Tag Archives: Causeway Bay

Hong Kong Flower Show 2011: It’s all coming up roses (and tulips… and orchids…)

Posted on March 31, 2011 | 7 comments

Forget the Botanical Gardens. Forget the overpriced, increasingly tat-filled Chinese New Year Flower Market. Forget the Chelsea Flower Show. Because for technicolour horticultural goodness, the Hong Kong Flower Show 2011 beats them all. (Well, it beats watching Chelsea on television anyhow).

The Hong Kong Flower Show is apparently an annual event held in Victoria Park that my auntie only piped up about this year, my third in HK. Thanks a lot! Oh well, at least she piped up eventually, as this was a sight I’m definitely glad I didn’t miss out on.

I love flowers – I love them even more when I don’t have to put in the hard work of maintaining them – so the Flower Show was absolutely perfect for those who want to feast on the visual delights of plants in all colours, shapes and sizes without getting your green fingers dirty! As someone who quite often misses her garden in the UK, this happily quelled any longings in some serious style!

For just $14 entry, you can wander around the countless show gardens, exhibits, displays and gardening stalls that take over the entire grounds to your heart’s content. It’s also free for the over 60s on weekdays; my auntie wasn’t sure whether she should be happy she saved money or upset that she looked old enough for no-one to check her ID!

This year’s theme was Symphony of Spring Flowers, hence all the floral pianos, harps and music notes you see scattered around – a bit cheesy in places, but generally too beautiful and immaculately-executed for you to care. There were also special displays by some of HK’s botanical societies (the orchid ones are always amazing enough to warrant a gander) whilst there were also some more modern, edgy and striking displays to cut through the cutesiness of the giant instrument-playing animals (oh who am I kidding, they were my favourite part!).

I also loved the numerous stalls selling plants and gardening supplies; if you can get past the crowds who mill around treating these as further photo opportunities, there are some really reasonable deals to be had on stuff that can be more difficult to unearth in HK. I bought a fuchsia for $30 and two violas for $10 each (and would have bought many more if I didn’t have to think about carrying it all home), whilst many orchids were only around $100. Basically, screw you CNY Flower Market, I’ll never be buying your overpriced tat again!

Anyway, enough of my rambling, I think the photos are gorgeous enough to speak for themselves. So fire up your monitor, click for enlargements so huge you can practically smell them and enjoy!

My favourite photo, taken at one of the show displays

How cute are the baby chicks?!

Ocean Park Garden

Love the creativity of these two, designed to look like music staves

Some of the more contemporary displays

Macau Garden

I think these ghostly pianos look like they were made from a skeleton’s bones!

Just can’t resist me some orchids!

Some of the more structural displays – note the number of OAPS enjoying a sit-down in the branch dome!

Mini gardens! Love the hydrangea tree and the cute little chicks and bunnies made from flowers!

After all that, I think we need a rest…

Hong Kong Flower Show 2011, Victoria Park, Causeway Bay, 11-20 March 2011. $14 entry fee, free for over-60s on weekdays ($7 on weekends). See their website for further details.


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Nitaya Thai House restaurant review – straighten up and Thai right

Posted on December 8, 2010 | 1 comment

I’m fond of telling people that it would be impossible to eat at every restaurant in Hong Kong in a lifetime. By that logic, you’d probably need to spend at least a few months in Tai Hang alone.

Why did no-one tell me about Tai Hang before?! A gnat’s sneeze away from the hysterical hustle of Causeway Bay, it’s a relaxed residential area within easy walking distance of Tin Hau and Victoria Park that has an entire winding road dedicated to food. What’s more, in a country where the dining chain is king, the majority are reasonably-priced independent local joints, with more charm going for them than Michael Buble’s eye twinkle. Forget the snooty grandeur of the somewhat similar Happy Valley hood, Tai Hang is where it’s at. Nothing to do with the fact that it’s also within easy walking distance of my home too (when I’m feeling fit that is!)…

It’s easy to get good Thai food in HK. It’s easy to get average Thai food too. I can safely say that Nitaya Thai House is in the former category.

The interior can best be described as homely (estate agent’s word for a bit cramped), with the resulting décor looking like a Thai thrift store sneezed over the premises, scattering its goods willy-nilly on the walls. But with its French window front, charming knick-knacks and convivial atmosphere, it feels like you’ve just wandered into someone’s front room for dinner – except that someone can rustle up a mean Thai feast!

