Butcher's Club Burgers

Butcher's Club Burgers
G/F, Rialto Building
2 Landale Street
Wan Chai

Good quality ingredients, especially the wonderfully juicy thick-cut bacon that literally melted into the patty. The patty was moist and juicy even when it was 100% cooked without a hint of pink. However, it's a bit pricey (100 hkd) for a burger smaller than the size of a whopper and arriving at the table without fries (20 hkd extra).

Gogyo

Gogyo
Shop 3020, Level Three IFC Mall
1 Harbour View Street, Central

Fruit tsukemen with lobster bisque dipping sauce, assorted skewers, garden salad. Fruit tsukemen is a surprisingly good concoction, imparting freshness and balancing out the creamy thickness of the bisque. The noodles are chewy and al dente, and seem ready to soak up a hint of umami dressing covering the fruits. The skewers are average; the garden salad is fresh and, at 60 hkd, a good deal.

Private Kitchen

Braised green vegetables with crab meat and conpoy; steamed summer squash stuffed with scallop and shrimp; deep-fried sliced beef and taro, and prawn balls; double-boiled dried duck gizzard and pork shank with brassica and almonds; braised goose webs with black mushrooms and green vegetables.

Zhe Jiang Heen

Zhe Jiang Heen
2/F & 3/F, Kiu Fu Commercial Building
300-306 Lockhart Road, Wan Chai
Hong Kong

Fish braised in sweet vinegar (糟溜鮭魚片), stir-fried shrimp (清炒蝦仁), smoked eggs, Chinese pickled cucumbers in chili vinegar, kalimeris herb salad with tofu shreds (香乾馬蘭頭), spicy chili chicken with peanuts, Chinese ham hog, spring onion bread. It has been a while since my last visit, but I must say the food is good as ever.

The Globe

The Globe
Shop A, G/F, Graham Street, Soho
Central

The burger, cooked medium rare, was surprisingly good in this unassumingly laid-back British pub. The bun, lightly toasted, was a little dry but otherwise held up the juicy patty with ease. The banger special indicated that The Globe was seriously about its food — the sausage, while neither particularly spiced nor flavorful, tasted fresh and succulent. The dishes were rear-ended by two fantastic cakes and washed down with the Little Creature (citrus, with a very sweet palate), the Holy Grail (light and creamy, with a grainy malt nose and palate), and the “I see no ships” Admiral’s ale (a jolly brew with a citrus nose and a roasty, malty palate that matched up particularly well with the sweet desserts).

Chopsticks Kee

Chopsticks Kee (筷子記）
Shop A1, Khuan Ying Commercial Building
85-89 Wellington Street, Central

Noodles with braised pork belly, squid balls, and green veggies. Everything came out perfectly in this self-designed concoction: the spice in the noodles soup cut through the fat of the pork belly. The squid balls ruptured with juicy squidy goodies, and provided heft to the concoction. The green veggies were green veggies -- added a layer of freshness to balance out the meats.

Japan Club

19/F, Paliburg Plaza, 68 Yee Wo Street
Causeway Bay

Fresh ankimo, and chirashi rice bowl. Both dishes were fantastic, and the bill came down to only 250 HKD.

Rating: 1 star to the chirashi, for its fresh fish and reasonable price.

Paisano's

Paisano's
23 Hollywood Road
Central

A loaded slice, but lacked character. Meats didn't bother with any taste, and the cheese was just all oily, soggy and felt like a blood clot waiting to happen.

Zheng Zong Yun Gui Chuan

Zheng Zong Yun Gui Chuan (正宗雲貴川)
123 Jervois Street, Sheung Wan

Sichuan spicy sesame chicken and cold spicy noodles. Both lacked the punch of fresh Sichuan peppercorns.

Ladurée

Ladurée
Shop 3224, 3/F, Gateway Arcade, Harbour City, 17 Canton Road Tsim Sha Tsui

I am not a particularly big fan of macarons, and Ladurée, despite its name and recognition, couldn't carve out an exception in my book. My friends find the Ladurée experience life-transforming, while I merely found it good eats but not something I would line up everyday for 1.5 hours to buy. I freely concede that some of Ladurée's jammy fillings (especially its raspberry and blackcurrant) and buttercreams (praline, rose) are wonders of taste, because they truly impart the natural flavors of the food, but others (vanilla, coconut, pistachio) are merely bare passers and did not inspire poetry. I don't mind having them frequently or occasionally, but not with a wait that is longer than most of Mahler's symphonies.

Lai Lai Chongqing Chicken Pot

Lai Lai Chongqing Chicken Pot (來來重慶雞煲)
11/F, Kyoto Plaza, 491-499 Lockhart Road
Causeway Bay

Fantastic appetizers and chicken pot.

Chuen Cheung Kui

Chuen Cheung Kui (泉章居)
7-8/F, Phrase 1, Causeway Bay Plaza I, 489 Hannessy Road
Causeway Bay

Deep-fried pig intestines, steamed fish with preserved vegetables, pork belly with preserved vegetables, and salt-baked chicken.

Fai Kee

Fai Kee (馬灣輝記飯店)
馬灣大街村中211及214號地下

Steamed baby pork ribs with shrimp paste (蝦醬蒸排骨), stir-fried eggplant with batter-fried grouper (鹹魚茄子石斑塊). Ma Wan, a distant island away from the hustle-bustle of Hong Kong's center city, was a fishing village before the plan for Hong Kong's new airport back in the 90s mandated the construction of a long suspension bridge that connects it with the center city. That long suspension bridge, now 8th longest in the world, ends at Ma Wan. The fishing village of Ma Wan, then without any meaningful transportation to it, suddenly became very accessible. New residential development sprouted up, including "Park Island", the all high-rise, 32-building residential behemoth that literally introduced a new city into this tiny fishing village. Ma Wan is now a bustling district with all the amenities of a modern metropolis, but some classic gems remain, including Fai Kee, a traditional Cantonese joint serving up home-style cooking at affordable prices. Fai Kee uses liberally salted fish and shrimp paste, two of the condiment staples in Hong Kong's fishing villages of the yesteryear. Fai Kee's shrimp paste, unlike the lame ones that consumers can find at supermarkets all over center city, erupts with intense, almost pungent, flavors of the sea. One could almost imagine the copious amount of shrimp shells and shrimp juices used to render that beautiful, almost provocatively feisty paste. While the imagery of the bucolic fishing village has long been punctuated by the unstoppable locomotion that is economic development, tidbits of the yesteryear endure on.

Rating: 2 stars to the steamed pork ribs with shrimp paste.

Zhe Jiang Heen

Zhe Jiang Heen
2/F & 3/F, Kiu Fu Commercial Building
300-306 Lockhart Road, Wan Chai
Hong Kong

Chinese pickled cucumbers in chili vinegar, smoked eggs, pig's feet with rice wine, sweet peas, spring onion bread, xiao long bao, pan-fried dumplings, deep fried dumplings with red beans and yellow sugar. Smoked eggs effused with a pinch of bacon-y sweetness. The yolks were cooked to perfection: just firm enough at the crust, and runny at the center. The colors of the yolk revealed the egg's freshness, which came to the fore as the freshness of the runny yolk infiltrated the palate. The rest of the meal was good, though nowhere near the spectacle that was the egg.

Rating: 2 stars to the smoked eggs.

Tak Kee Chiu Chou Restaurant

Tak Kee Chiu Chou Restaurant
G/F, No 3 Belcher's Street, Kennedy Town, Western District
Hong Kong

Braised goose; chicken pieces sauteed with Chiu-Chow deep-fried "pearl" leaves (珍珠葉); steamed mullet with preserved lemons.