Feuille (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

Since the reopening of international borders in 2023, my buddy V has been traveling the world like there's no tomorrow so it took some work to finally nail down a date for our dinner gathering this month. Finding a nice venue also wasn't easy as we were both picky about food we liked. Fortunately, we narrowed down to two final destinations a fortnight ago and eventually settled for Feuille before it was too late.

Feuille is the brainchild of renowned French chef David Toutain who made a name for himself with his eponymous two-Michelin-starred restaurant in Paris. At Feuille, he brings his cutting edge French fine-dining cuisine to the table along with its unique vegetal twist. Needless to say, V and I were really looking forward to the vegetable-driven menu featuring some of the best local ingredients.

It was a Tuesday evening and I was eager to find out how busy it was for a fine-dining restaurant these days. As it turned out, Feuille was about 70% full which wasn't bad on a Tuesday night.

Chia seed, lemon tree kombucha – We were started off with a small welcome drink of chia seed and lemon tree kombucha. 

Pimenta, chestnut, chervil – Followed by a parade of small nibbles which began with a chestnut cream tart topped with pimenta and chervil.

Mustard seed, shiso, sea grape – Next up was deep-fried shiso cracker with mustard seeds and local sea grapes.

Madras curry, frog legs, rosemary – Deep-fried frog leg with rosemary was served with a Madras curry dip.

Cumin, egg, sweet corn – The final amuse bouche was sweet corn espuma served in an egg shell with cumin seed caramel on top.

Feuille bread, dill pil pil – After the amuse bouche, the lovely "Feuille bread" with sunflower seed and pumpkin seed was served up with a homemade "dill pil pil" made with fish collagen from our fish course. Talk about sustainability and putting different parts of the ingredients into good use.

French bean, geoduck, lovage – The lovage-marinated geoduck, pistachios and lightly cooked French beans were mashed together, topped nicely with geoduck cream, strawberry gel, fresh herbs and tuille. A sprinkle of fresh seaweed powder provided the dish with an "oceanic" finish.

Carrot, sea bass, nasturtium – At this point, we were starting to realize the theme of green colors in most of these dishes. It was the third dish in a roll (including the spread for the bread). Not that I was really counting.

I liked the minimalist presentation here. Underneath the deep-fried spinach, we had the local seabass fillet with baby carrot, carrot purée, and a buttery Béarnaise sauce. The nasturtium leaf provided a slightly sweet and peppery taste to the dish, while the tamarind jelly added some lovely acidity but my discovery of some soft bones in the fish slightly ruined the experience.

Pumpkin, spiny lobster, saffron – Moving onto the next dish, we were having a locally sourced spiny lobster cooked over charcoal, with dried citrus and rosemary. So, the first thing we noticed were the nice smoky flavors.

Interestingly, the rest of the ingredients including the creamy pumpkin purée, orange marmalade, and a small lobster roll wrapped in a saffron-infused milk skin came on a separate plate.

We slowly dipped the spiny lobster into the flavorful lobster sabayon made with lobster head, pumpkin and saffron. This was a very nice match and to our pleasant surprise, the sabayon came with some delicious homemade pumpkin gnocchi.

Beetroot, pigeon, bok choy – Cured local pigeon was roasted on the bone, bringing a delightful smoky essence from the charcoal grill. There was a mix of sweetness and earthy notes coming from the velvety beetroot (red) and bok choy (green) purée, which was enhanced with a savory meat jus blended with beetroot juice. 

Tomato, marigold, lemon balm – The pre-dessert of tomato water sorbet served on a small pool of tomato and marigold gazpacho was the perfect palate cleanser to get us ready for the dessert.

Hazelnut, chocolate, herbs – The first of our two desserts came with variations of chocolate, including the crispy crumbs on the bottom, runny chocolate ganache in the middle and of course the flaky chocolate pastries on the edges. 

It was nicely complemented by the herby notes from the rosemary and cumin, and I thought the basil ice-cream (more green!) did a marvelous job offsetting the richness of the decadent chocolate.

Vanilla ice-cream, cauliflower – Our final dessert featured a scoop of vanilla ice-cream which has been somewhat hidden inside the pond of cauliflower cream. I really liked the savory-sweet combination there, with the vanilla ganache integrating everything together faultlessly.

Some canapés at the end of the meal, a Fir Bud macaron with what I thought was pandan jam in the middle.

