Food photo dump from Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas from San Pedro to Vallarta

by   •   Cruises, Food
 

After what I would consider a fairly successful first-ever cruise experience for me on Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas, I continued keeping an eye out on various cruise lines’ websites to check for opportunities to book a second cruise. Eventually, I ended up managing to catch a great deal on Royal Caribbean’s website for a 7-night cruise to Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlán, and Puerto Vallarta.

The base fare for a solo cruiser in an interior cabin was $1,156.00, but it came with a $347.00 discount as part of a sale, another $226.00 discount on top of that for a different promotion, and an additional $81.00 discount even on top of that for being a Nevada resident. (Apparently the resident discount applies to short-notice bookings for residents of states neighboring the port, which is a way to incentivize nearby people to book the cruise assuming that traveling the relatively short distance won’t be too much of a hassle for them.) With $155.82 added on for taxes, fees, and port expenses, my total base fare for this trip was US$657.82. I bought a bunch of add-ons so the grand total was closer to a thousand dollars, but for the base price, $657.82 is insanely low.

I’m a bit behind on blogging right now, and I’ve actually been back from this cruise already for one week. However, I’m taking a brief break from traveling and have a bit more time now, so I’ll be catching up soon. I used this extra free time to go through and organize my cruise photos, and I’ve decided to split it up into four blog posts (this one being the first one).

To start, here is a rundown of (most of) the food I ate on the cruise.

Like last time, I purchased a premium dining package add-on that allowed me to eat at any specialty restaurant for no extra charge (apart from the extra charge of actually purchasing the add-on, that is). Normally, all meals are included in your fare, but if you get this add-on, you get to go to more private and higher-quality on-board restaurants instead of the buffet or main dining room. This cost me $214.62 extra for the 7-night cruise, which is broken down into $181.93 for the package and $32.69 for a mandatory 18% prepaid gratuity.

Also like last time, I purchased The Key for $181.93 (this is separate from the dining package, and it is just a coincidence that they share the same base price, which was due to a pretty steep discount on The Key). The main perk of this is the fact that it includes on-board Internet access, but it also comes with a special welcome lunch and departure breakfast.

The welcome lunch on Quantum of the Seas was great—I had a nice, private window seat and enjoyed some delicious fish. The welcome lunch on Navigator of the Seas, however, was a bit… different. Instead of giving everyone a private table, they randomly grouped some strangers into larger parties. For example, rather than giving me a solo table, I was put in a group of nine at what is basically a really big family dining table. This is fine for something like the Chef’s Table where you’re intentionally opting into it, but it seemed weird for a regular meal like this.

Regardless, thanks to a handful of chatty people at our table, it wasn’t too bad. I got to know some new people, and many of them were intrigued at my mobile lifestyle of traveling non-stop and living out of hotel rooms most of the time.

As the main entrée of my lunch, I ordered some branzino with asparagus. Similar to last time, the fish came out looking sort of sad, but taste- and texture-wise, it was great.

For dinner on embarkation day, I dined at Izumi Sushi. I intentionally scheduled sushi night to be the first night because I wasn’t sure if I was going to get seasickness, so I figured that it would be best to try and get ahead of it and eat a lot of ginger from the sushi restaurant as a preventative measure.

As my appetizer, I had crispy rice spicy tuna, which was made from creamy tuna, masago, spicy aïoli, chili garlic oil, hot crispy rice, and jalapeño.

For my first main course, I ordered a poke bowl with seasoned tuna, salmon, avocado, sea salt, sesame chili oil, onions, scallions, masago, seaweed salad, and sushi rice.

I comboed that with my second main course, the assorted sashimi with salmon, yellowtail, and shrimp. It looked like getting the sashimi was much better value than getting the assorted nigiri in terms of portion size. Because the poke bowl came with plenty of sushi rice already, I fished some out and combined it with the assorted sashimi to have some build-your-own nigiri.

For dessert, I had assorted mochi ice cream. It usually comes with one piece each of mango, strawberry, and chocolate, but I requested for the chocolate to be replaced with a second piece of mango. It’s not that I dislike chocolate, but rather, I just find more consistency in liking fruity flavors instead.

This is what the entrance of Izumi looked like.

This is a shot of the interior of Izumi. I had a fairly late dining time, so it was pretty empty by the time I was there.

Next on my rotation was Jamie’s Italian. I dined there twice—one time for lunch, and one time for dinner on a different day.

On the day that I went for lunch, I started my meal with their ultimate garlic bread, which is made from warm artisan buttermilk buns, herby garlic butter, Parmesan, and rosemary.

For my main entrée, I ordered truffle tagliatelle.

I remembered from Quantum of the Seas that this pasta dish was borderline-inedibly salty, so for this one, I put in a special request with the waitress to minimize the amount of excess salt that was added to this dish. She passed along my preference to the chef, and it was very well honored; this came out at the perfect saltiness level, and it tasted great.

For dessert, I got some ice cream topped with fruits and caramel popcorn.

Jamie’s Italian was located inside the Windjammer Buffet in its own dining room along the edge of the ship. This meant that I got to enjoy a great view of the ocean through the floor-to-ceiling windows while dining.

On the day that I went to Jamie’s for dinner, I started with some crispy squid with a side of lemon and garlic mayo sauce.

For my main course, I had lasagne made from slow-cooked beef and pork, topped with herbs, baked in a Béchamel sauce with tomatoes, mozzarella, and Parmesan. I’m usually not the biggest fan of eating a ton of cheese, but the cheese in this dish wasn’t unpleasantly pungent like some other cheeses are. This was also specially made with low sodium, which made me like it more than I expected.

For dessert, I had a banana split with one scoop each of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice cream, topped with caramel popcorn and a caramel drizzle. This was incredibly delicious and possibly the best dessert I had on the ship. The caramel was torched in a way such that, combined with the banana, it tasted like a fruity crème brûlée.

Next is the big one: Hooked Seafood. Seafood is my favorite type of food, so I spent three of my dinners dining at Hooked.

Each dinner started with some cheesy bread.

The first night at Hooked, I selected fresh-shucked oysters with mignonettes as my appetizer.

That was followed by The Captain’s Platter as my main entrée, consisting of a four-ounce lobster tail, grilled halibut filet, and three jumbo shrimp. This was accompanied by some melted butter as the dipping sauce and some seasonal vegetables as the side dish.

Afterwards, I opted for a lemon tart for dessert.

The second night at Hooked, I started with some mussels steamed in a garlic white wine sauce.

For my main entrée, I ordered a grilled salmon filet. I got this because I figured the portion size of the fish would be larger, but it was about the same as what was served in The Captain’s Platter. The platter didn’t have an additional upcharge, so it seems like it is just categorically better, considering that you get to select the type of filet you want anyway, and you get the “bonus” lobster tail and shrimp as well.

For my side, I got some lobster mac and cheese. It was quite greasy and didn’t really have much lobster in it, so I would’ve probably been better off trying the coleslaw or corn on the cob instead.

For dessert, I got a cherry tart topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

For my third and final night at Hooked Seafood, which was also the final dinner I had on the cruise ship before debarkation day, I ordered some baked oysters as my appetizer—half Rockefeller and half leeks and white wine. I’m glad I got to try this for the sake of variety, but I much preferred the fresh oysters and drunken mussels instead.

My main course this day was the surf and turf, which came with a lobster tail and steak. I’m still working on improving my heart health and minimizing my consumption of saturated fat, so I’ve been avoiding red meats where possible. With that being said, I figured that, even though filet mignon isn’t as low in saturated fat as cuts like the round, it’s lean enough that I could enjoy a surf and turf for one of the days.

For my final dessert at Hooked, I got a coconut cream pie, made from coconut custard and topped with whipped cream and toasted coconut. It also came with a few dollops of caramel and a few dots of chocolate sauce.

This is what the interior of Hooked Seafood looked like.

And finally, the last specialty restaurant I went to, which rounds out all the available options, was Chops Grille, Royal Caribbean’s popular American-style steakhouse.

Upon being seated, I was brought some bread: one piece of onion bread, and one piece of pretzel bread. It came with a side of butter, but I opted to just have the bread on its own because I didn’t feel like clogging my arteries that day.

For my appetizer, I ordered a pan-seared crab cake topped with fresh herbs and served alongside some chipotle aïoli.

For my main entrée, I ordered a hand-cut nine-ounce filet mignon cooked rare. According to the menu, their filet is sourced from the Midwest. I requested the sauce on the side in the moat of the plate and only used a very small portion of it, considering that I like the actual flavor of the beef and don’t want strong sauces to overwhelm or detract from the flavor.

For my sides to go along with the steak, I asked for half portions each of Yukon gold mashed potatoes and grilled jumbo asparagus.

To conclude my meal at Chops, I got some key lime pie as dessert.

And finally, the last thing I ate on the ship before disembarking was an Eggs Benedict with crab cake and avocado, along with a side of hash browns. This was part of the special à la carte breakfast that came with The Key, and luckily, I had a private dining experience this time and didn’t have to share a large family-style table with strangers.

