January 2019 – Page 2 – Check Please!

A perfect filet in this American steakhouse in Kaohsiung, Taiwan

This was my Christmas 2018 lunch! I had found that in Taiwan there were some outposts of an upscale American steakhouse called Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse (the strange name came about because the new owner, Ruth, had to relocate the restaurant due to a fire but for some reason she could not use the old name in the new location, so she just added hers in front). This seemed like the right place where to satisfy my hunger for a steak in Kaohsiung,

The visit

I headed to the steakhouse directly from the high speed train station using the metro. It is very close to a metro exit (number 2, City Council Station), but it was not so easy to find because the restaurant was located on the 25th floor of a nondescript building; there were no signs clearly visible and at the time of my visit the ground floor was vacant, so it may be easy to miss. But eventually I made it.

The dining room was elegant, with both tables and booths. Not many people on Christmas Day.

A waitress took me to my assigned booth not without letting me know her name (a classic American touch). I was promptly served the bread, still warm, and the butter.

I started with pan-seared tuna (I would say tataki style). Quite good, but the sauce was probably too spicy.

The this monster came: a 310-gram corn-fed USDA prime filet beef. It was perfectly cooked medium rare. The steak was served sizzling on a plate 260 degree hot with a light layer of butter. When it arrived it was really sizzling and it helped keeping the steak warm.

I can only say that it was one of the best steaks had in my years in Asia. Probably the best. The filet was splendidly tender and the big chunk was perfectly cooked (it is not so easy to cook this cut of filet).

Also had mashed potatoes as a side, which I finished, even if it was a large portion.

The check

Total check was 2805 NTD (or 91 USD). The steak alone was 1947 NTD or 63 USD. As compared to Mainland China this was a bargain. And this was one of the priciest cuts in the menu. Taiwan really maintains reasonably priced restaurants.

A great meal, highly recommended. They are also in Taipei and Taichung, where I suspect you would find exactly the same service and menu.

Where in Kaohsiung:
No. 211, Zhongzheng 4th Rd, Qianjin District, 25th floor.
Could not find online booking options, but you can call: +886 7 241 8888.

Ice cream in Hong Kong

Here’s my top picks for ice cream in Hong Kong.

Tre Italiani

Tre Italiani is a very nice ice cream parlor and cafe in Causewaybay, at 535 Jaffe Road (they also have other locations, check their website). It is creamy ice cream coming both in traditional and innovative flavors. A cup with two scoops is 65 HKD (8.30 USD). They also have coffee and chocolates. What I like about their shop in Causewaybay is that they have seats and tables for a more relaxed experience.

Oddies

Oddies’ claim to fame is their egglets filled with ice cream. They also have a selection of 12 daily flavors that they claim to produce according to artisan standards (not tried yet). In the picture above, for 69 HKD (8.80 USD) one of their signature eggete parfait (small size) that combines one of their egg waffles and soft serve ice cream, in this case with some nutella sauce. I wish the filling was creamier. Beside, a place to try. The place is quite small, they only have a few high chairs, so you will most likely eat it on the street. Oddies is on 45 Gough Street, Central (a bit uphill).

Venchi

Venchi is an Italian gourmet chocolate manufacturer based in Turin. In recent years they expanded internationally and also went into ice cream. Gianduia and cuor di cacao in the picture. Their chocolate flavors, in particular gianduia, should not be missed. They have three locations in Hong Kong: one in the mall Festive Walk, one on 44 Stanley street, Central, and one in Harbour City. 65 HKD (8.30 USD) for two flavors. They clearly also sell chocolate and do not have much space to sit inside.

One of my favorite brunch spots in Hong Kong: the Blue Butcher (closed)

The Blue Butcher has in my opinion one of the best deals for brunch “semi-buffets” in Hong Kong. The idea of a semi-buffet is quite good: a nice spread of appetizers, desserts and other more or less substantial snacks and a menu from which to order one or two mains.