A coconut meringue tart with passion-fruit cream.

Food Rating: 6.8/10

Price: $$$$

Address: 5/F, The Wellington, 198 Wellington Street, Central, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Sheung Wan / Central

Tel: +852 2881-1848

Website: www.feuille.hk

Opening Hours: 12:00pm - 3:00pm, 6:00pm - 11:00pm (Mon - Sat)

Luet Fat Restaurant Kowloon City 聯發茶餐廳 (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

I'm back in Kowloon City for a hotpot gathering tonight and since I love the old neighborhood here so much, I decided to come over an hour early to soak up the vibe. 

I missed the chance to enjoy breakfast at Luet Fat Restaurant (聯發茶餐廳) on Ching Ming Festival so I was determined to come back and try my luck again this afternoon.

While I didn't know much about Luet Fat myself, my friend has told me a lot about this place and according to him, the owner(s) here has very close ties to the folks behind Australia Dairy Company in Jordan. Enough about gossips, it was time to get down to business.

The milk tea was very strong today and it's likely going to keep me up all night. But I wasn't going to care much as long as it was silky smooth and fragrant. 



It's been a while since I last had French toast with peanut butter spread. 

This was pretty tasty, and I thought it made a fairly nice combo with the pantyhose milk tea for my afternoon tea. 



I am getting pinged left and right asking for my whereabout. Time to settle the bill and show up for the gathering. It's never nice to have "the mahjong tiles cooled off" (攤凍晒d麻雀) 😆😆.

Food Rating: 5/10

Price: $$$

Address: Shop 1, G/F, 2-4 Hau Wong Road, Kowloon City, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Sung Wong Toi

Tel: +852 2718-8832

Opening Hours: 7:00am - 10:00pm daily

Mammy Pancake 媽咪雞蛋仔 Central Market (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★★☆

After dinner at Lin Heung Tea House (蓮香樓), I took a slow walk back to Hong Kong station. En route to Hong Kong station, I stopped by Central Market (中環街市) for a quick look and was surprised to find that Mammy Pancake (媽咪雞蛋仔) was still open for business. In fact, there were at least a dozen customers standing around waiting for their eggettes to be ready.



Since I have previously promised little nugget to get him his favorite chocolate eggettes here for a while now, I decided to get behind the small queue myself.



After a 10-minute wait......

I ended up pausing a little to admire the night view of Central district from the bridge leading to IFC. This is really a beautiful city. Let's make every effort to keep it that way.

Food Rating: 6/10

Price: $$

Address: Shop 242B, 2/F, Central Market, 93 Queen's Road Central, Central, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Hong Kong Station / Central

Opening Hours: 12:00pm - 9:00pm (Mon - Sat), 12:00pm - 8:00pm (Sun)

Lin Heung Tea House 蓮香樓 (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

The newly re-opened Lin Heung Tea House (蓮香樓) was an itch I was more than happy to scratch tonight following a string of activities happening for me in Sheung Wan.



As soon as I climbed the stairs to the dining room, it was a welcome sight on a Monday night. More than half of the tables were filled inside this recently renovated Cantonese dim sum institution.

I was glad to see this special pot for rinsing my utensils. Let the tradition continue!

During its hay days, Lin Heung used to have all these bird cages from customers hanging above their tables during the morning dim sum session. But not anymore. These golden ones were part of the revamped restaurant's decorations.

What remained the same was the tried and true signature menu. This included the all-time favorites such as braised duck with stuffing, pan-fried lotus root cake (懷舊蓮藕餅) and baked fish intestines with egg (雞蛋焗魚腸). 

The simplest dish is often the hardest ones to make so I decided to check out their sweet and sour pork (菠蘿咕噜肉) tonight. 



The crispy coated pork fillets were smothered in this tangy sweet and sour sauce and served up alongside ingredients like pineapple, onions and assorted peppers. Very nice to go with the steamed rice.

The bill came to a total of $177. Certainly not a small price to pay for an order of sweet and sour pork plus steamed rice but it was an amount I was more than happy to pay in an effort to keep our century-old establishments stay afloat cuz we have lost enough of these collective memories during COVID-19 already. 