Overall, I’d say that I liked the food on Navigator of the Seas a little bit more than the food on Quantum of the Seas. However, that comes with a few caveats. I enjoyed the Italian food on Navigator more because I learned from my mistakes on Quantum and asked for the sodium reduction. Additionally, I just really like seafood, so the fact that there was a dedicated seafood restaurant this time basically by default made me like Navigator’s food more. I did enjoy the creativity of Wonderland on Quantum of the Seas, but that was somewhat gimmicky and didn’t contribute as much to the overall perception of core food quality.

There are three things not pictured in this blog post:

The first is the food from Café Promenade. This is the late-night option for people who want something to eat after the buffets and main dining rooms are closed, and I usually only came here when I had intensive workouts at the fitness center and needed some extra calories before ending my night. I usually just got some pastries or pizza from here, and they weren’t particularly notable or special (the pizza tasted like generic grocery store frozen pizza).

The second is Johnny Rockets. Navigator of the Seas has a Johnny Rockets Express on the pool deck that usually sells burgers à la carte for an extra charge, but because of my premium dining package, I was able to redeem one combo (a burger, fries, and beverage) for free every day. I only went here a couple of times, and I guess I ended up forgetting to take a picture of my burger every time. The burgers and fries here were the equivalent of what you’d find at a decent fast food restaurant on land. It was worth it for me because it was inclusive in my dining package, but otherwise, it’s around a $15 additional supplement, which I think is way too high for the circumstances (specifically, the fact that you can get other good food elsewhere on the ship for no extra charge).

And finally, the third is the Chef’s Table. I had it last time on Quantum of the Seas and enjoyed the experience enough that I booked it again for Navigator of the Seas. It usually costs an extra $118 per person, but with my unlimited dining package, I was able to get it for a discounted $59 upcharge (composed of a $50 base price and a $9 mandatory 18% gratuity). I will have a dedicated blog post on the Chef’s Table coming up soon.

 

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Hello, Hayworth in Henderson, Nevada

by   •   Food, Las Vegas
 

I’m a bit behind on blogging right now, and after my recent trip to Hong Kong, I have since taken and finished another entirely separate trip (which I will blog about soon). However, in between those two trips, I returned to home base in the Las Vegas Valley to take care of some errands, and while in town, I met up with one of my friends who wanted to check out a new restaurant called Hayworth in Henderson, Nevada.

I am often fairly selective with restaurants that I blog about. I understand that online reviews can have significant influence on the success of a business, and even though I maintain that I am just a casual blogger who likes to write about my life, the reality of the situation is that my blog posts end up on the front page of search engine results for restaurants with surprising frequency. Thus, when I write reviews, I usually only write about chef’s tasting menus or omakase experiences such that someone else can go to that same restaurant and replicate my same experience. I avoid writing about à la carte restaurants because a bad experience could be attributed to myself doing a poor job at assembling a meal from the menu options, so for those kinds of restaurants, I usually do “food photo dumps” where I just share pictures but don’t go into too much detail.

With that being said, I do really want to stick with the idea that this is just the personal website of some random Asian guy from America. I don’t want to hold myself to too high of a standard for my blog, because I want this to be a fun and enjoyable way to leave a record of my life online, and I don’t want to fall into the trap of not releasing content because I don’t think it meets an arbitrary, meaningless standard.

The fact that I had to give that introduction probably foreshadows how I feel about this restaurant. However, I do think it is important to note that just because I did not have the best experience does not mean that you also will not have a good experience. As of today, Hayworth has stellar reviews online, and when I went in-person, I did not see any signs or receive any requests from staff that may have prompted those skewed reviews (i.e., nobody asked me to leave a positive review). Surely, that many people can’t be wrong, so make sure you’re only taking my opinion as one data point, rather than just trusting me entirely.

So with that out of the way, this was our meal.

 
For our starter, we ordered some warm challah knot bread topped with poppy and smoked sea salt.

At first glance, the texture seemed nice and it looked very flaky, but upon biting into it, I realized it was very dry. It was not flaky at all; instead, it was quite crumbly. It reminded me of when I was younger and my mom would tell me to buy dinner rolls at the grocery store, but I forgot to look at the expiration date on the packaging so I ended up accidentally grabbing a pack that expires tomorrow, and my mom would try and make up for my mistake by microwaving the bread, but that would only just make it worse.

The bread came with a side of whipped chicken schmaltz. My heart isn’t healthy enough for me to be eating globs of saturated fat, but I still gave it a taste—not only because I wanted to see what it was like, but also because I was curious if the fat would help soften the bread.

No, I did not like it. And no, it did not help the dryness of the bread.

For my beverage, I asked my waitress to ask the bartender to surprise me with their best non-alcoholic drink. She asked me to narrow it down a bit, so I let her know that I like fruity flavors. She came back with a mixed berry mocktail.

This was extremely intense in flavor and extremely sweet, as if it was overloaded with syrup. That wasn’t functionally a problem for me, though; I thought the flavor itself was good, and I had no problem sipping some of the drink and then following it up with a sip of water to help dilute it and make the taste less overwhelming.

For our second appetizer, we got steak tartare made from hand-chopped filet. This was prepared tableside as cart service.

As you can probably tell from the photographs, there were a lot of ingredients added to the steak and egg yolk. The server was at it for a while.

You might have noticed a strange blue ingredient mixed in with the beef. We asked what it was, and the server revealed that it was… Takis Blue Heat Rolls. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love when restaurants make innovative, experimental dishes and add new twists to their menu. But I feel like there is still some kind of threshold somewhere that should not be crossed. I’m wondering whether putting blue Takis in beef tartare exceeds that line.

I’m someone who loves beef tartare for the flavor of the beef. Unfortunately, this beef tartare had way too much going on for my preference. It had too many additions that masked the flavor of the beef, and then to top it all off, the blue Takis were so strong that they masked the flavor of the additions. Ultimately, it sort of just tasted like a mess.

My friend consigned this dish after trying only a little bit, so I ended up eating an overwhelming majority of it. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t dislike it so much that I would let it go to waste, so I finished it all. Throughout the process, I was secretly hoping that some magical culinary miracle would happen where my tastebuds would suddenly become taste-blind to the Takis and then a completely new flavor profile would emerge, but alas, the entire thing just kept on tasting like Takis.

I don’t regret having this, because now I can say that I went to a restaurant and they crushed some Takis into my beef tartare, and that just sounds absolutely hilarious. However, I definitely would not have this again.

For my main entrée, I ordered two pasta dishes. The first was cavatelli with brown butter whey, Grana Padano, soft herbs, and black pepper.

This was my favorite dish of the dinner. It was a bit too salty for my preference, but it was still delicious. The texture of the cavatelli was perfect. The overall flavor profile had a great combination of traditional savoriness with an unexpected kick of light earthiness. I think a lot of what made this dish great was the sauce, so the shape of the cavatelli was ideal for absorbing and retaining the sauce.

The second pasta dish was a disaster. It was beef tongue agnolotti with crème fraîche (which was comically written as “créme fraiché” on the menu), chicken jus, chili crisp, and duck fat crumble.

I’m someone who has tried the most expensive cuts of A5 Japanese wagyu, but even then, believe it or not, my favorite cut of beef is… tongue. There is just something about beef tongue that is very delicious to me. Maybe it’s because I’m tasting my food, my food is tasting me, and thus, great balance emerges into the world. However, there is a caveat to that.

I like to categorize beef tongue into two broad groups: Korean-style 혀 and Mexican-style lengua. Of course, there are many more ways to cook tongue than just those two variants, but basically, the key difference for me is whether it is sliced and seared or diced and braised. I still like the diced and braised style of cooking tongue, but I really like the sliced and seared way. Sliced-and-seared tongue is usually lightly or minimally seasoned, and because of the method of preparation, the flavor of the tongue gets to speak (or lick) for itself. And the best part of it all? The texture is chewy, bouncy, and snappy, and when seared perfectly, sometimes even comes with a light crisp—this all makes for a very fun eating experience.

Unfortunately, this agnolotti was prepared the braised way. Doubly unfortunately, whatever marinade they used was repulsively salty to the point that the shredded beef tongue in each piece of agnolotti tasted bitter. To top it all off, the sauce was also way too salty, and it was just covered in grease and fat.

My friend ordered a 20-ounce prime New York strip steak. When I asked him for a review of it so I could include it in my blog post, he shrugged. I sampled a small portion of it, and my assessment was, “this steak is steak.” He agreed with my analysis. There wasn’t anything particularly remarkable about it… which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it also isn’t preferred over being notably high quality.

The strangest thing about the steak, though, is the fact that it came with a side of kettle-cooked potato chips. I think it might have been better if it came with a well-balanced set of thick-cut fries and mixed vegetables as the sides, but I guess these potato chips definitely added to the memorability of the steak.

For dessert, we got a sticky plum pudding to share. The portion size was satisfyingly larger than expected, and the flavor profile seemed good, but this was way too sweet for my preference.

Here are some photos I took of the interior of the restaurant. This first picture is of the bar area; my friend ran into some unexpected delays and was about 15 minutes late for our reservation, so I waited in this bar area for our table to be assigned and prepared after he arrived.