The Blue Butcher on weekends has a spread that is really difficult to beat in terms of quality. In addition to this, you get to choose a main dish from a list of five options and a cocktail.

Coincidentally, they are operated by the same company owning Mott 32.

The visit

In 2018 I have been to the Blue Butcher twice, the latest visit in December 2018. If I am staying in West Hong Kong it is a must. I usually book via phone or their website.

They have a bar/lounge area downstairs opening on Hollywood Road, while the brunch is served in the main dining room upstairs. It is a spacious and comfortable space.

The buffet is certainly their main selling point. They have a very good selection of cheese, tartines, cold cuts, seafood, not to mention the dessert station (I will mention it later).

The oyster station is alone worth the price of admission.

Seafood includes prawns, salmon, tuna and crawfish.

The choice of mains is quite limited, but they are all appealing. They have included in the basic price a burger, coal roasted Canadian pork (excellent), deep fried foie gras, pan-seared salmon, and a type of pasta (cavatelli) with mushrooms and Parmesan cheese. So far I only tried the pork and it was excellent.

On my last visit, I had one of their steaks that come at an additional price. It was a good 12 oz (340 grams) piece of Australian sirloin. Truffle and Parmesan fries are included.

Some of my choices: oysters!

Cold cuts and some good cheese (montasio and pecorino).

An avocado tartine, a piece of quiche, salmon and tuna.

My dessert panna cotta with strawberries, chocolate cake and a piece of authentic Italian panettone (it was mid December after all and that’s the season for this baked good).

The dessert station is pretty amazing and they can prepare you a real crepe.

The check

Normally the cost of the brunch is 495 HKD (63 USD). But I chose a steak and it was 220 HKD more, so the total check was 715 HKD (91 USD).

Honestly, with all the food available in the buffet, going for an upgraded main is not necessary, unless you really want a steak (but then go on a normal day when their steak menu is more extensive).

Overall, I found the Blue Butcher a very good alternative to more traditional hotel buffets.

Where in Hong Kong:
108 Hollywood Road.
Website: ~~http://www.bluebutcher.com~~

Sadly, the restaurant closed on 19 May 2019 due to rent hike.

Eating like a banker at Mott 32 in Hong Kong

Mott 32 in Hong Kong was recommended to me by a friend. He usually makes great recommendations. And this was another home run.

Without his recommendation, I would have probably skipped this restaurant as it is part of a group and sounded too pretentious. And the name is just confusing: it is supposedly the address of the first Chinese-owned convenience store in New York. But why this name if the company is from Hong Kong? Ok, to honor the emigrants that showed the kind of business acumen that will make Hong Kong great… but it seems a very loose connection. And that “originated 1891” in the logo is totally misleading… the restaurant opened in Hong Kong in 2014.

The company that started Mott 32 in Hong Kong has successfully opened branches in Las Vegas, New York and Vancouver (and there is one coming soon in Bangkok at the time of writing… they seem to be on a roll) so it has become an international brand.

The visit

The restaurant is located in the basement of the Standard Chartered Bank building in Central.

You need to climb the stairs and enter the bank building.

On the left inside you will find the reception of the restaurant (probably the guy in the picture will have finished to look at his phone by then). You will need to take an escalator down and…

…descend an additional spiral staircase. You are in the bedrock of Hong Kong!

Someones says that the dining room used to be a vault, others say that it used to be a more mundane storage room. Either way, the environment is remarkable: the main dining room has high ceiling and a octagonal shape. Here and there references to New York City as the name would suggest.

They have a very extensive menu of Cantonese dishes prepared with fancy ingredients. Their signature dishes are the Applewood smoked Peking duck (advance order necessary, 825 HKD) and the honey glazed pork, which I did not have, but everything I ordered was extremely good.

Both the dim sum menu and the full menu were available.

I was there at noon, the room got filled pretty quickly. I had a reservation made by email and the process was painless. No deposit or other nonsense required.

Their choice for still water.