Food Rating: 5.5/10

Price: $$$

Address: 160-164 Wellington Street, Central, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Sheung Wan / Hong Kong

Tel: +852 2544-4556

Opening Hours: 6:00am - 11:00pm daily

Tong Shun Ju Roast Duck Restaurant Link CentralWalk 同順居北京烤鴨店 领展中心城店 (Shenzhen, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

For a second night in a roll, I got to celebrate my birthday but only this time around, I have the whole gang celebrating with me. I decided to go for another Peking duck dinner tonight and it was one of the top roasted duck restaurants in Shenzhen, Tong Shun Ju Roast Duck Restaurant Link CentralWalk (同順居北京烤鴨店 领展中心城店).

Like Jingwei Zhang Roast Duck Restaurant (京味張烤鴨店) which we visited last week, Tong Shun Ju also hails from Beijing and specializes in traditional Beijing cuisine.

From the semi-open kitchen, we could see all the marinated ducks hanging from the oven.

I really like the classic décor here with a modern touch creating an elegant and timeless space for dining.

View from the mezzanine floor overlooking the main dining area on the ground level.

VIP rooms are literally free of charge except for the additional 10% service charge so I called a couple of days in advance to make sure that we had the additional privacy for tonight's dinner. 

Enough exploration on the venue here; time to bring our server in to place our orders.

Roast duck with fruit wood (老北京果木烤鴨) (¥138) – Having tried two of the other top ranked roast duck restaurants in Shenzhen recently, expectations were sky high coming into this meal. Could this beat the previous two versions of Peking duck that we had the pleasure of trying the last two weeks?

We were about to find out.......

Compared to Jingwei Zhang Roast Duck Restaurant (京味張烤鴨店) and Duck de King (金鴨季), this was by far the less delicious roast duck out of the three we have tried this month. The duck skin was reasonably crispy and there was some smokiness from the fruit wood but the aroma emanated largely from its enticing fragrance rather than its taste. The other disappointment came from the chun bing (春饼) which was a bit dense and chewy. All in all, the dish was decent but nowhere near great (or even good) in my opinion.

Boiled beef omasum with sesame paste (京城爆肚) (¥78) – Very hard and chewy. Didn't finish.

Braised streaky pork in brown sauce (張飛把子肉) (¥28) – No one could resist fatty belly drizzled in a sweet and sour brown sauce. At least I couldn't.

Sea cucumber hot and sour soup (海參酸辣湯) (¥28) – I didn't get to try this myself but it was reportedly OK by Jelloman.

Spinach sauce bean curd with sauce (松波豆腐) (¥46) – One of the "plus" dish tonight. The green color came from dipping the bean curd tofu into a homemade spinach sauce which was relatively light and refreshing. 

Stir-fried mixed vegetables with olive oil (山泉橄欖油浸時蔬) (¥38) – This along with the tofu provided two really nice vegetarian dish with light flavors to offset the richness of the remaining dishes.

Four dim sum in Palace (宮廷四點) (¥58) – I found this English name directly from their English food menu.

Apparently, these were some of the sweet treats from an imperial meal of Qing dynasty. From left to right, kidney bean roll (芸豆卷), pea cake (豌豆黃), glutinous rice roll (艾窩窩) and soybean flour cake (驢打滾). Hongkongers should be no stranger to the soybean flour cake (or rolling donkeys in Chinese) and these bite-sized servings of the sweet nibbles made with steamed glutinous rice layered with brown sugar and then covered with soy bean flour were again the most popular choice for everyone tonight.

Juicy beef pie (爆汁門丁肉餅) (¥16) – We almost forgot about these juicy beef puffs made with minced Australian wagyu beef which took a while to arrive. I wasn't sure if that was the juice or broth coming spraying straight out from my first bite and it was bursting with flavors. That's for sure.

I was truly blessed having not one but two birthday celebrations this year. Very thankful for the lovely treat and since we finished early, perhaps we could squeeze in some sweet soup just before we head back to Hong Kong via the super-efficient rapid train.

Food Rating: 5.1/10

Price: ¥¥¥

Address: Shop LF1024, L1F, 3 Fuhua Road 1st, Futian, Shenzhen, China

深圳市福田区福华一路3号领展中心城 L1F层 LF1024铺

Closest Metro Station: Convention & Exhibition Center station (會展中心)

Tel: +86 (755) 83230100

Opening Hours: 10:00am - 10:00pm daily

Map: https://j.map.baidu.com/29/vo