Gaddi's 吉地士 (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★★☆

Things are getting really busy at work these days and despite having more than a month's annual leave in my pocket, I wasn't able to use them much. But I figured I better use them while I can, before some of them get forfeited in a couple of months. Thursday afternoon will be the ideal opportunity to do so; and why not, with the long weekend coming up?

I have been itching to go back to Roganic, one of my top 10 restaurants in the city for ages but somehow I could never pull the trigger. Today, it was another misfire as I made up my mind to go there for lunch on my afternoon-off but I left my office a little too late. As a result, I wasn't able to make it there before their last order. Alternative? I decided to ring up the folks at Gaddi's (吉地士) and to my pleasant surprise, they had a table available due to a last-minute cancellation. So, at least I'm getting some good news before the storm arrives during the long weekend.

As usual, I got to kick off this relaxing lunch with my favorite brioche with bacon (or chorizo?).

It was nice to have a different amuse bouche for a change today. We've been having the "deconstructed French onion soup" for a while so it was time to switch things up (not that, it's not tasty or anything). The shrimp tartare wasn't a bad idea for the summer at all. It was served with a flavorful coral mousse while some tiny bits of crunchy potato on top provided some extra bite.

Bouchot mussel velouté, ravioli, spinach, lemongrass, horseradish – I would have normally gone for the poultry pâté without thinking twice but I wanted something healthy (or less unhealthy) this afternoon and the Bouchot mussel velouté turned out to be a great find. Silky smooth and soul warming.

Just love everything about this creamy velouté, with the baby spinach and ravioli that came stuffed with diced mussels in it.

Slow-cooked cod loin, white asparagus, bottarga, Isigny cream – I have been waiting for the chance to check out some in-season white asparagus so it caught my eyes instantly when I was reading the food menu.

The cod loin which was nicely cooked (but a little overcooked if you ask me) and served on a bed of white asparagus, was finished off well with shaved bottarga, salmon roes and an intensely rich, smoked Isigny cream sauce.

Manjari chocolate texture, candied cherries, pine seeds, buckwheat ice-cream

– Dessert was a collection of different textures of Manjari chocolate with candied cherries.

I thought they could go with something a little richer in flavor than the buckwheat ice-cream. This combination was just OK.

Petite fours were the same chocolate, macaron and financier we always have at Gaddi's, just different flavors this time around.

And I took some precious time to enjoy my caffeine after the meal.



I must admit, Gaddi's wasn't my first choice to begin with but at the end of the day, it worked out okay for me. I am thinking I can live with them as my back-up plan any given day!

Food Rating: 7.5/10
Price: $$$$
Address: 1/F, The Peninsula Hong Kong, 22 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Tsim Sha Tsui
Tel: +852 2696-6763
Website: www.peninsula.com/en/hong-kong/hotel-fine-dining/gaddis-french-restaurant
Opening Hours: 12:00pm - 2:30pm, 7:00pm - 10:30pm (Tue - Sat)

The Baker & The Bottleman (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★★☆

Following the hugely successful taste test more than 2 weeks ago, I've been itching to come back to The Baker & The Bottleman for more.

A lot of these pastries I haven't had the chance to lay my hands on yet but I guess not today. I'm sticking with my Earl Grey doughnut once again (can we have more flavors please?).

My doughnut wasn't quite ready yet so I had a bit of spare time to wander around and check out their dine-in area on the mezzanine floor.

A very nice place to enjoy a cup of espresso. Just too bad I didn't have the time today.

Chocolate and Earl Grey doughnut – I don't know if this is chocolate cream infused with Earl Grey or Earl Grey cream with chocolate but it's pretty damn good!