This is what the dining area looks like. It is empty in these photographs because I took this right before departing and we were some of the last people there finishing our meals, but even just an hour before this, the restaurant was absolutely packed and bustling.

This is the exterior of the restaurant. The sign says they were established in 1976, but this particular location took over the spot and celebrated their grand opening only a couple months ago, in February.

Warm bread and schmaltz $   9.00
Steak tartare $  27.00
Cavatelli $  25.00
Beef tongue agnolotti $  27.00
Prime New York strip steak $  69.00
Sticky plum pudding $  14.00
Berry mocktail $  12.00
Diet Coke $   5.00
Gratuity (18%) $  33.84
Sales tax (8.375%) $  15.72
Total $ 237.56

This table to the right shows how much we paid. My friend and I split the bill half-and-half and processed each of our respective halves separately on the mobile payment device, so he might have tipped more than I did; I used my own numbers and scaled it up accordingly just for the purposes of this breakdown.

It’s probably needless to say at this point, but I do not think Hayworth is worth the money. If I had shown up for a quick lunch and ordered only the cavatelli with the berry mocktail, then I guess I would’ve given this restaurant a glowing review, but overall, the dishes were hit-or-miss (with way too many misses).

The service was remarkable. All the staff seemed not only well-trained, but also just socially savvy and intuitive people who genuinely enjoyed working at Hayworth and interacting with customers. Another funny element related to that is, throughout our meal, I think we ended up speaking with and getting checked on by four or five different people. Near the end, my friend started joking about how it seemed like management was basically just throwing the entire kitchen personnel roster at us. If this restaurant was rated on service alone, it would be top-tier.

However, unfortunately, I think their style of cooking is a bit too crude and primitive. The way the dishes were far too salty, fatty, and/or sweet made me think that this kind of preparation would be satisfying for hunter-gatherers who are chasing after those biologically carnal dopamine hits that signal high-calorie survival foods. If you’re looking for more refined dishes where the individual ingredients are left to speak for themselves, then I don’t think Hayworth is an optimal choice for a multi-course dinner.

 

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Hello, STARLUX Airlines flights 236 and 2 from Hong Kong to Taoyuan to Los Angeles

by   •   Flights
 

For the past three weeks, I’ve been blogging little by little about my trip to Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China.

For the past couple of years, I’ve been far more open to international travel outside the United States and Canada; this started with a trip to New Zealand, which was then followed by trips to Vietnam, Japan, and Mexico. I especially enjoyed my time in Asia, so when I had another opportunity to join some friends on a trip across the Pacific, I decided to tag along.

At first, we all flew into Hong Kong (albeit on separate flights—I took Starlux Airlines while my friends flew United). After exploring the region together for a little while, my friends continued their multi-city itinerary by heading into mainland China while I stayed behind to continue enjoying Hong Kong. I could’ve joined them into mainland China if I wanted to, but there are some extra logistics that I hadn’t finished taking care of ahead of time (such as applying for a visa, downloading Chinese mobile apps, and securing special network tools that would allow me to continue doing my USA-based work remotely), so I decided to postpone my introduction to mainland China for another time.

I published a handful of blog posts detailing various things I did and ate in Hong Kong; in case you missed them, here is a quick overview (in chronological order on the basis of when I published the blog post, not of when I actually did the activity):

Overall, I’d say that I had a very positive experience in Hong Kong. Compared to the two countries that I’d previously visited in Asia—Vietnam and Japan—Hong Kong felt like a balanced combination of the two. Vietnam was a bit too chaotic for my preference, while Japan seemed like it was operated and occupied by robots; Hong Kong was still nice and very efficient, but had enough of a human element to it such that it felt like there were real people there.

One thing that trolled me repeatedly throughout my trip was the currency conversion. When I first checked the exchange rate for United States dollars to Hong Kong dollars, I saw that one USD was about seven and a half HKD. Then my brain continued that train of thought by thinking that seven and a half is almost eight, and eight is almost ten, so I could take a shortcut and convert HKD to USD by moving the decimal point one spot to the left.

Spoiler: That is not a good way to handle the mental calculation of currency conversion from HKD to USD.

Taking my dinner at VEA as an example, I saw that the tasting menu was HK$2,280, so I went into it expecting to end the night having spent somewhere in the mid- to upper-200s USD after the non-alcoholic beverage pairing. Instead, my bill ended up being over US$400—more than US$100 above what I expected. Take that and then repeat it over and over again for two weeks, and I actually ended up spending a few thousand USD more in Hong Kong than I thought I did. (To be clear, I am not upset about this, and it is entirely my own fault that I inted myself with smooth-brain math.)

In terms of weather, I went into Hong Kong expecting a slightly milder version of what I experienced in Hanoi, Vietnam, but I’m glad to report back that it was nowhere near as bad. Of course, the obvious reason is because I went to Hanoi in August and Hong Kong in March; however, while Hanoi regularly reached a climate where I literally had difficulty breathing because of the humidity, Hong Kong just felt like a regular hot and humid Midwestern day in the United States. Miraculously, I only had a couple two-shower days in Hong Kong (while it was an ongoing and regular occurrence in Hanoi).

 
Before I start the overview of my flight, I do feel the need to share my one negative observation about Hong Kong, for the sake of transparency and balance. First, it needs a little bit of context.

I don’t understand people who film everything, especially in places where you’re meant to enjoy a special, gated event. For example, when I see professionally-filmed videos of concerts nowadays, it is a bit saddening to see so many people in the crowd being so focused on recording the show with their phone when there are literally multiple US$50,000+ cameras with US$10,000+ lenses already handling it. I am aware that plenty of people have valid reasons for doing so, such as filming a more personalized perspective for a friend who couldn’t make it… but it is difficult to believe that everyone has a really good reason to record the whole set, the entire time.

A lot of people in Hong Kong are like this, but for everything around them. It’s almost like half the population of Hong Kong is trying to become an online influencer. Everything is filmed, and if it can’t be filmed yet, then people stand in long lines to wait their turn to get their own recording of it. I have blogged for around two decades now, and if you look at the number of pictures I take and compare it to the number that everyone else around me takes, you’d think they’re all running their own blogs and social media platforms a hundred times bigger than mine.

As a side note, I also know I’m not the only one who feels this way, because in the most congested tourist areas, there are literally posted signs asking people not to put on performances in public for personal recording (i.e., telling them not to make TikToks in the middle of the path and get in others’ way).

Adjacent to this, many people seem to have their eyes completely glued to their phones. It seems like people don’t look up to see what’s around them anymore, and the most egregious ones don’t even care where they’re walking and just hope that others will navigate around them. Even worse, a subset of people randomly stop walking in the middle of the street, presumably a subset including those who are unable to text and walk at the same time, or are unable to veer off to the edge of the path so they’re not in anyone’s way. Even even worse, I saw a bunch of people give up on walking and just stop in the middle of the sidewalk for no reason… and they didn’t even have their phone out!

My point is, I wish people in Hong Kong would be more present and aware of their surroundings. Hong Kong is a nice place with a lot to see, and believe it or not, you can learn a lot just by people-watching and observing those around you. I heard that our newest, youngest generation is embracing a movement away from living in a digital world, and is instead aiming to shift towards “dumber” technology so they can connect more with the real world. That sounds like great news to me, and I look forward to seeing if that can have a positive impact on Hong Kong’s day-to-day environment.

 
And finally, one more positive thing before I go into my day of travel: the public transit system in Hong Kong is impeccable. I was very impressed at how accessible Tokyo was because of their transit, and somehow, Hong Kong seemed even better. It’s difficult to precisely articulate what I liked more about it, and it’s more of a feeling than it is a concrete thing. However, believe it or not, even with people in Hong Kong being more disorganized and less orderly than people in Japan, the Hong Kong system itself felt more efficient. I felt like transfers between different lines were easier, and there were fewer instances of everything happening at once and just being completely bombarded by information.

Partway through my stay, I transferred from the JW Marriott Hotel Hong Kong to the Park Lane Hong Kong, Autograph Collection. I’m not as intense of a hotel hopper as the people who check into a new hotel every single day, but I did still want to experience two different neighborhoods during my stay. The JW Marriott gave me a good idea of what the upscale shopping district was, while Park Lane was deeper into the bustling action.

This is what my room looked like at the Park Lane.

Because of my Ambassador Elite status with Marriott’s loyalty program, I was offered a free upgrade to a suite at check-in and was shown photographs of different available suites I could pick from. Funny enough, all the suite options had a bathtub in the middle of the showering area such that it seemed like just using the standing shower would be inconvenient. I would’ve taken the upgrade if I was sharing my room with a friend because I have a lot of friends who enjoy taking baths, but because I was in this room alone for this trip, I declined the upgrade and just took a standard guest room (albeit with the best available view).

After checking out, I ventured down into the subway, took a quick ride on the Island Line from the Causeway Bay Station to the Central Station, connected via foot to the Hong Kong Station, then took the Airport Express to Hong Kong International Airport.

I allocated about an hour and a half for transport, but due to a mixture of walking quickly and the Airport Express being ahead of schedule, I managed to walk out of my hotel and walk into the airport in a matter of under one hour.