Prices are very reasonable (averaging around $30-40 for most dishes), although portions are on the smaller size. We kicked things off with one of my favourite Thai dishes – clams with chilli paste ($58). Tiny tender morsels swimming in sweet, spicy chilli sauce = heaven. Thai spicy is about the only kind of spicy I can take i.e. mitigated by swathes of sweet coconut milk. The combination of flavours is intense but just right and I love having enough sauce to drench my other dishes in! These things are simply addictive!

Next up, another perennial favourite – Thai-style morning glory (ong choi, $38). I’m used to this being spicier (more ma la chun style); this sauce was actually rather sweet, perhaps due to the kind of fish sauce used or a hefty dose of oyster sauce. Either way, it was still very tasty and the veggies were fresh and tender.

I’m still going through my noodle phase so it was pad thai all the way ($35). This is such an oft poorly executed staple across so many restaurants in HK (not necessarily even Thai ones!) that I’d forgotten how utterly delicious it could be when cooked right. All the vital ingredients were present and correct – egg (not rubbery), bean curd (not rubbery x2), succulent prawns (not rubbery x3), bean sprouts (not masquerading as noodles), heaps of chilli and crushed peanuts (not dumped in a heap in the middle of the dish) and a squeeze of fresh lime juice on the side. The rice noodles were so light, fresh and tasty that they disappeared down our throats without our even noticing (especially once we doused them in that ultra-appetising clam sauce). This portion was barely big enough for two and we soon found ourselves chomping through another!

Finally, we tried Nitaya’s signature dish, which adorns various magazine cuttings presented with your menu and is my banner picture, and their curry steamed prawns ($68) were definitely something a little bit different. Prawns stuffed with what seems to be baby prawn meat mixed with some strong curry spices then drizzled with some soothing coconut milk on top. I’m not sure these were really my bag, as there was too much too thick coconut milk (almost congealed) and I didn’t like the texture of the stuffing (too close to baby food). However, the prawns themselves were delicately sweet, if a little overwhelmed by the somewhat forceful other flavours. A dish worth trying but not really my cup of char.

I’d head to Nitaya again, even though competition in Tai Hang is pretty stiff. Service is friendly, the atmosphere is lively and I haven’t even tried their curry yet! Yup, that settles it… I’ll definitely be back!

Nitaya Thai House, 140 Tong Lo Wan Road, Tai Hang, Hong Kong, 3483 3497

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798 Unit & Co Gastropub restaurant review – rub-a-pub-grub

Posted on November 5, 2010 | 1 comment

UPDATE: 798 is now closed.

Whilst Hong Kong seems to be getting the hang of pubs (Dickens, Delaneys and Trafalgar are all worth a punt and I’ve heard good things about The Globe… just don’t head to The Pickle & Pelican if you value your stomach), gastropubs are proving a bit more difficult for HK to get its head round.

I’m not looking for a Heston Blumenthal experience. For me, a gastropub means a bit of a fancier setting, a bit of a fancier menu (featuring regular pub grub but with a few twists) and an elevation in the quality of the food. I don’t think I’m shattering many illusions when I divulge that most standard pubs in the UK are operating an only slightly superior variant on “pinging” supermarket ready-meals, especially as many are now run by cut-and-paste chains. With a gastropub, I’m expecting fresh ingredients, some element of cooking as opposed to just sticking something in an oven and an environment that isn’t coated in sticky beer stains. Of course, with such benefits comes a hike in prices – but within reason!

So whither gastropubs in HK? The Pawn isn’t far off the mark, but it’s a la carte menu is just too pricey. I would classify Jimmy’s Kitchen’s menu as pure gastropub, but its staff and its prices seem to be under the illusion that it’s a Michelin-starred restaurant. Frites (run by Concept Creations, who also own the fabulous Tapeo) has the environment down pat, top-notch food, a quality beer selection and would perhaps rank as a gastropub – in Belgium. Good luck looking for a lasagne there! As such, 798 Unit & Co. Gastropub is probably your best bet.

The environment is perfectly-judged. Looming chandeliers on lofty ceilings, chunky dark-wood furniture and squishy sofas, blackboard menus and other quirky little touches. Food is served in hearty, hefty portion sizes, which should be a given in a gastropub.