This is at least enough to lure me back. Last time it got messed up before it arrived home so today, I had to make sure that it's put in the right place (my tummy). Delish~

Food Rating: 6.6/10

Price: $$$

Address: Shop G14 & G15, G/F, Lee Tung Avenue, 200 Queen’s Road East, Wanchai, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Wanchai

Tel: +852 2817-8383

Website: https://thebakerandthebottleman.hk/

Opening Hours: 8:00am - 5:00pm (Tue - Sun)

Café Life Patisserie at K11 Art Mall (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

I first heard about Café Life Patisserie and its Japanese-style fruit cakes back in 2019. Also had the pleasure of checking its wide selection of sweets out in Sheung Wan the same year but recently, they've been flexing their culinary muscles. Following a successful pop-up at K11 Art Mall, they are making the expansion to the Kowloon side a permanent one.

I decided to dig a little deeper into this little cake shop and turns out it's the brainchild of Mr. Matsuoka Tetsuya (松岡哲也), a Japanese patissier who did his apprenticeship at Reve De Bebe out of Fukuoka (福岡). He did a fair bit of pastry classes in Hong Kong before finally striking out for his first venture.

While the bread and butter of Café Life has always been its fruit cakes, there are other interesting offerings as well including its strawberry napoleon cakes and more. 

Soufflé cheesecake with apricot jam – This looks like a Japanese soufflé pancake.

Very light and fluffy.

It really tasted a lot like a soufflé pancake. Had to be a little more cheesy to be considered a soufflé cheesecake though. 

Soufflé Ding – Ding of course means pudding from the Canto translation. This is really a crème brûlée served in a sliced cake manner. On the bottom was the creamy pudding with some really nice eggy flavors, topped by a layer of wobbly jelly reminiscent of the caramel glaze. Really not a bad idea but Jelloman and I both thought that the jelly had a little too much bitterness in there that almost felt like it's coffee infused. Otherwise, it's not bad.

Food Rating: 5.2/10

Price: $$$

Address: Shop B211, B2/F, K11 Art Mall, 18 Hanoi Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: East Tsim Sha Tsui / Tsim Sha Tsui

Opening Hours: 11:00am - 9:00pm daily

Ippudo x Mak's Noodle Ramen Series 一風堂 × 麥奀雲吞麵推限定拉麵 (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

For someone who's not a fan of ramen chains, visiting Ippudo (一風堂) hasn't really come across my mind for the past 15 years.

But after reading about this Ippudo x Mak's Noodle Ramen series a couple of weeks ago, I thought someone I know might be interested.

This is the guy I'm talking about......

The ramen junkie who's going for his fourth different ramen this month!

Shio Wonton Ramen (雲呑海鮮鹽拉麵) – This is the limited-time only ramen that they've collaborated with Mak's Noodle (麥奀雲吞麵). It came with a lot of ingredients including barbecued pork, soft-boiled egg, clams, scallop and wonton.

I was curious of how the broth would differ from a typical shio one (or wonton soup for all it matters) and now that I've tasted it myself, I can honestly say that I can't really tell the difference other than the fact that there were bonito flavors in there but no sign of wonton soup that some of us were expecting.

Food Rating: 4.5/10

Price: $$$

Address: Shop 106, 1/F, Olympian City 2, 18 Hoi Ting Road, Tai Kok Tsui, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Olympic

Tel: +852 2526-8900

Opening Hours: 11:30am - 9:30pm daily

L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★★☆

We have a string of important meetings coming up in the next few weeks. We had two just this morning alone and by the time everything was said and done, it was already lunch time. I wasn't planning to do anything special for lunch to begin with but curiosity led me to ring up the folks at L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon and surprise, surprise, they have a table for me if I choose to take it. Hey, why not if I could finish within an hour.

It's been almost a year since I last visited L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon and knowing that I'll be super busy in the next couple of months, I thought I deserve a small treat for myself.

A fine collection of French bread to kick off the meal as usual. I wasn't really feeling hungry until I started munching away with these brioche.

The amuse today was something that's perfect for the summer, a small bowl of refreshing gazpacho made with Spanish tomatoes and strawberries topped nicely with pistachio.  

They put the finishing touch on by showering the gazpacho with some cheese snow. What a nice way to begin the meal.