My first dish was crispy roasted pork belly. Man, I like this dish and this was perfectly executed. Every bite was succulent and crispy at the same time. I did not feel the need to use the accompanying mustard.

Then I ventured in some dim sum dishes. The first was a turnip cake with a lightly spicy chili sauce. The turnip cake is a vastly underrated dim sum dish, this was excellent with and without the sauce.

Then there was some theatrics with the lobster Har Gow. This was a huge dumpling that came with a sinister eyedropper containing lobster oil to be used to add the oil as one would see fit.

The next dish perfectly illustrates Mott’s philosophy. Take a Cantonese classic and re-engineer it with fashionable Western ingredients. This siu mai was filled not with the regular run-of-the-mill pork, but with iberico pork (speaking of being fashionable), but also with a soft quail egg and with black truffle. The combination of the three was really good; an effective transformation.

My main dish was the smoked black cod. For a moment a thought to be at the Ultraviolet table as the dish was served covered to leave the smoke (cigar?) lingering around. The sauce was not too sweet and helped stressing the cod’s flavor.

I did not find anything attractive in the dessert list.

The check

Total check was 869 HKD (110 USD) that places Mott 32 in the blog’s category of the luxury dining establishments. A place for bankers, even if most of the customers on the day of my visit looked like tourists from Mainland China particularly interested in the instagrammable properties of the food.

I am not sure what an expert in Cantonese cuisine would have to say, but for a Western palate like mine Mott 32 did a good job in re-creating Cantonese classics with the use of internationally-acclaimed ingredients. Is it worth the hefty price? Well, that’s debatable, but I can think of worse places where to spend this kind of money for a lunch or dinner in Hong Kong.

Where in Hong Kong:
4-4A Des Voeux Road Central, Central.
Check the website for menus and reservation.

Seafood adventure at Donggang Huaqiao Fish Market in Taiwan

Did you know that Taiwan is one of the major sources of tuna in Asia? And the epicenter of the tuna trade is Donggang, a township in the Southern part of Taiwan. As soon as I learnt it I knew I had to visit its fish market. In December 2018 I ventured for the first time in the
Huaqiao Fish Market that has a large retail area ready to welcome visitors hungry for sashimi.

The visit

I got to Donggang with a public bus from Kaohsiung stopping at Pingtung Bus Station then I walked one kilometer to the fish market located next to the ferry terminal. It is also possible to find a shuttle that will leave you at the ferry terminal next to the market (more about transportation at the end of the page). Also, no need to wake up early, as this retail market opens at 11am…

The market is quite large with both sellers of any type of seafood and kiosks catering to visitors selling fresh sashimi. Here and there you can find stools and counters where to seat.

My first stop was at stall 186 where I had a lovely sashimi set with tuna, salmon, yellow tail and another type of sashimi. All for 200 NTD (6.5 USD). The sashimi was cut fresh on the spot.

Second stop at stall 118 for another sashimi set with yellow tail, salmon and tuna. This time they handed me the box with the pre-cut pieces of sashimi. Still fresh though.

At stall 227, for 400 NTD (13 USD) I had four slices of the prized kama-toro: marbled tuna collar. This cut is very rare (it accounts for only 1% of the tuna mass) and it is regarded as a delicacy. It is marbled like o-toro, but more compact. They also threw three pieces of regular tuna included in the price.

Many stalls have a piece of kama-toro on display ready to be cut.

Also had a piece of the fish cake pictured above.

At one extremity of the market there is a small restaurant (menu only in Chinese). In this restaurant I tried one of the local specialties, the flying fish roe sausage. This is really just a sausage sprinkled with flying fish roe. I won’t need to eat another one.

Finally, all over the market there are stalls selling a kind of flavored jelly. They are available in many flavors and one strip costs only 10 NTD (0.32 USD). A good way to cap the meal!

The check

Prices are quite standardized. Sashimi sets cost from 100 to 200 NTD (3.2 to 6.5 USD). The most expensive cut is of course the marbled tuna collar that goes for 100 NTD for slice. By comparison, this is easily between 1 fourth to 1 eight of what you would spend for the same amount of sashimi in a Japanese restaurant in Japan or Mainland China. The feast cost me less than 1000 NTD (33 USD).