As for the food, the lunch menu (available between 12-3pm) is spectacularly good value. $88 for three courses plus a drink is fantastic, especially given that you’re in a Western restaurant in the typically pricey Times Square in Causeway Bay (compare with The Pawn, $150 for three courses sans drink). They also do even cheaper sets if you fancy a salad ($78) or sandwiches/pizza ($68).

All this would be meaningless if the food was rubbish. But it isn’t. For my money, 798 does the best fish and chips in Hong Kong. That’s not a claim to be taken lightly but here’s the evidence. It comes wrapped in faux newspaper. This isn’t just a tacky design thing – it helps soak up the grease! So many restaurants here seem unable to comprehend this simple fact and serve you a fish sliming about in its own oil, a sad but inevitable by-product of deep-frying things. It’s served with a load of side condiments, including vinegar, which you could be forgiven for thinking is a prohibited ingredient out here (alas, not Sarsons Malt but red wine vinegar, still better than nothing).

You get a full fillet of fish, not a few strips, and said fish is moist, creamy but still flakes apart expertly. The batter is golden, crispy and has an actual taste (there may be beer involved), as opposed to the anodyne floury sometimes herby stuff most places do. The chips are steak-cut, golden, fluffy on the inside, crispy on the outside. I believe one of the main reasons chips in HK often suck is due to the quality of the spud (have you seen the sad specimens at the local wet market?!) but these ones have a yummy nutty flavour to savour.

[For those interested, I’d rank it alongside The Pawn’s extremely good version in terms of taste but it beats it in terms of presentation and price, even in its a la carte incarnation. And it pisses all over The Chippy from a great height.]

As for the rest of the set, starters are either soup or salad of the day. The rabbit food was underdressed but their soups are lovely. They taste homemade, as if they remembered being a fresh vegetable recently rather than in some dim and distant lifetime. The cauliflower soup was a little watery (a common problem in homemade soups) but the intense flavour came through nicely. It would be nice if you could use some hunks of bread to soak it up but I find 798’s wedges more suitable to propping up wobbly table legs rather than eating.

My auntie went for spaghetti for her main. Here we get a typical ‘gastropub’ twist – the ragu was made with lamb rather than beef. This works better than one of their other twists (for me, the taste and texture of duck just does not work with the taste and texture of lasagne, ok!) and the lamb was sweet, succulent and tender. And there’s lots of it. (I hate when you run out of meat in a pasta, and to keep costs down, it happens quite a lot out here). It’s balanced by a richly appetising ragu, with a heady hit of wine to boot!

No choice for dessert – you get the dessert of the day, although for $20 you can upgrade to an a la carte choice (which are uniformly scrumptious btw). Given the heavy main portions, it’s kept short and sweet. That day, it was a strawberry mousse cake – light and airy mousse, light and airy sponge, topped with a juicy fresh strawberry. Fragrantly sweet rather than overpoweringly so, it’s nothing groundbreaking but goes down a fluffy dreamy treat at the end of the meal.

Any future gastropubs opening in HK would do well to examine 798’s template. No molecular gastronomy, just good honest food at good honest prices. Just try and make it there in time for lunch!

Shop 1203, 12/F Food Forum, Times Square, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, 2506 0611

Restaurant photo from 798 Unit & Co’s website.

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Mid-Autumn Festival Hong Kong: It’s a marvellous night for a mooncake

Posted on October 4, 2010 | 3 comments

Mid-Autumn Festival may just be one of my favourite festivals in Hong Kong because just about everywhere makes the effort to look pretty. Admittedly, all it takes is a few paper lanterns scattered about, but at night time especially, it looks charming and uniquely Chinese.

Also know as Moon Festival, it’s held on the 15th day of the 8th month (of the lunar calendar, so roughly late September) when the moon is supposed to be at its brightest. There are many variants of the legend behind the festival, but I’ll tell you (in the best Chinese tradition!) the one that my mum told me.

A long long time ago, there used to be ten suns in the sky, which burnt away terribly at the Earth. The emperor commanded the most skilled archer in all the land, Hou Yi, to shoot down all but one of the suns – which he did, leaving us with the one sun we have today. As a reward, he was given a magic potion that would grant him eternal life and he hid it away at home. According to my mum’s version, Hou Yi became a tyrant, corrupted by power and ambition; on seeing this, his beautiful wife, Seung Orr, decided to eat the pill herself to prevent him from living forever (other versions have the wife finding and eating the pill accidentally). Upon eating the pill, she found herself becoming lighter and lighter and she began to float. Eventually, she floated out of the window, up into the sky and onto the moon where she lives today. She also has her rabbit with her, who you can sometimes see outlined on the moon.