I also allocated about an hour and a half for check-in, security, and immigration. I’m used to all of this being quick in the United States because of my enrollment in both TSA PreCheck and Clear, but I figured that it would take much longer in Hong Kong due to me being a foreigner and not being able to use their expedited systems.

Well, I was wrong. Hong Kong International Airport is extremely efficient. I had already started my check-in process online, and because I did not have any checked luggage, I was able to go directly to the security checkpoint with my QR code instead of finishing the check-in with a desk agent. The security lines were short, and the efficiency of standard security in Hong Kong seemed to be even better than the TSA PreCheck lines in the United States. The immigration lines were also short, and the officer glanced at my passport for just a few seconds before waving me in.

Overall, it took just shy of 15 minutes for me to walk off the train and walk into the secured area airside. Upon my entry, I was greeted by a live band, which is the first time I’d ever seen that in an airport.

Funny enough, I spent more time looking for my designated airline lounge than I did getting through security and immigration. The lounge I was trying to find was upstairs in this area, but all the elevators were broken, I couldn’t find any stairs, and an escalator in the far corner didn’t actually lead to the front door of the lounge.

If you told me that I walked back and forth for an entire mile trying to figure out how to get up there, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Because Starlux Airlines doesn’t have their own lounge and isn’t part of a major airline alliance, they partner with Qantas Airways to accommodate their business class passengers in the Qantas Hong Kong International Lounge. One of the downsides of having done my entire check-in process online is that I didn’t receive a formal lounge invitation ticket that is usually provided at the check-in desk, but when I showed up, the lounge attendant tentatively admitted me anyway while he contacted Starlux customer service and verified my eligibility.

There was an à la carte menu in addition to a buffet. I grabbed a plate of food from the buffet, but I saw that there were some dandan noodles on the menu, so I ordered a bowl of that as well.

As I was finishing my food, a man came around with a literal dim sum cart and asked if I wanted some dim sum. I was trying to limit the amount of food I was eating at the lounge because I knew there were a lot of meals coming up on the plane, but there is no way I could deny dumplings from a dim sum cart in an airport lounge.

I asked for one bamboo steamer basket of soup dumplings, with a side of chili sauce.

After a peaceful three hours in the lounge (which was longer than I anticipated due to my unexpectedly quick travel to and into the airport), I left to start heading over to my gate. Similar to the other Asian airports I’ve been to, Hong Kong International Airport had a lot of very large general retail areas airside, which is not common to see in airports in the United States.

When I arrived at my gate, I saw a gigantic line snaking back and forth and got incredibly confused. I checked the time to verify that I still had about ten minutes left before boarding began, but it looked like economy passengers were already in the process of boarding.

Then I realized that was the wrong gate, and those passengers were going to Shanghai.

After walking a little bit further to the correct gate, I peeked out the window and saw our Airbus A330-900neo waiting for us outside.

For this leg of the flight, I selected Seat 2K. Because the Starlux Airlines version of the Airbus A330neo only has business class seats in the forward cabin, I picked the first seat in the first row (there is no row 1 on this aircraft) in the window side of the staggered configuration to be furthest away from the lavatories and get the most privacy possible.

After relaxing with a cup of juice and watching the ground crew load checked baggage into the underbody compartment, we left Hong Kong for a timely departure.

By this point, I had flown on three out of Starlux’s four aircraft currently in service: the Airbus A321, A350-900, and now the A330 (with the only one I hadn’t been on being the A350-1000). Out of the three I had tried so far, my favorite was this A330-900neo.

The A330 was obviously better than the A321 because the A330 had direct aisle access and a 1-2-1 configuration, but I think it even felt better than the A350 because the overhead compartments over the middle seats made the cabin feel much more cozy and private.

Because this was the shorter leg of my flight to my layover in Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, meal service was done on a single tray. I didn’t have a menu or course list explaining what each item was. Instead, the flight attendant came around at the beginning of the flight and asked whether we wanted the Taiwanese meal or the international meal; I, of course, picked the Taiwanese one for a more authentic experience.

Another small thing I liked about this cabin was the way the seat tray tables were designed—they articulated forwards and backwards relative to your body, so I was able to push it away and have a little space through which I could leave my seat to go to the washroom without needing to wait for the flight attendant to take my tray away first (or alternatively, perform an acrobatics maneuver to navigate above the tray table).

After only about two hours on board, it was already time to deplane. It would have been very nice if it was the A330 that took me all the way back to the United States, rather than being only for the shorter leg of my trip.

I was about to get on another plane for around twelve hours soon, so I took this two-hour layover opportunity to go for a walk and check out some of the retail areas and other points of interest inside Taoyuan International Airport.

After getting my steps in, I took a quick stop at the Starlux Galactic Lounge for a short break.

I had already seen Starlux’s partnership with Peanuts on the in-flight entertainment screens, but in the lounge, I saw that they also had themed food. To be clear, I don’t know why this is a Peanuts-partnered parfait instead of a regular parfait, but it’s still nice to see the scope of these collaborations reaching more depth.

Soon afterwards, I walked over to my gate in Terminal 3. The styling of this area was very different, and it made me wonder whether Taoyuan International Airport just decided to build it like this, or if these were dedicated Starlux gates and the theming had to do with Starlux’s focus on space.

This area was quite disorganized and very uncharacteristic of what I now come to expect from Asian airports and Asian airlines. Instead of using the proper gate desks, there were gate agents set up on plastic folding tables just randomly in the middle of the seating area, checking passports and asking questions to passengers.

The employee who intercepted me smelled like he had just finished laying out in the sun after running a marathon. He checked my passport and boarding pass, and then he tried to get me to do something else. Unfortunately, his English was so poor that I couldn’t figure out what he was asking me to do (and this is coming from someone who is generally stellar at understanding Asian accents, especially Chinese ones).

I pulled out my phone, opened my translator, set it to Chinese, then asked him to speak into it. He proceeded to speak into my translation app… again in broken English. Of course, the app thought he was speaking Mandarin, so it tried to map his English to Mandarin, then translated that and informed me that the gate agent wanted to “retreat with the substances while killing the troops.”

I solved this predicament by saying “no thank you,” smiling, giving him a quick bow, waving, then just walking away. Whatever he wanted me to do clearly wasn’t important, because I was able to board the aircraft with my electronic boarding pass with no issues.

By the time I booked this return flight, Seats 2A and 2K were already occupied, and I was ineligible to pick anything in row 1 because it was first class. I saw that Seats 3A and 3K had obstructed views out the window, so I opted for Seat 4K instead. Row 4 was still far enough away from the lavatories that I wasn’t bothered.

For my pre-departure beverage, I received a small cup of juice.

I also informed my flight attendant that I would like the Star Gourmet option for my meal, which was a tasting menu developed in collaboration with a high-end contemporary Taiwanese restaurant called YUENJI (formally, 元紀 台灣菜), located in Taichung.

The meal started with a savory tart containing grilled Lukang wild sliced mullet roe (better known in Taiwan as karasumi) and green bamboo shoots.

For my beverage, I ordered a Virgin Mary, which is a non-alcoholic version of the Bloody Mary.

The main entrée was tea-smoked Iberico pork collar and stir-fried Penghu rice noodles. This came with a side of vinegared squid with seasonal vegetables, braised sweetfish in soy sauce, and aged pu’er tea chicken soup with bamboo fungus.

For my second beverage, I got a green tea special; I think the thing that made it “special” was that it was lightly carbonated.

Dessert was guava sago with pomelo and palm seeds, along with a plate of assorted fruit.

Flying eastbound back to the United States is quicker than flying westbound out to Asia because of the jet stream. So, due to the shorter flight duration, I wasn’t able to get a full eight hours of sleep after finishing my dinner and then relaxing for a bit and watching some YouTube videos while digesting. However, the lie-flat seat was comfortable enough that the sleep I did get was pretty restful.

With a couple hours left in the flight, the cabin lights were illuminated and the flight attendants came around to serve breakfast. Interestingly though, although this made sense for Taiwan’s time zone, it was already around 6 PM Pacific time.

For my evening breakfast, I received a bowl of plain congee with some sides of steamed pork with winter melon, fried water bamboo with salted egg yolk, silver mullet and green onion frittata, black fungus tsukudani, salted duck egg, pork floss, and tofu curd.

To wrap up my breakfast, I received another plate of fruit, which was refreshing and helped rehydrate me after several hours in the dry air of the plane.

Although we took off from Taiwan on time, there was a short air delay, which implies that we might have had to take an inefficient flight path due to weather. I’m not complaining though, of course; I think a lot of people in long-haul business class actually appreciate delays so that they can enjoy the amenities for longer.

We soon touched down at Los Angeles International Airport for a nighttime arrival of 8:36 PM PDT.

After deplaning and walking into the Tom Bradley International Terminal, I was quickly reminded how inefficient and unwelcoming airports generally are in the United States compared to Asia.

This was around the time that there were some major problems with staffing due to a government shutdown caused by politicians’ inability to agree on a new budget, but luckily, Global Entry was still operational and I was able to clear immigration and customs relatively quickly.

