nuts gave a crunchy texture, and they both combine well with the sashimi tuna:

My Lil Daddy-sized poke of salmon with white rice, seaweed and avocado, in sriracha aioli sauce. I loved this combination as it was spicy and had two of my favourite ingredients (seaweed and avocado):

We got our something sweet with the Acai Bowl (US$6) with mango juice base, acai pulp, blueberries, kiwi fruit, granola and honey. Eye-poppingly red and delicious too:

We enjoyed our poke bowls, appreciated the good and helpful service (especially after our baby girl tipped half our acai bowl on the floor), and highly recommend this casual eatery for a delicious and nutritious meal in Venice Beach.

The Big Daddy Shack
79 Windward Ave
Venice, CA 90291
United States
+1-310-804-5734



Almost everything on the Big Daddy Shack's menu contained sesame (except for the fruit smoothies and acai bowl, which aren't exactly lunch material for our sesame-allergic boy), so the chick at the counter suggested we headed next door to The Flyin Jalapeno. Hubby went with the 6-year-old to order the boy's lunch, and they came back to the table with a massive Chicken Burrito (US$10). It was hefty, packed with vegetables, beans, chicken and rice, which the boy happily ate. I cannot comment on the service of The Flyin Jalapeno, but I can certainly say that the burrito was delicious!

The Flyin Jalapeno was next door to Big Daddy Shack:

Chicken burrito (:

:

The Flyin' Jalapeno
83 Windward Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90291
United States
Tel. +1-310-392-8900



[The prices above do not include taxes and tips.]