If you’re a virgin to Moon Festival, there are only two things you need to know – lanterns and mooncake! Seung Orr adorns many a mooncake box and the traditional cakes are made with a yellow duck egg inside, representing the moon. Nowadays, there are all kinds of modern takes on the mooncake, including chocolate, mango, green tea or even ‘snowy’ ice-cream ones. We bought one that was shaped like a pig! It came in a miniature version of the traditional basket that real pigs used to be carried to market in the olden days and I love how he even has a little curly tail. Alas, he had to be decapitated and eaten – the filling was green bean paste – and my auntie said he looked a lot nicer than he tasted!

Lanterns are lit to accentuate the brightness of the moon and on the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival itself, paper ones are lit and floated off to the moon. This year, one managed to land on an MTR train, sparking a small fire, panic, evacuations, delays and talk of regulating lanterns more closely next year. As with mooncakes, lanterns have evolved with the times and you can get them in practically any shape, size or colour you desire, with inflatable musical cartoon character versions proving particularly popular with youngsters (so if it’s late September and you’re hearing a tinny tune in the dim and distant, it’s probably a toddler holding a blow-up Doaremon).

We went to the special market in Tsing Yi’s Maritime Square Mall, which is basically your one-stop Mid-Autumn shop. As you can see, the lantern stall was a riot of colour! We bought two ($35 each) – a pretty lotus flower and a gorgeous goldfish. You can see them in action in our flat below!

However, these are mere small fry compared to the lanterns that the government has built to mark the occasion. For all of Mid-Autumn weekend, Victoria Park in Causeway Bay is transformed into a luminous lantern extravaganza. It costs a small fortune but hey, who cares when it looks this spectacular?!

Check out my posts on more beautiful Mid-Autumn lanterns in Tsim Sha Tsui in Hong Kong here and here

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Going Over The Taupe at Cher2: OPI nail polish review

Posted on September 25, 2010 | Leave a comment


The other day, I had lunch with a friend who was sporting turquoise nails and I developed a sudden finger fetish, quietly coveting her aqua talons all afternoon. Having not painted my nails in about ten years, it suddenly struck me that there was a whole rainbow-coloured world of make-up that I was wilfully neglecting – and I felt the need to rectify it immediately.

Not as easy as it sounds. Without my trusty Boots to fall back on, I headed to the local equivalents (Sasa, Bonjour, Colormix) and checked out their huge vats of pick n mix nail polish. They were cheap (average $15) but not so cheerful – colours already separating in the pots, brands I’d never heard of and signs imploring me not to try out the goods. When I sneakily opened one, the sad thin lacquer dripped down, morose and unloved. No thanks. I trusted the Revlon and Maybelline concessions more but their limited range of colours left a hole in my technicoloured heart and although I’d heard you could buy good stuff at salons that did manicures, I felt a little odd rocking up at one without wanting a treatment. So it was a case of Sassy Hong Kong to the rescue.

Through Sassy’s fantastic website, I found out about a shop called Cher2, a candyland of nail polish that stocked every colour under the sun. What’s more, this was real nail varnish, made by established brands OPI, Essie and China Glaze, but sold at nearly half the normal retail price. In Hong Kong, you come to rely on such tip-offs because these secret goldmines are invariably tucked away in shabby, unassuming office buildings with those scary lifts where you have to open the doors yourself. I felt like an explorer navigating these old and dusty corridors in search of the treasure trove – and this quiet haven with racks and racks of rainbow explosions was definitely some glorious treasure for a make-up mavens like me!

I’d taken my first tentative toe-dips of getting back in the nail polish groove by doing my thumbnail with a tester pot of ‘it-shade’ Particuliere in Chanel. Classy, I know. I’d selected that mould-colour out of curiosity more than anything else, but over the past few days it had grown on me… rather like mould, I suppose! Armed with painted thumb, I asked the Cher2 shop assistant for the most similar colour they had. The girl was brilliant, knowing her stock exhaustively and producing about five different variants, with us eventually settling for OPI’s Over The Taupe as the most accurate dupe. So here we are.