Like usual, I walked from Terminal B to Terminal 7 so that I can stretch my legs after a long flight and I don’t have to sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic while my rideshare driver tries to drive out of LAX’s horseshoe. After calling my car, I hopped in and went on my way.

That concludes my Hong Kong blog posts. I covered so much in the introduction that I guess I don’t have much else to conclude on.

… ok bye.

 

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Hello, Feuille at The Wellington in Central, Hong Kong

by   •   Food
 

My blog posts from my trip to Hong Kong are coming to an end, and I saved the best for last. Out of the many different restaurants I went to, most of which were tasting menus and other curated dining experiences, my favorite one from my Hong Kong travels was Feuille, located on the fifth floor of The Wellington in Central.

Feuille is the French word for “leaf.” This restaurant picked it as their name because they specialize in creating innovative dishes with vegetables. To clarify, it wasn’t a vegetarian restaurant, but they did avoid red meat throughout the whole tasting menu and instead used only seafood and poultry.

There were two options for the tasting menu: the discovery menu and the signature menu. At a lot of restaurants, the tasting menus have different items and follow a different flavor storyline. However, upon reviewing the two course lists, I realized that the discovery menu was just a shorter version of the signature menu. The discovery menu was HK$1,288 per person; the signature menu was only HK$400 more for what seemed like quite a lot more food. Thus, I ended up going with the signature menu.

The first appetizer was lamiaceae seed kombucha. I’m usually not that big of a fan of kombucha because it just tastes like I’m drinking vinegar and I don’t particularly like vinegar, but this kombucha was much milder than expected. It gave a nice, refreshing kick to start the meal, and it wasn’t so sour that it made me pucker.

Next was mustard seed and sea grape atop a shiso leaf. I think the leaf was dehydrated, because it had a very brittle texture to it, and it tasted “leafy,” but had less of the iconic shiso flavor than I expected. Overall, it felt like I was eating a miniature garden, which was fun.

Afterwards was a yeasty pastry with sobacha and comté. This tasted like a deeply earthy and satisfyingly nutty bread.

The menu said the next item had pointed cabbage, watercress, and nutmeg in it, but it was difficult to identify exactly what I was eating. I imagine those vegetables were mixed into the light, creamy substance placed atop the carb that served as a base for this bite.

Next was a creamy substance with a consistency in between custard and soup, made from chives, corn, and hazelnut. There was a small dollop of caviar included in the center.

The best way for me to describe all these grain and seed dishes is that they captured and extracted the essence of the entirety of each vegetable that they used as an ingredient.

Vegetables usually have a lot of natural water content in them, but all these dishes tasted like the vegetables were dehydrated so that you only capture the true crux of the vegetable flavor without it being diluted or watered down. On top of that, some vegetables come with an element of bitterness, but for all these dishes, it was as if that bitterness was pinpointed and surgically omitted. And finally, each flavor profile tasted more “complete” with all elements of the vegetable, rather than just the part that is sold in mass market (i.e., there was a perfect amount of flavor from what would basically be considered the entire plant, rather than just the popular vegetable portion).

Although Feuille had a wine pairing (four glasses for HK$688 or seven glasses for HK$988), they did not have a non-alcoholic pairing.

When I browsed their à la carte drink menu, there was one mocktail that caught my eye as something that is locally significant: 涅盤遊記, or the Voyage à Nirvana. This was made with lapsang souchong—a smoked Chinese black tea—and monk fruit.

This flavor profile and combination was very new to me, and it was not something I recall ever having tried in the past. It was quite a bit more strong and intense than I expected; I accommodated by just taking small sips to enjoy it throughout my entire meal, and then just drinking water as my primary beverage to go along with it.

Before the next set of courses, the waiter brought out some dough and set it within view on the corner of the table. This dough was going to become bread that I would eat later on during my meal, but it was freshly made so the yeast hadn’t risen yet. While we were waiting for it to finish rising, it was placed on the table so I could keep an eye on it and monitor its progress as a form of entertainment.

While that bread was in progress, the waiter also brought out some other bread that was already ready to eat. This was labeled on the menu as Feuille bread. I didn’t see any leaves on it, so I imagine it was just their signature bread that was named after the restaurant.

This was some great bread. The outside was crispy, crunchy, and firm, but not so much so that it was dry. The inside was very soft. The contrast in texture made the bread more interesting to eat, and the seeds sprinkled on top added an extra depth to its flavor that I liked.

The bread was served with a side of dill pil-pil sauce topped with edible flowers. There was a creamy element to it, but it was extremely light and refreshing, almost as if they had used a slightly thicker fat but then somehow extracted the fattiness from it and only left behind the texture.

I used a generous portion of this sauce with each bite of bread because it was so crisp and light. The best way for me to describe this flavor profile is as if I was eating a gourmet plant, but the only parts of the plant that hit your taste buds are the parts with brighter notes. It wasn’t bright in the sense of it being citrusy or anything; it maintained its core earthy identity, yet it had a very bright twist.

I had a lot of bread left over after finishing all this dill pil-pil sauce, but that was fine; I was already expecting future dishes to also come with great sauces, and I was anticipating finishing any leftover sauce by using this bread as an absorbent.

This is the point in the menu where things are a little fuzzy in my memory, considering that I am writing these blog posts after the fact and it’s already been almost three weeks since I actually had this dinner. I’m trying to cross-reference some of these dishes with what the menu says, but I have a suspicion that they didn’t follow the course list exactly.

The first thing that confuses me is what this is. The waiter briefly explained it to me, but I don’t quite remember what he said. This tasted very intensely of seafood, so I think it might have been something from the sea that was dehydrated and flattened.

Next was some kuruma prawn. This came with a little more of the dill pil-pil sauce that was served with the bread. The prawn had a perfect texture—firmer on the outside, and unbelievably tender on the inside.

The menu listed two components under the kuruma prawn dish, so I am guessing that these were supposed to contribute to the overall flavor profile of the prawn. The first was tomato water.

In the same spirit as how I described the vegetables above, this tomato water tasted like they took only the pleasant essences of tomato and got rid of everything else. I have no issues eating tomatoes as part of a dish, but I don’t often just snack on tomatoes like I would for different fruits like apples or oranges because, for some reason, I seem to sense the sourness of tomatoes far more acutely than the average person. This tomato water had absolutely no sourness to it, so it was as if they had, again, zeroed in on any undesirable elements of the dish and zapped it away.

The second component to go along with the kuruma prawn was celery. I am fairly certain that this was the celery dish (albeit, very unconventionally prepared)… but I think this might have also been the wild fish dish, which is listed as its own separate plate to be served along with algae and romanesco. You can only barely see it in the photograph, but the wild fish was under the sauce.

Next was Sai Kung’s spiny lobster with pumpkin and marigold. I liked this clean switch from green vegetables to orange vegetables; it served as a clear progression in the flavor storytelling, both in a visual sense and with the way it tasted.

The lobster was hiding underneath, so I lifted its cover and took another photograph from a different angle. Similar to the prawn from earlier, this lobster had a perfect texture—a balanced firmness and softness on the outside, along with extreme tenderness on the inside.

I’ve never had this kind of sauce to go along with lobster before, and I liked it much better than the general clarified butter that usually accompanies lobster. I felt like the pumpkin in particular was neutral enough that it didn’t really interfere with or alter the flavor of the lobster.

Next up was their fungus dish, a delicate pastry topped with a heaping portion of black truffle.

They brought out this plate to show it to me first, before taking it back to the kitchen to finish preparing it for my consumption.

I thought it was going to come out much more different, but the only final touches they seemed to have made were to cut it in half and add a small pool of sauce to the side, which the menu says is derived from shaoxing wine.

I like black truffle, so I was glad to see this on the menu. As expected from high-quality truffle, this had a mild, deep, earthy, nutty flavor that was enhanced and complemented by the sauce and the pastry underneath.

It was time for the main entrée.

This came with an optional supplement for some A4 wagyu striploin; diners could either replace the provided main entrée with the wagyu for HK$388, or they could add it on as a separate, second entrée for HK$488. I ended up passing on this, not only because the standard entrée was something that is not common in the United States and I wanted to try it while I had the chance to in Hong Kong, but also because I already had a lot of food high in saturated fat so far during my trip, so I wanted to be conscious of my heart health and not overdo it on highly-marbled red meat.

So, the main entrée I got was Shiqi pigeon served with Kyoho grape and arugula.

I really appreciated the creative presentation with the pigeon leg, though I’m sure it has spooked some people in the past if they are not as adventurous with their dining habits. Also, it’s not often that you get to eat poultry cooked medium-rare in the United States, so I savored the opportunities in which I was able to do so in Hong Kong.

This is probably the best pigeon I’ve ever had in my life. I guess that’s not really a difficult title to earn, considering that I almost never eat pigeon, but regardless, this pigeon was prepared very well. I’m the type of person who eats steak rare or blue rare and loves beef tartare, and that preference for seeking out that distinct texture of raw or undercooked meat extended to pigeon as well.

