Category Archives: Hong Kong

St Betty restaurant review – the roast of the town

Posted on January 17, 2013 | 10 comments

st betty hk roast beef

UPDATE: *Sniff sniff* Sadly, St Betty has now closed. In the meantime, try Sunday roast here instead!

Having recently returned to the UK for the first time in over three years, I can safely say that one of the (very) few things I miss about the place is the food. That’s not to say I don’t love eating out in Hong Kong – and trust me, do I LOVE eating out here and would miss it madly if I were ever dragged kicking and screaming somewhere else – but you just can’t get things like fish and chips, kebabs, Magnums, Penguins, sticky toffee puddings, smoky bacon crisps, Domino’s pizza deliveries, great big whacks of gammon, beef Wellington from the supermarket and the little family-run Italian down the road over here.

However, what you now can get over here is a beautiful top-notch Sunday roast – thanks to the wonderful Shane Osborn, head chef at St Betty.

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Posted in Food, Hong Kong

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TWG Tea Salon & Boutique review – bon appe-tea!

Posted on December 17, 2012 | 2 comments

TWGs hk tea tasting 5

At afternoon tea, it can be easy to lose focus… cute bite-sized finger sandwiches, scrumptious sweets, and of course, buttery yummy warm fuzzy-inducing scones (with clotted cream, of course). But it is called afternoon TEA for a reason – so who better to bring the focus back on your humble cup of char than TWG Tea!

I was invited for an epic afternoon tea of girlie chats, delicious nibbles, and pot after pot after pot of more tea than you ever thought existed with blogger BFFs Jasmine of Dress Me and Vanessa of All Things Indulgent, plus the lovely Renee from Flare and TWG’s Cathy. And for a truly special afternoon tea, you can’t go far wrong.

TWG started in Singapore and its Hong Kong Tea Salon & Boutique in the IFC mall has a Raffles-esque colonial feel, with rattan furniture, smartly suited and booted staff, and walls lined with iconic vintage-style tins of their signature 1837 blend. Afternoon teas are so ten-a-penny here that it’s lovely to find one that still feels special and a treat, without being in yet another five-star hotel. Time has a habit of standing still in TWG, and in hectic HK, that’s actually kind of a joy.

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Posted in Food, Hong Kong

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Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap @ HKAPA review

Posted on October 22, 2012 | 2 comments

It has been a long-time dream of mine to go see Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, the longest running play in the world ever, in the West End. Given I have now upped sticks and moved to Hong Kong, this ambition was seeming ever more unlikely… but luckily for me, a production decided to come over here to the HKAPA instead!

I say ‘luckily’ but actually I’m now not too sure. This 60 Year Diamond Anniversary touring show by Lunchbox Productions (the chief stagers of global productions in Hong Kong, including Grease and Chicago) turned out to be rather average with precious little West End sparkle – and now I know ‘whodunit’, if I should ever make it back to the British original in St Martin’s Theatre, it just wouldn’t be quite the same as seeing it for the first time.

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Posted in Culture, Hong Kong, Theatre

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A doggie bag for all seasons!

Posted on October 12, 2012 | 1 comment

Owning two dogs = a whole new bunch of cute things to spend my money on!

Yes, no longer am I restricted to human mo liu, now I can waste my hard-earned cash on puppy mo liu too!

…I jest. In fact, this stuff is not really mo liu at all because dogs are generally overjoyed at anything you bestow on them (socks, string, dirty underwear) so actual treats – be they practical, edible or playful – always go down in a tail-wagging frenzy of licking, jumping and maniacal excitement!

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Posted in Hong Kong, Random

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Fiat Caffè restaurant review – start your engines!

Posted on October 8, 2012 | 1 comment

UPDATE: Fiat Caffè has now moved to Shop B1018 & B1023, B1, Miramar Shopping Centre, 132 Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong, 2808 4777

My friend Mirander and I are engaged in on-going quest to check out every café in Hong Kong… and latest to make it on our radar was the Fiat Caffè in Causeway Bay. And yes, that is Fiat as in cars.

Cunningly disguised as a car showroom in Leighton Centre, I must have walked past countless times before realising that there was actually a menu pinned outside… and not just a basic café menu of perfunctory espressos and sad-looking sandwiches, but a mouth-watering menu stuffed with interesting Italian dishes.

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Posted in Food, Hong Kong

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Mid-Autumn Festival Hong Kong 2011, Moon Fun Playground lantern exhibition: Fairground attraction!

Posted on September 9, 2012 | 3 comments

Mid-Autumn Festival is rolling round again (four day weekend, hollaaaa!), so what better time to bring you… a full year late… the gorgeous lanterns from last year’s festivities?!