I’m so in love with this shade right now. I love how subtle it is, yet also how very grown-up. Mushroom, putty, greige, mink, taupe, mould, cloudy coffee, sludge – call it what you will but it’s a sophisticated and seriously arresting blend of brown, grey, beige and even a touch of pale purple. I’d also forgotten how great wearing nail varnish makes you feel, like you’ve made an effort even on off-days, and I keep staring at my pinkies in pleasure. Yes, the finger fetish is back!

As for the nail varnish itself, I found it a little thicker and gloopier than I was expecting. OPI’s fatter brush took a while to get used to and I found the Chanel one easier to apply but this is as much due to the deterioration of my nail painting skills over the intervening decade (when advising me on base coats, the Cher2 assistant told me I had healthy nails – probably because I hadn’t painted them in ten years!) as to any shortcomings of the lacquer itself.

Despite lack of skill, I’m sadly still a bit of a perfectionist. I’d paint, not be entirely happy, try and tidy it up with nail varnish remover but manage to get acetone on other nice nails, meaning I had to start all over again, several times! It also seemed to take an age to dry, possibly because I didn’t leave enough time between coats (and you definitely need two coats, just one is too streaky and uneven) – I was amazed that it was still tacky over an hour after application, causing me to perennially smear it on things, meaning the final finish wasn’t quite as smooth as I’d hoped. 90 minutes and three rounds later, I was practically high on nail varnish remover fumes – but I had beautiful nails. Well, from a distance anyway!

I think I need to go a few more rounds with OPI to decide whether the thicker polish and fat brush works for me, but I really adore the colour. Two days on and I’m still chip-free, which speaks highly of the quality, especially reasonable at Cher2 prices.

I’ll be back on the nail varnish wagon again soon with the other two shades I bought so watch out for reviews of them! In the meantime though, I’ll just stare lovingly at my fingers some more…

Looks great with: Black, cream, smart/casual look
Drying time: +10-15 mins
Coats required: 2
Chips: After 2 days

OPI Over The Taupe nail polish, Summer 2009 Bright Pair Collection, $70, Cher2

All Cher2 locations in Hong Kong:

– 1E Po Foo Building, 84-94 Percival Street/1 Foo Ming Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, 2882 2528
– 809, Mong Kok City Centre, 74-84 Sai Yeung Choi Street, Mong Kok, Hong Kong, 2886 1132
– 1202A Century Square, 1-13 D’Aguilar Street, Central, Hong Kong, 2810 0171
– 607 Kowloon Centre, 29-39 Ashley Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong, 2730 0701

http://www.cher2.com

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Sawdust Desserts restaurant review – ice ice baby

Posted on April 3, 2010 | Leave a comment

I decided the perfect ending to our pirate jaunt would be ice cream (well, it’s the perfect ending to a lot of stuff really). We headed off to the Häagen-Dazs behind the World Trade Centre in Causeway Bay, only to discover it was closed and re-opening about three doors down, so we set about wandering aimlessly (walking off that soft shelled crab!) until we found somewhere to feed my craving – and eventually struck upon a little local place that our friend assured us sold ice cream.

This wasn’t ordinary ice cream though, this was folded shredded ice cream. It looks pretty but doesn’t really taste that much different from regular ice cream – well, once my head had got round the fact that it wasn’t eating crispy duck or shredded pork. My poor boyfriend got saddled with the strawberry one because I didn’t just want photos of chocolate and errr… that one wasn’t as nice, a bit watery and tasteless. So he sprinkled sugar on it. I’m not really sure if that helped.

I presume it’s a special machine (or a gifted origami-ist) that creates the folded effect; it seems to come out a little more sorbet like, with the menu calling it ‘snow ice’. They’re pretty cheap ($32), come with a choice of fruit and there were lots of other “interesting” flavours (Yakult, peanut) on offer that none of us were brave enough to try. You could even get some two-tone ones that would have made for nicer pictures but alas, I didn’t want to give up my pure chocolate hit for ‘plus vanilla’. Sorry!

A refreshing end to the night.

Sawdust Dessert, Shop C, G/F Shining Building, 477-81 Jaffe Road, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, 2893 8311

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Satay King restaurant review – ahoy there, mateys

Posted on March 31, 2010 | Leave a comment

The food is possibly the least interesting thing about Satay King, a very popular chain of restaurants in HK (their website suggests traffic of 22 million people monthly, which seems staggering and could be Google Translate having a laugh).