I’m not really a huge fan of eating chicken feet, so I assumed I probably wouldn’t really like pigeon feet either. The part of the foot that was on the opposite side of the string grip was the only section I left alone, though; I chewed the skin and meat directly off the thigh, which had a stronger flavor than the fleshy part of the breast.

Next came a beetroot.

Of course, the actual part I was supposed to eat wasn’t the entire beetroot. Instead, the inside was carved out and had a creamy substance made from beetroot, juniper, and roses.

I don’t think this was intended to be a dessert yet, but it had a nice natural sweetness to it, which signaled the beginning of the winding-down process of the culinary adventure. I like when foods are used as containers like this; although the beet wasn’t soft enough to eat and was only there to serve as a cup, it had absorbed some of the cream and gotten softer, so I scraped that part and ate that too for a stronger beet flavor.

This was the final confusing area of the menu. The course list said that the next dish was made from rosella, chocolate, and magnolia. I am guessing this was supposed to be a two-part item, but it didn’t really match the description too closely.

This first item was a frozen treat sprinkled atop edible flower. The texture was like eating aerated ice cream that was flash frozen using liquid nitrogen. That brittle texture paired with the flower petals made for a fun chewing experience.

This second item was a complete mystery. As you can probably tell, it was a vegetable-based “chip,” for a lack of a better way to describe it. It had a combination of a floral/fragrant and an earthy aroma.

Apart from that, I have no idea what it was made from. I guess one possibility is that the chocolate, which was missing from the prior serving, might have been reimagined somehow in a flowery way and served like this.

Remember the dough from earlier? Partway through my meal, the waiter came back to check on it, and after confirming that it had risen enough, he brought it back to the chef to turn into actual bread. I didn’t realize it, but this was actually part of the dessert—the bread was baked to accompany some black banana and vanilla ice cream.

Funny enough, even though there were some absolutely incredible seafood dishes as part of this tasting menu, this bread and ice cream ended up being my favorite dish strictly on a metric of how much it triggered my “wow, that is delicious” radar.

I usually don’t like black (i.e., overripe) bananas because I think it tastes like fermentation gone brutally wrong. One of the reasons I never drink alcohol, beyond just the fact that it is bad for your health, is that I think it tastes horrific; when I taste black bananas, I sense some of that alcohol flavor in it (along with a splash of acetone). With that being said, going along with the theme of the rest of the food items at this restaurant, this black banana and vanilla ice cream tastes like it precisely extracted only the good part of black bananas while completely cleansing it of all the chemical tastes of real black bananas.

To make things even better, the bread was cooked with some kind of nut lining the bowl. Because the nuts themselves were also cooked, there was an incredible Maillard reaction that gave it somewhat of a charred flavor, but without any bitterness. It tasted like the bread also absorbed some of that flavor, because the softer, inside part of the bread had a nutty element to it as well.

All of these elements combined—the soft, hot bread; the hard, warm nuts; and the smooth, cold ice cream—worked together to make this a truly orgasmic dish.

And finally, for the last dish of the dinner, I received a custard with cauliflower and coconut.

Because this came out at the same time as the other dessert, I tried sampling it with the bread. However, I realized that the chef had controlled the flavor profile of the bread and ice cream combo to such perfection that this custard made it seem underwhelming. So, instead, I had this standalone and on its own, which made both dishes much better.

The last bite, provided after the conclusion of the meal, was pâte de fruit. It was flavored with orange, which I guess is not too difficult to guess just from the fact that it is also the color orange, but I think there might have been some other fruits mixed in as well.

On the back of the course list, there was a map that showed the location from which each of the main ingredients of the dinner were sourced.

Here are some photographs of the dining area.

Considering that I was aiming for a bedtime of around 10 PM HKT during my trip (which is the equivalent of 7 AM PDT), I booked a reservation for the earliest time slot they had for dinner, which was 6 PM HKT. I was the first person to show up that day, so I managed to get some shots of the restaurant with no other customers having arrived yet.

Signature tasting menu HK$ 1,688.00
Voyage à Nirvana HK$   128.00
Still water HK$    38.00
Service charge (10%) HK$   185.00
Total HK$ 2,039.00
Converted to USD US$   260.63

The table to the right shows how much I paid.

If you’ve followed my blog with at least a little bit of interest, you most likely realized that I like experiencing new and different things in basically all aspects of my life, including with food. Thus, I get pretty allured when a restaurant does something novel with their dining, such as adding in their own special twist or coming up with experimental and/or uncommon dishes.

If you’ve followed my blog, you might have also noticed that I am very descriptive and precise when sharing what I’ve eaten at restaurants. Even though I am not a good cook and I have no formal culinary background, I can usually figure out what I’m eating just based on the broad background I’ve built. Even if the menu or course list is inaccurate or has mistakes (which, believe it or not, happens more frequently than you’d expect), I can easily identify that and fix it before writing about it on my blog.

The reason I loved Feuille so much is that it threw me off a lot in both of those aspects. I don’t actively seek out vegetarian restaurants (or restaurants that do fine dining with a focus on vegetables) because I find vegetables to be somewhat boring. However, Feuille took vegetables and made them fun, exciting, and delicious. On top of that, while eating these innovative dishes, I had a very hard time figuring out (and remembering) what they were made of and how they were prepared, as is probably apparent by the unusually vague and confusing way I wrote my review in this blog post.

Another thing I appreciated about Feuille is their philosophy. The waiter told me about how they try to minimize waste by using as much of the whole ingredient as possible, and how they make their logistics more efficient by sourcing ingredients from as local as possible. I think that consuming (or at least utilizing) the entirety of an ingredient is how we are “meant” to interact with the world around us. Restaurants end up having a shocking amount of perfectly usable food products discarded as waste, so it is intrinsically satisfying to me when an effort is made to optimize this.

This is obviously a pretty high price for a single meal, but if you analyze it within the context of fine dining, I think that Feuille offers extraordinarily high value for money. The food was top-tier, the experience was captivating, and the service was functionally flawless. If you are seeking a meal within this price range, I highly recommend Feuille.

 

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Hello, VEA at The Wellington in Central, Hong Kong

by   •   Food, Highlights
 

My second-favorite restaurant I dined at during my visit to Hong Kong was VEA, located on the 30th floor of The Wellington in Central. I found this restaurant because I was looking for some spots with local and regional food, and I saw that VEA aims to honor Hong Kong’s heritage by way of sourcing authentic Chinese ingredients. They then add a French twist to integrate an element of innovation and uniqueness to their dishes.

The restaurant was arranged as multiple bar-style tables wrapped around the kitchen area in curves. I was seated at the final spot of one of the center tables. Obviously, this kind of table arrangement isn’t really conducive to privacy, but I feel like I lucked out by getting as private a seat as possible, while also still being in the middle of the action so I could watch all the different areas of the kitchen with a simple turn of my head.

When the host brought me to my seat, there was an envelope already there waiting for me.

The envelope contained two items: the course list for the tasting menu, and a mission statement describing what VEA aims to do with their food.

The tasting menu started with some savory snacks. The first was a delicate pastry-style dish topped with greens and served with a side of a creamy sauce.

The sauce was served in a small music box that played an instrumental melody on repeat that diners could listen to while eating the first snack.

The pastry was already great, but the sauce somehow still made it significantly better. The sauce tasted like it captured the deliciousness of an extremely rich and fatty cream while somehow keeping it light and eliminating any greasiness.

There was a little scroll tucked into the music box. Upon unraveling it, I found the lyrics to the tune to which I enjoyed the snack.

The second snack was another delicate pastry, but this one was topped with some prawns.

This was also served with some sauce. Just like the first snack, the prawns were amazing on their own, but the sauce elevated it to perfection. This was after I was very impressed at the first sauce and my expectations were already raised pretty high, and this sauce still somehow blew them away.

This was quite a large portion of sauce, and I think one sauce bowl was intended to serve two people dining as a pair. I was dining alone for this meal, but I ended up getting a full bowl anyway. That was great news for me considering how much I loved it; after finishing the prawn pastry, I proceeded to finish the rest of the leftover sauce with the side spoon I was given as if the sauce was yogurt or pudding.

While eating the snacks, the waiter came by to finalize my selections for any modifications I wanted to make to the tasting menu.

The first modification was to decide whether I wanted to replace one of the courses with fish maw, Oscietra caviar, and quinoa for a supplemental cost of HK$1,280. What I appreciated was that there was a replica of what the different special dishes were like so that diners could visually see what they would get prior to committing to a large upcharge.

Although I’m a big fan of caviar, I saw that there was already a caviar dish on the tasting menu, and HK$1,280 was quite a large additional fee (especially considering that it is a substitution and not just a bonus dish), so I passed on this supplement.

The second modification was to decide whether I wanted to replace a different one of my courses with 28-head dried abalone pithivier and sweetbread for a supplemental cost of HK$2,030. As you can probably guess, I opted to pass on this one as well, though I did like taking a look at these replicas too.