I didn't have to think twice about my starter today. It's going to be the in-season green peas velouté served on a bed of steamed egg which has been decorated beautifully with French peas.

The silky smooth green peas velouté was just the perfect, heartwarming dish for the dog days of summer.

Very clean flavors coming from the green peas working fine with the bed of panna cotta made with egg and onion. The minty flavors from the mint leaves could have been a little stronger though.

And I didn't have to think twice about what to order for my main course (this is not a recording!) since both beef tenderloin and pork weren't on the lunch menu today.

But I could never say no to Hokkaido scallops anyways!

The superbly cooked Hokkaido scallops came with creamy fregola pasta on the bottom, and finished off brilliantly with a rich and tangy Noilly Prat sauce. Delish~

I managed to finish about one third of Oncle Joël's killer mash this afternoon. When my server asked if I wanted to finish the rest, I smiled and replied that I'd love to do that but my cardiologist probably won't be happy with it. And we had a good chuckle about that.

Dessert was an old friend who I've seen a few times before, "Gianduja" chocolate with caramelized hazelnuts and Earl Grey tea ice-cream.

The Gianduja chocolate came in different textures and complemented nicely by some crunchy hazelnuts and of course the key, Earl Grey tea ice-cream. I am a sucker for anything with Earl Grey tea in it!

That was very good.

Petite fours were pistachio macaron and coffee chocolate. 

What a great job of pacing by the team here! When I asked my meal to be finished within an hour, I didn't think it was possible. But looking at the clock, from the time I was presented with the bread basket to my first sip of tea, it took only a whopping 65 minutes! A lot had happened in between that hour and 5 minutes, and I have to say, it's a job well-done, by both the kitchen staff and service team.  

BluHouse wasn't my first choice for Father's Day celebration yesterday so this meal was kind of a make-up celebration for myself. Too bad little nugget wasn't here to celebrate with me.

Food Rating: 7.5/10
Price: $$$$
Address: Shop 315 & 401, The Landmark, Central, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Central
Tel: +852 2166-9000
Website: www.robuchon.hk

Opening Hours: 12:00pm - 2:00pm, 6:30pm - 10:30pm daily

AFURI Ramen + Dumpling 阿夫利拉麵 (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

We were supposed to call it the day after enjoying our Father's Day lunch at the newly opened BlueHouse followed by a movie at the K11 Musea cinema but little nugget kept hounding me about having a ramen dinner tonight. At the end of the day, the old man finally gave up and granted him his wish.

Since we were just having afternoon tea at Semua Semua So Bar (蘇媽.蘇媽 So Bar) in Tsim Sha Tsui, I thought why not introduce little one to the famous yuzu infused ramen at AFURI Ramen + Dumpling (阿夫利拉麵) at The ONE just across the street.

Yuzu shoyu ramen (柚子醬油拉麵) – Jelloman and I already started going to AFURI when we were visiting Tokyo more than a decade ago. I've always had a soft spot for their smoky charcoal grilled char-siu but the yuzu infused broth, I have never been much of a fan.

While little one immediately fell in love with their yuzu shoyu (soy sauce based) broth (which AFURI is best known of), Jelloman and I again felt that the yuzu flavors were just way too overpowering for us. But then, little one always loves any noodles served in a warm soup. Nothing has changed.

Tonkotsu tantanmen (豬骨濃湯擔擔麵) – For myself, I ordered this dan dan noodles cuz I thought I was in need of some extra heat thanks to the sizzling weather.

The thick noodles really brought out the best of the dan dan sauce but I thought the flavors from the pork bone broth really didn't register. 

Look at how much he was enjoying his yuzu shoyu ramen.

I don't think any ramen shop would find it difficult to get a thumbs up from this guy!!! 👦👍👍👍

Food Rating: 5.3/10

Price: $$$

Address: i.t orange forest, 2/F, THE ONE, 100 Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Tsim Sha Tsui

Tel: +852 2815-2177

Opening Hours: 12:00pm - 9:30pm (Sun - Thu), 12:00pm - 10:00pm (Fri - Sat)