Instead, it’s all about the décor – a local re-imagining of Pirates of the Caribbean that makes you feel like you wandered into a lost zone from The Crystal Maze (‘a mystery game please, Richard!’) – and the ingenious ordering machine. The sooner every restaurant installs one of these babies the better, as it cuts out at least half an hour of waving at waiters determined to ignore you. Basically, you press one of five buttons (Order, Water, Bill, Service or Cancel, just in case you’d jabbed the wrong button in excitement) and lo and behold, someone appears. Magic, especially for a restaurant as busy as this one.

The décor really is something else. The designer clearly took the theme and ran all the way with it – with a yo ho ho and bottle of rum from the looks of things. In Disneyland Paris, there’s a restaurant called the Blue Lagoon which is actually inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride (you can wave at people!) and the Imagineers really should take a poke round Satay King sometime to see the madness they may have inspired. The place drips with pirates – by the entrance, hanging off the ceiling, you can even sit next to one! But even then, there’s a few touches that you can’t quite account for – this grinning table leg totally freaked me out and I just love the madcap way they’ve attached this wheel to the ceiling and draped it in multi-coloured fairy lights. You can never go wrong with multi-coloured fairy lights; as Caitlin Moran once said, they’re the MAGIC ONES. At least it’s all relatively unobtrusive – it’s not like the waiters are dressed as pirates and thrusting their cutlasses under your nose – and it’s certainly not boring. I’d say it’s good for a HK restaurant to have a sense of humour about it’s interior, but I’m not entirely sure humorous was what the designers intended.

Once we cut out the magical machine and the pirate theme, we’re left with average, although very reasonable for sit-down-on-proper-chairs waiter-serviced restaurant, food. Lots of it is cheese-baked, deep-fried or possibly some combination of both, so not the best place to head on a diet. And they have a full English menu, so gwei-los can get it on the action too.

The best thing to order is the set meal of Pork White Curry. It’s totally delicious – the sauce is creamy with a subtle lemongrass flavour that’s very moreish and there’s lashings of it (I’m one of those that can’t eat my rice dry). The pork is lean and crispy on the outside and ordered as a set, it comes with a big bowl of rice that was enough to share between the three of us, a side of your choice (we opted for Prawn Rolls – tasty and light) and a drink. Bargain at only $50 or so (sorry, I didn’t note prices and the receipt is in Chinese).

My boyfriend is obsessed with soft shell crab and this double portion ($88) was not the best we’ve had, but definitely not the worst. It comes peppered with that amazing rock salt/spice stuff that would probably make sawdust palatable. Together with another three dishes (two snacks and one main) plus three drinks and 10% service charge, it still only came to $80 each. And you get a free bottle of their signature XO chilli sauce at the end. Yes, you can probably eat much cheaper at your local cha cha deng, but you wouldn’t be getting the pirates then would you?

489 Hennessy Road, 9/F Causeway Bay Plaza, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, 2893 6667; see all branches of Satay King in Hong Kong here


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SML restaurant review – does my tum look big in this?

Posted on March 16, 2010 | 3 comments

UPDATE: SML is now closed.

Originally, this was going to be a write-up for one of my fave restaurants in HK, Tapeo on Hollywood Road, Central. Alas, once the tapas arrived, I was simply too ravenous and dug in without a second thought to the camera kicking about in my bag (so until I visit again, let me just tell you their Squid a la Plancha is the most tender, flavoursome squid I’ve ever eaten and their platter of Manchego cheese, honey and toast is more divine than words, photos or thoughts can ever do justice to – we polished off two plates, one rather spuriously as ‘dessert’…).

sml baby

Never fear though because the restaurant I am going to write about is pretty much the next best thing to a tapas joint, without actually being one. SML is one of those genius/ridiculous concepts that seems so head-smackingly obvious, you wonder why it hasn’t been done before (and yes, I’m expecting to be inundated with people telling me it has been). All dishes come in the eponymous ‘small, medium or large’ sizes, meaning complaints about portion sizes at least will not be gracing your end-of-meal comment cards. Cute concept, right?

The menu features dishes from nearly every cuisine you can think of; basically, an international tapas! I think you’ll get a fairly good idea of this from our selection (we ordered small everything), which basically reads like we threw a handful of pushpins over a culinary map of the world and ordered accordingly. I would describe the food as solidly good rather than great – true of the truffle prawn toast ($38) and lasagne ($43), with the creamy, meaty lasagne being the better of the two. The Jamaican coconut chicken curry ($48) was an aberration to nearly every element of its description though; there was very little Jamaican, or even coconut-y, about this ‘boil-in-the-bag’ curry and the chicken was distinctly unappetising, two huge hunks still on the bone and when cut open, revealed gristle, fat and disturbingly pink meat.