My advice is to bypass the crowds at Victoria Park and instead head to Tsim Sha Tsui’s Cultural Centre Piazza, where every year they have an awesome thematic lantern exhibition. It stays on display for a full month (much longer than the ones at Victoria Park), is less crowded (especially if you hit it when everyone else is having their dinner or when they are otherwise occupied with the Symphony Of Lights show), provides almost an hour’s worth of photo opportunities and intense study of all the amazing close-up details of each lantern, plus you can then get the Star Ferry home and admire HK’s amazing skyline… its very own modern cityscape of a lantern show.

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Posted in Culture, Exhibitions, Hong Kong, Pretty Things

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Abercrombie & Fitch hits Hong Kong – I like girls that wear Abercrombie & Fitch…

Posted on August 13, 2012 | 10 comments

UPDATE: In November 2016, Abercrombie & Fitch announced their Hong Kong store would be closing, as a result of the economic downtown – it had been rumoured for a while and what with Forever 21 also exiting their phenomenally expensive space in Causeway Bay, was not really a surprise. As part of their rebranding, A&F also removed all their #HotGuys videos from Youtube (and from the stores!); props to various gay YT channels for preserving Call Me Maybe for perpetuity, whilst I’ve plugged in some other fan/news videos to try showcase the mayhem of the opening. Let’s remember the good times…

So, in case you live under not just one rock but ten tonnes of them, Abercrombie & Fitch finally opened its first Hong Kong store in the iconic Pedder Building in Central.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOLUSOe3eoM

At 11am, August 11, 2012, the doors finally opened (signature Fierce cologne filling the air). People queued overnight, lines of not just hundreds but thousands swarmed all the way around Pedder, an MTR exit was closed and police barricades were in effect. Don’t believe me? See the video above!

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Posted in Hong Kong, Style

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Heirloom Eatery restaurant review – smores, smores, smores (how do you like it…)

Posted on June 4, 2012 | 6 comments

UPDATE: Heirloom Eatery is now known as Corner Kitchen Cafe.

Hong Kong is all about the hype. Be it Hello Kitty toys, Lady Gaga tickets or the latest ‘it-restaurant’, there’s always buzz around something.

One of the coolest, most talked-about restaurants from a while back, is Heirloom Eatery in the also buzzing Sheung Wan side of Hollywood Road. In traditional Rach late to the party style, I didn’t get round to trying it out until a month or so ago – with foodie partner-in-crime Michelle of Chopstixfix and her friend Amy (not a blogger but just as game for taking loads of pics and eating loads of food!).

Heirloom is a quaint little eaterie with lots of quirky design touches. It’s definitely a world away from any of the flashy restaurant group behemoths in Hong Kong and, with its whimsical menus, floral crockery, mismatched furniture and homespun feel, is probably all the better for it. Although the restaurant is on the smaller side, it’s lovely to sit outside watching the world go by on a nice spring day.

The menu is casual and international, with a few key influences – Mexican and Asian (thanks to the heritage of the two founders) – and a few majorly hyped dishes… Dear reader, we tried all of them!

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Posted in Food, Hong Kong

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Dessert of the day – there be magic in them Crumbs

Posted on May 28, 2012 | 12 comments

UPDATE: #FML, all Crumbs locations have now closed.

My fondness for desserts has been well documented so here’s a quick post for one of my favourites: Crumbs Fro Yo!

I was introduced to the delightful Crumbs by my lovely friend Jane… and it’s probably one of my defining moments in Hong Kong! With the fro-yo craze exploding in HK over the last few years, you can barely move for people dripping their icy treats all over you on street pavements – but how do you separate the wheat from the chaff (or whatever the yoghurt equivalent of that saying would be… something to do with curds and whey? I digress…).

Well, Crumbs isn’t just good, it’s great. Whoever thought that a little stand selling fro yos would be quietly making the best fresh brownies in Hong Kong?

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Posted in Food, Hong Kong

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Hello Kitty mo liu – the cat’s meow!

Posted on May 14, 2012 | 6 comments

I was introduced to the term ‘mo liu’ by a few friends on Twitter and rapidly found that it seemed to describe my life!

In English,  mo liu translates to items of frippery, flippant impulse buys that are super-cute but ultimately functionless. I have always been susceptible to pretty things (and indeed, a whole category on here is named thus!) yet in Hong Kong, such mo liu lurks round every street corner, in every market, on the shelves of every shop, supermarket and convenience store. You cannot escape!

Prime offenders are items emblazoned with the likeness of a certain cartoon cat (previously featured on my blog here). And yes, forgive me for I am weak… for I gave into the cute collecting craze again… not once, but two times!

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Posted in Hong Kong, Pretty Things, Random

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