And finally, the third modification I had to decide on was whether or not I wanted to add on a beverage pairing. I noticed that they had a spirit-free cocktail pairing curated by their executive mixologist. Usually, non-alcoholic pairings like this are more abridged compared to their alcoholic pairings, but the one at VEA had seven drinks listed, which I thought was quite a lot. That sounded like pretty good value, so I ordered the spirit-free pairing.

The first drink of the pairing came out soon afterwards, which had elderflower, yuzu, cucumber, and soda.

For the first of eight courses, I was served Kristal caviar with spring peas in a smoked coconut sauce. Usually, caviar is used as a way to enhance a dish, but to my absolute joy, this was a dish where the main element was a generous portion of caviar.

This was my favorite dish of the dinner. The caviar, as expected, was delicious. The spring peas were small enough that the shape went nicely with the caviar and the roundness of both items made for a fun textural experience. The peas were firm enough that they had their own variant of a “pop” when I bit into them. The smoked coconut sauce was a bit of a phenomenon on its own, because it tasted both rich and mild at the same time; all the positive aspects of coconut were emphasized and strong, while the somewhat “watery” flavor you sometimes detect in coconut was completely absent.

The next drink of the non-alcoholic beverage pairing had prickly pear, apple, cardamom, lemon, and cinnamon.

That went along with the striped jack served with pumpkin and two-year preserved turnip.

It’s a little bit difficult to tell from the photograph, but this was basically a sphere that was assembled with slices of fish and vegetables. It made for an easy eating experience, as I was able to layer one slice of each together and get a well-balanced and refreshing bite each time.

The third drink came in a tall glass and was made with dried plum, Chinese vinegar, and ginger beer. The outside of the glass was affixed with a sugary cinnamon powder.

This was my favorite drink of the night. Just based on the ingredient list, I wasn’t expecting to like this due to the presence of vinegar, but this was not sour at all. The sugary cinnamon on the outside was also amazing, and every modicum of etiquette and class went out the window as I rubbed the lower portions of the glass on my lower lip to get more of the powder per sip (even though powder placed on the bottom of such a tall glass is mostly just assumed to be decorative).

As the next dish was being prepared, they brought out another replica of it so I could see what was coming up.

Here it is in cooked form: sea cucumber in tiger prawn sauce with a few spritzes of aged Shaoxing wine.

The server recommended that I cut the sea cucumber into small pieces ahead of time. I’m glad she suggested that, because it was a great idea—it allowed the sea cucumber more time to absorb more of the amazing tiger prawn sauce and made each bite juicier. The sea cucumber itself had a perfect balance of tenderness and bounciness. I couldn’t really tell what element the Shaoxing wine added to the dish, but that subtleness is probably what was intended.

The next beverage was peony tea with quince and rhubarb.

For the fourth course, I received rough scale flounder with some white turnip in a Longjing tea sauce.

This was a classic, straightforward whitefish dish with nothing too fancy or crazy. The sauce was mild (but still tasty), the flounder was tender, and overall, this checked off all the boxes for what you’d want in a light and clean whitefish dish.

The next beverage was a genmaicha with Paragon white Penja pepper.

This concluded the first half of the tasting menu. Upon entering the intermission phase, I was given a roll of haw flakes to munch on while preparing for the two main entrées.

I took this opportunity to check out the washroom. There was limited space in the restaurant so it was a bit cramped and I couldn’t get a good angle for the photograph, but I think this is quite literally the most luxurious public washroom I have ever been to in my entire life.

Upon returning to my seat, finishing my haw flakes, and catching up on reading the news on my phone, the brief wait was over and I was presented with my first main entrée: Yunnan mushroom congee with preserved turnip. If you remember from before, this is the dish that I could have replaced with fish maw instead.

This mushroom tasted like it had multiple different flavor profiles at once. While chewing, I sensed a bit of nuttiness, savoriness, earthiness, and sweetness at the same time (though I’m not sure which of those were from the mushroom itself and which were from other ingredients in the congee). For a lack of a better way to describe it, it also tasted “meaty,” and if a vegetarian wanted to eat a meat substitute, I think this mushroom would act as a great alternative.

The second-to-last drink of the spirit-free pairing had tangerine, monk fruit, dark plum, liquorice, and Prunellae Spica.

In a similar fashion as the previous dishes, another replica was brought out to show the core ingredients of the next upcoming dish.

To go along with the second main entrée, I was given a small cup of tea. This was just some bonus tea and was not part of the beverage pairing.

As the grand finale, I was served Aveyron lamb with carrot purée and angelica root.

This was the dish that otherwise would have been replaced by the abalone had I opted to order the supplement instead. I actually really like lamb and would consider it my favorite kind of red meat, so it especially would not have made sense for me to swap it out.

The lamb was milder than I expected, and extremely tender. The root vegetables and the sauce were also proportionally mild, so it did not overpower the lamb.

The final beverage of the spirit-free cocktail pairing was strawberry mango tea. It was prepared inside an infusion vessel, and more specifically, The Porthole by Crucial Detail. This probably had the most “basic” flavor profile out of all the beverages, but because of its refreshing and familiar fruitiness, I would still rank it as my second favorite drink of the night.

Each segment of the kitchen had a different course that they specialized in preparing, depending on what kinds of equipment were present in that section of the kitchen. By the time my dinner was soon coming to an end, it was already getting pretty late, and the section of the kitchen right in front of me transitioned from making appetizers to making dessert. I got a nice view of one of the cooks intricately preparing my next dish.

The tasting menu’s first dessert was cucumber and green apple sorbet with stinky herbs. I was spooked when I saw “stinky herbs” on the ingredient list because I didn’t know just how stinky the stinky herbs would get, but they weren’t actually stinky at all, which I assume was a consequence of proper preparation.

The smaller orbs below the sphere of sorbet were actually orbs of cucumber and apple, rather than more sorbet. I enjoyed that textural contrast, as having that soft crisp made the chewing experience more fun.

The second dessert, and the final course of the tasting menu, was black truffle cheesecake with soy sauce toffee.

The truffle was mild and delicious, and the cheesecake had all the positives of the cheesecake flavor you expect, but without any of the heaviness or greasiness. The toffee was also quite special; it tasted like an elevated version of toffee, with the saltiness of the soy sauce enhancing and making more prominent the caramelized flavor caused by the Maillard reaction.

And with that, the eight-course tasting menu came to an end. I was given a mignardise along with the check.

I don’t know if this was just a special thing they were doing that day because it wasn’t mentioned on the course list, but a server came up to me and asked me if I was interested in some durian ice cream as if it was a bonus. Of course, I eagerly agreed; durian is not a flavor that you see often in the United States, so I wanted to have it in Hong Kong while I could.

This was more of a multi-faceted durian dessert than it was just durian ice cream. As expected, it had a bit of that iconic durian stink to it as I brought it up to my mouth, but as I bit into it and chewed, it got replaced by custardy sweetness.

Here is a photograph of a different section of the kitchen. The area with the ovens was furthest away from me, which I guess is a good thing, because that meant my seat maintained a comfortable temperature throughout my meal.

This is the VEA sign by the entrance.

On my way out, the hostess stopped me to give me a little goodie bag to bring home (or in my case, to bring back to my hotel). I opened it after my train ride back to my hotel in Admiralty and found a Chinese hickory nut marshmallow chocolate chip cookie inside, which I enjoyed as a late-night snack before going to sleep.

I’ve eaten a lot of nutty cookies, and I’ve also eaten a lot of chocolate chip cookies, but I don’t often get to have both at the same time. This cookie combined the best of both, and it tasted great. On top of that, the addition of marshmallows added a second dimension of sweetness that complemented the sweetness of the chocolate.

Tasting menu HK$ 2,280.00
Mocktail pairing HK$   580.00
Still water HK$    60.00
Service charge (10%) HK$   292.00
Total HK$ 3,212.00
Converted to USD US$   409.99

The table to the right shows how much I paid.

This is one of the most expensive meals I’ve ever had on a per-person basis (though I guess a decent chunk of it was from the mocktail pairing, which I thought was great, but I still would’ve had no problem just having only water throughout my meal).

With that being said, for me, I think it was worth it. The portion sizes were satisfying, the selection of dishes fit my personal preferences perfectly, the service was fantastic, and I felt great about all aspects of the meal in its entirety.

Although the fish maw and abalone supplements might be alluring to some, I would not recommend them (though keep in mind that this suggestion is coming from someone who did not actually try them). If they were strictly additive to the eight-course tasting menu, then people who really love fish maw or abalone might be able to justify getting them, but keep in mind that they are replacements. They are quite expensive, and they are replacing dishes that are already very delicious and fit well with the flavor storyline of the overall tasting menu.

If a ~US$330 meal (which excludes the beverage pairing) is within your budget, then I highly recommend trying out VEA. It offered all the components of a top-tier tasting menu, both in terms of the food and the overall experience, and everything about it either fulfilled or exceeded my expectations.

 

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Hello, Teppanyaki Mihara Goten in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

by   •   Food
 

For one of the first dinners I had after my arrival in Hong Kong, I went to Teppanyaki Mihara Goten in Causeway Bay.