These are wholesome market prices! I have never eaten sashimi so fresh and cheap. Needless to say, I highly recommend the detour. I will be back.

Appendix: how to get there

From Kaohsiung you can get a shuttle to the ferry terminal next to the market for 150 NTD. Do not bother buying the return ticket as it is more practical to book another shuttle while in Donggang, there are many hovering in front of the ferry terminal and their normal fare to Kaohsiung is again 150 NTD.

In front of Kaohsiung main station (not the HSR station) there is a vendor of tickets for such a shuttle inside a bike shop at the South-East corner of Zhongnan and Jianguo roads. Here’s a ticket showing the shuttle times:

However, for some reason on the day of my trip the shuttle was not running… so I just moved twenty meters ahead to a bus station for a ticket on the regular 9127A bus. It was a very smooth 45 minute ride. My stop was the Pingtunt bus station in downtown Donggang. From there I walked to my destination.

Getting addicted to Addiction Aquatic Development in Taipei

Forgetting for a moment the weird English name, Addiction Aquatic Development (上引水產) in Taipei is a must-see both for foodies and urban planners… they did a fantastic job in turning an old fish market into a multi-function space including a standing sushi bar, an oyster bar, a couple of restaurants, a supermarket and much more. The seafood is fresh and the prices are good. It is really easy to get addicted.

The visit

I visited (again) multiple times the place in late December 2018.

The space is located in North Taipei, unfortunately it is not close to any metro stop, so taxi is the best choice to arrive. Taxis usually station in front of the main entrance pictured above.

Inside, the first area is dedicated to aquaculture with large tanks full of lobsters, giant crabs and so on…

Then you step in a relatively small supermarket area stocked with fresh sushi and sashimi to go. The products are very reasonably priced.

The rest of the main indoor area is dominated by a standing sushi bar and other smaller eating areas (including an oyster bar and a cooked food station).

Above a sashimi platter (with the addiction of 3 pieces of medium fatty tuna and 5 pieces of regular tuna) that I had in the standing sushi bar.

In a station you can have fresh lobster sashimi. The cook will cut the live lobster in front of you and they will also give you a lobster soup with all the left overs. In the pictures a 200gram lobster (quite small).

The four pictures above show more seafood that I bought from the supermarket area and I consumed outside. The sushi was very good and I could even find a big portion of cod roe and mullet roe (a Taiwan specialty, very salty, but to try).

They also have a full-fledged restaurant called Trésors de la mer where bookings are possible. In the restaurant I had their mega seafood platter and a miso soup. Some fruit was complimentary. Otherwise, it is possible to pick the fish from a market display and they will prepare you according to your instructions.

The seafood platter included tuna, yellow tail, salmon, sea snails, oysters, scallops, salmon roe, and a piece of abalone. Everything was delicious. The only thing disappointing was the miso soup, but who cares!

The last picture above shows a view of another seating area, a grilled seafood restaurant that I did not try.

The check(s)

The supermarket food cost me 1304 NTD (42 USD), the big ticket time was the lobster sashimi (644 NTD before tax). The sushi was just a few dollars.

The bill for the huge seafood platter at the restaurant Trésors de la mer was 1595 NTD (52 USD) including a miso soup and a coke. This was really a dish for two people.

The sashimi platter from the standing sushi restaurant was 913 NTD (29.6 USD) and it was a lot of sashimi.

Overall, prices are very reasonable for a funky location. The only caveat is to avoid peak hours on weekends or holidays, unless you like to queue like this people on New Year’s Eve (2018):

Where in Taipei:
No. 18, Alley 2, Lane 410, Minzu E Rd, Zhongshan District, Taipei City.
Name in Chinese: 上引水產.
Address in Chinese: 台北市民族東路410巷2弄18號.
Website: http://www.addiction.com.tw