We tried to correct our mistake by going for the sizzling chicken fajitas ($67), a little pricey given you only got two wraps (although enough filling and dips for more!) but tasty nonetheless. The star of the mains was, in fact, a mere ‘bits n bobs’ player – the chips with sea salt, truffle and some sort of unidentifiable, probably very fattening but obviously therefore delicious dip. These were fresh and hot, soft yet crispy and guess what, the only things we ordered in medium ($26). You can take the girl out of Britain but you can’t take the Brit out of the girl… I swear that you could sprinkle that sea salt on paper and I’d probably lap it up though.

Desserts definitely require further exploration, as we only had room for the pot of chocolate ($27 – unremarkable and with two bricks of fudge on the top that we weren’t fans of) and the to-die-for profiteroles ($20). Well, in the small size, that should read profiterole singular but the pastry and cream was feather-light and it came bathed in a gorgeous butterscotch sauce, like melted Werther’s Originals floating to heaven. I’m not ashamed to say I practically licked the bowl clean. The drinks menu, with an extensive list of lip-licking cocktails, is also worth a look although I’ve heard the sizes for wines is a bit of a joke (one gulp max even at large, apparently).

lights

The quirkiness of the concept is followed all the way through, from the décor to the small design details. So I loved the little messages on the crockery (‘scrumptious’, ‘more please!’, ‘still hungry?’) and the ingenious way the menu was split up – the mains divided into Land and Sea (for where the animal making up your dish roamed when it was alive), Liquids for soups, Bits n Bobs for sides, Raw & Green for salads and Happy Ending (keep those perverted sex jokes to yourself!) for desserts. The ambience was lovely and relaxed, with some interesting little features; pictured are the punked-up Lego ‘SML baby’ outside the restaurant, the cool light fittings and one of the sweet $10 Ikea cacti that are thrown about the place with artful abandon.

It’s the little things that are ultimately what make the big picture great (as is always the case with Press Room Group restaurants, like The Pawn and The Press Room itself), so I can safely say it is those small touches and quirky twists that will have me coming back to SML again. Well, that and the angelic butterscotch sauce of course.

SML, 11/F, Times Square, 1 Matheson Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, 2577 3444; open 11.30am-11pm.

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Causeway Bay Flower Market: Feelin’ Floral

Posted on February 19, 2010 | Leave a comment

Another Chinese custom (yes, keep up, there are many) is to have fresh flowers in the house at CNY for good luck. Every year, there is a big Flower Market in Victoria Park in Causeway Bay for you to purchase your flowers at ridiculously over-inflated prices but it’s become almost as much of a tradition to take a spin round here for luck as it is to have fresh flowers in the first place. And it is spectacular to visit – the perfume of all those blooms is just amazing (indescribable – you have to experience it first-hand) and the flowers themselves…! Wow! Forget the Chelsea Flower Show, there’s nothing quite like seeing the most beautiful perfection of orchids, lilies and gladioli in a rainbow of colours accompanied by squawking Chinese hawkers yelling ‘Good price, lang mui, good price!’ with the smell of curry fish balls hanging acridly in the air.

Nowadays, you’ll find as much CNY tat (giant inflatables, cuddly toys and costumes of whichever animal’s year it is) and dubious street food as you will fresh flowers, yet that’s all part of the appeal. Last year, my auntie and I discovered a stall selling deep-fried ice cream on sticks. We started with one to share between us to try – and five each later, we were hooked. I barely remember if we bought any flowers that year… but alas, battered ice-cream wasn’t there to distract us this time. Novelty windmills also appear to be lucky judging by their prominence at both the fair and the stalls around Chinese temples; we bought this very pretty ribbon-y fish one (pictured installed on our balcony).

We’re savvy sorts so we didn’t actually buy any flowers from here, merely “got inspiration” before getting them cheap at our local wet market. Buying fresh flowers always seems such a silly idea as they’re dead almost before they’re alive but they really do look gorgeous and bring you some sort of unique special feeling and pleasure. These sweet peas were my choice, as they were never strong enough to survive the hardships of British weather in my garden at home. I guess a garden is one of the few things I miss about home – but I never had to look after it did I?! Perhaps the life span of fresh flowers is just about right for my current level of responsibility-taking.

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