I had the luxury of just being able to tag along with my friends without putting in the effort of planning anything; they did all the research, picked the restaurant, and handled the reservation. Unfortunately, one downside to this was that the reservation was put in for 8:30 PM local time, which is the equivalent of 5:30 AM Pacific time, without me having an opportunity to ask if there were any earlier available time slots. I stay up pretty late and usually sleep after 5:30 AM PT anyway, but note that this dinner started at 5:30 AM PT. This made for an extremely drowsy dining experience.

The dinner lasted about three hours, which is lengthy, but not particularly unusual for a teppanyaki experience like this. In fact, I’d argue that the longer it is, the better it is, because watching the chef cook in front of you can be an entertaining and enlightening experience.

With that being said, about one-third of the way into the dinner, I was already mentally asleep. You might notice evidence of this from the fact that, for the first handful of dishes, I took a lot of photographs of the chef preparing the food, but for the later courses, I just have pictures of the dish. I didn’t do this intentionally and didn’t even notice I had done that until I was going through and organizing the photos I had; I was just so sleepy that my brain wasn’t working and I was just on literal auto-pilot of snapping a picture of the food and then putting it in my mouth.

There were a few different options for the teppanyaki menu. Because I like trying out limited-edition or seasonal options, I went with the spring special seasonal menu. It seemed like everyone else also got it, so I’m not sure if this was one of those situations where everyone in the party had to pick the same option and the decision had already been made for me without my input, and my personal selection didn’t matter.

Communication was tricky for this dinner—I showed up exactly on time, but the rest of my group was early, so it looked like I was late, and I was seated all the way at the far edge of the bar-style table in the last remaining chair. Thus, I was basically only able to chat with two of my friends directly next to me, and everyone else was too far away. Funny enough, even communication with the waitress was near-impossible; I have no problem understanding Chinese accents, but this waitress also had a United Kingdom accent layered on top of it, which I do have a major problem understanding. In my sleepy state, it felt like I was splitting brain cells in half trying to understand what in the world she was saying.

With all that context out of the way, here is what the seasonal menu consisted of.

To start, we received firefly squid with kinome vinegar miso. The squid had an amazing, intense flavor that I liked a lot, but somehow, I liked the sauce even more. The squid was plentifully drenched in it, but it was mild enough that it complemented the squid well without overpowering it.

Next was some seasonal sashimi.

This was great taste-wise, but unfortunately, the portion size was comically small. Each piece of sashimi was cut so small that by the time I recognized that it was high-quality fish and was enjoying it, it was already fully shredded in my mouth and ready to swallow.

For my beverage, I noticed that the only way to get water was to pay for bottled water, so I figured that if I was going to pay money for a drink anyway, I might as well get something unique and flavored. I browsed through the non-alcoholic section of the beverage menu and picked one that I didn’t recognize so I could try something new. I don’t remember what exactly it was, but it tasted like a more earthy variant of plum.

At this point, all our orders were in and all our food was inventoried, so the wait staff started bringing plates of raw ingredients out from the back so the teppanyaki chef could cook everything in front of us on the grill.

While all this was coming out and being put on display, I got my next dish, Hokkaido sea urchin. This was a supplement to the spring special seasonal menu for an additional HK$300. Considering that sea urchin is my favorite kind of seafood, I of course had to get the supplement.

Flavor-wise, it was very good. However, even though this was intended as a sashimi dish, I wish that they had still included a small portion of rice along with it. I think sea urchin goes very well together with rice because the individual grains of rice give a lot of surface area to “spread out” the sea urchin, thus engaging with a larger part of your tongue and taste buds.

While I was eating the sea urchin, the chef started preparing the first entrée.

We were served sautéed surf clam with caviar and Japanese hollandaise sauce.

This was my second-favorite dish of the meal. This was an absolute explosion of umami and flavor. The sauce had all the good parts of a creamy sauce without actually being that creamy or fatty. The caviar added a nice saltiness to it. The slice of zucchini added a subtle element of refreshing vegetable without diluting any of the umami.

While we were eating our surf clam, the chef started grilling our shark fin, which was to be served in creamy chicken soup. For those who did not want shark fin, there was a substitution available for grilled fish maw, but all seven people in my group picked the shark fin.

Shark fin is illegal for me back at home. The United States passed the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023. Prior to that, Nevada passed Senate Bill 194, also sometimes referred to as the Wildlife Trafficking Prevention Act, in 2017.

I have had shark fin before in the United States when I was a kid and before it was outlawed, but I didn’t remember what it was like. So, of course, I seized the opportunity to try it legally while in Hong Kong.

The soup and shark fin were delicious, but upon research, it seems like the shark fin doesn’t really have a standout flavor on its own, and the flavor came mostly from its ability to absorb and retain the flavor from the creamy chicken soup.

A lot of people apparently love shark fin for the texture, and I can confirm that the texture is definitely one-of-a-kind. It was a very fun eating experience, but not so irresistibly incredible that I would become a regular consumer of shark fin.

Next was my favorite dish of the dinner: grilled mantis shrimp with soy sauce butter. Similar to the surf clam, this was an absolute explosion of umami and flavor.

My guess is that the innards of the mantis shrimp were removed, mixed together into a smoother consistency, seasoned, and injected back into the shrimp as the orange paste that is visible in the photograph. I tried to confirm exactly what was done with it with the waitress, but I couldn’t understand her United Kingdom accent.

Next was grilled amadai in basil-flavored clam consommé soup.

The fish was very tender and the soup complemented it well by balancing the fish and seafood flavor with vegetable undertones, but the most intriguing part of this dish was the texture of the fish. As you can probably tell from the photograph, there was a crispy layer on top of the fish that almost tasted like miniature shrimp had been attached to the skin. This added a very fun additional element to chewing the fish.

The next dish was broiled ezo abalone with sea urchin sauce and bamboo shoots.

By this point, I was basically falling asleep while upright. I do recall that this was delicious, but I don’t remember much more beyond that.

After the abalone, the menu had a second supplement option of grilled Australian lobster with Barilla Genovese and tapenade sauce for an additional HK$298. Although seafood is my favorite kind of food and I love lobster, I opted to pass on this supplement because I was already still residually full from overindulging until bloatedness for the past few days.

Labeled as the main entrée, the long string of seafood dishes was followed by two different cuts of beef: A4 Kumamoto wagyu sirloin and A5 Takamori “drunken” wagyu tenderloin.

I appreciated that they had two different kinds of wagyu beef. Having only A5 can get overwhelming and you often find yourself quickly reaching your limit due to how rich and fatty it is. Having some A5 wagyu and then rounding out the rest of the portion with A4 wagyu made it so we were able to eat a larger and more satisfying and fulfilling portion of wagyu without it feeling too heavy.

It’s just barely out of frame in the photograph, but of course, this was served with salt. I ate each bite with some onion, a bit of wasabi, and a heaping pinch of salt; all that worked together very well with the wagyu to really extract its amazing flavor.

As the grand finale, we all got to pick a rice dish. The options were grilled eel kabayaki, foie gras teriyaki, snow crab and salmon roe, red sea bream and sakura shrimp, or seared Hokkaido flounder fin and salmon roe.

This was prepared all together and presented to us inside the clay pots in which they were cooked.

My friend sitting next to me opted for the seared Hokkaido flounder fin and salmon roe donabe, which came with an extra HK$150 supplemental cost.

I went with the grilled eel kabayaki donabe. Interestingly, even though I liked it, I noticed that, for some reason, it wasn’t quite as top-tier as the other dishes were. I sampled some of my friend’s Hokkaido flounder fin and thought it was much better and comparable in quality to the excellence of the other dishes served that night.

For dessert, we were allowed to pick from four different options. I went with the homemade matcha warabi mochi with vanilla ice cream.

At this point, I was on the verge of collapsing and crashing my head onto the table in sleepiness, so I took this opportunity to stand up and walk around and take pictures of some of the other desserts as well.

This was the strawberry soup with homemade vanilla ice cream. The menu labeled this vanilla ice cream as homemade while it didn’t include that designation for mine; I don’t know if it actually was any different, or if it even makes business sense to have two different kinds of vanilla ice cream on hand to serve for two different desserts, but I guess the texture did visually look a tiny bit different.

This was the custard cream sakura crêpe with homemade sakura gelato.

The final dessert, which isn’t pictured here, was almond blancmange with orange compote.

I really do not function well at all when I have not gotten enough sleep, and by the conclusion of the dinner, it was almost 9:00 AM PT. I wish I could give more insightful thoughts about my experience, but one of the areas in which I lose function with lack of sleep is my memory. With that being said, I had as great of a time as I could have possibly had, with this level of sleep deprivation in mind.

My friends paid the full bill for this restaurant so I don’t have exact numbers on hand, but the spring special seasonal menu was HK$2,280 per person, which is a little bit under US$300.00 at current exchange rates. That is quite expensive, but fine dining in Hong Kong seems to be pretty expensive in general. Also note that this is a teppanyaki restaurant, so there was also a material performative element to it as well in the sense of being able to watch the chef prepare your food in front of you.

Overall, if you are well-rested and are interested in having a splurge meal, I think Teppanyaki Mihara Goten is a spot worthy of your consideration.

 

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