JR Tower Hotel Nikko Sapporo (Sapporo, JAPAN)

Like most of our recent trip to Japan, we decided to stay near the train station. This time, we were literally staying on top of the train station at JR Tower in Sapporo.

It was still snowing in Sapporo in late March so it was important that our hotel was directly connected to the train station as to avoid the hassle of dragging our luggage in freezing temperature.

JR Tower Hotel Nikko Sapporo definitely ticked most boxes (but not all unfortunately). 

Our room was a simple one with wooden furniture and old carpets.

We didn't pay extra for a mountain view room so just a boring city view from our windows. 

Speaking of boring, I thought the bathroom could use a little touch-up or renovation too.

While the hotel room itself didn't totally live up to our expectation, the location was really what we paid a premium for. It's on top of the JR station and easily connected to different parts of the city. It also provided a nice base for those traveling to other parts of Hokkaido.

One of the things I enjoyed most about our stay was the breakfast in the morning. While the local fruits, Hokkaido milk and porridge were nothing to write home about.....

And the mountain view was!

I won't mind waking up to this everyday.....

Location was what brought us to JR Tower Hotel Nikko Sapporo in the first place and it proved to be a very good one to get around the city. But for all you light sleepers out there, be sure to get a room on a much higher floor cuz noises from the incoming and outgoing trains will likely wake you up if you're staying on the lower floor (like one we just stayed at). I think the train service starts as early as 5am-ish. Good luck! 

Rating: ❤❤❤

Price: ￥￥￥

Address: 2-5 Kita 5 Jo Nishi, Chuo-Ku, Sapporo 060-0005 Hokkaido, Japan

Closest Train Station: Sapporo

Tel: +81 11-251-2222

Website: www.jrhotels.co.jp/tower/english/

Angelini (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

Angelini, the Italian restaurant at Kowloon Shangri-La Hotel this week welcomes world renowned chef Valentino Marcattilii from Ristorante San Domenico, Imola Italy as guest chef.

Chef Valentino, co-owner and executive chef of the Michelin two-star Ristorante San Domenico, is known for a more simplistic and conservative approach on the interpretation of traditional Italian dishes. He has great respect for tradition, simplicity and fresh ingredients which turned out to be his prelude to success. His apprenticeship at some of the best Michelin-starred restaurants in France including Auberge de l'ιll and Troisgros early in his career, also left a long lasting impression in his cooking.

We arrived right on time at 7pm. Situated on the mezzanine floor of the hotel, Angelini has a decent but unspectacular view of the Victoria Harbour and the Hong Kong Island skyline. The dining room was predominantly beige and red in color tones, providing a warm and modern atmosphere. It reminded me a bit of the Steakhouse from the Intercontinental Hotel.




This marked just our second visit to the restaurant, the first since we had a quick bite here back in 2005 when the restaurant made its debut. That dining experience as I recalled was a disappointing one with very average food and inept service particularly for a hotel restaurant. We were definitely hoping for a much better experience this time around.

We started off with a very simple amuse bouche of seared tuna with onion and beans. There was a white bean puree on the side.

This was an amuse bouche that was indicative of Chef Valentino's style - simple preparation of food. I personally like simple but the taste of the tuna slice could have been much much better (3/10).



Not the start we were looking for from a 2-star chef. Perhaps the starters would turn things around.

I had the ginger marinated red shrimps with citrus flavoured extra virgin olive oil which was fairly good. The ginger flavor was minimal and that allowed the rich flavor of the red shrimps to be the dominant force here (5/10).



Another starter was a poached lobster tail with green pea foam and caramelised treviso chicory.

I believe it was the lightest-flavored lobster dish I have had for a long long time. The lobster tail had the perfect texture but it desperately needed some sort of seasoning to elevate its sweetness. And unfortunately the green pea foam failed to deliver (4/10).  



The seared goose liver escalope with crispy leek and white celery fondue was easily the best starter so far. The goose liver was seared to a perfect golden brown color and it was crispy outside and moist inside. Although seasoning was again minimal, the goose liver probably didn't need that extra push (6.5/10). 



For my pasta dish, I took the toasted onion risotto and gravy caramelised with Marsala Wine and sugar cane. The risotto was very rich and honestly a bit heavy but nevertheless delicately delicious (6/10). 



But the star of the night was Chef Valentino's signative dish - ravioli filled with Egg in “San Domenico” Style with sweetened Parmigiano truffle and nut butter.

The taste of the ravioli was a little complex after having egg yolk, white truffles, mozzarella cheese, spinach and mushroom all stuffed under a single piece of ravioli. It was a little heavy but it was way too good for us not to finish it all (7/10).



Main course was a tough choice between fish and beef. First up was my dover sole fillet with artichoke in mint flavoured white wine sauce. In all honesty, I have never liked dover sole fish to begin with so it would really take a lot here to impress me.

The dover sole fillet was curled during the preparation and it resulted in an extra strong and spongy texture. But other than the texture, there's nothing special to write home about (5/10).



Moving forward to our last main course - veal medallion with black pepper sauce, raisin and asparagus. We really had high expectation for this dish but were left stunned.

I personally blamed it on the veal itself. It simply didn't have the delicate and flavorful taste that it was known to possess. The sauce also failed miserably to make up for the lack of flavors (2/10).  



We didn't order any dessert after a rather heavy four-course dinner. So after a petite four, we called it the night.



With Chef Valentino's credentials, we set the bars fairly high but came up a bit empty. It did not meet our lofty expectations at all. I thought the staff provided by Angelini and not trained by Chef Valentino's crew, could also use a little more training to brush up their skills.


Food Rating: 5.5/10

Price: $$$

Address: 64 Mody Road, Tsim Sha Tsui East, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Tsim Sha Tsui East
Tel: +852 2733-8750
Website: www.shangri-la.com/hongkong/kowloonshangrila/dining/restaurants/angelini/

Yu Lei (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★☆☆☆

Last year, we regretfully missed out on the Restaurant Week promotions due to our slow reaction to their campaign. Learning from our mistakes, we decided to act much faster this year. And we did. Immediately following their email notification (via AMEX), we logged onto their website but only to find that our first-choice restaurant, BCN was already all sold out. So instead we had to settle for our second choice, Yu Lei.

Yu Lei, along with Messina and Kazuo Okada, occupied the fifth floor of the Harbourfront Landmark in Whampoa. Although getting there could be frustrating at times, it does offer a very good harbour view.




The hostress led us through a long corridor that was dominantly red. I briefly called this "The Red Sea" having seen these red framed mirror, red cabinets, red carpets and red-colored wallpaper. And at the other end of this corridor was an elegantly designed dining area (picture above).



This is a restaurant that specializes in Shanghaiese cuisine with a Japanese twist but the first few dishes failed to show any Japanese influence at all.

After a small "amuse bouche" of bean curd and pickled radish, here comes our first dish - chef's signature combination appetizer plate consisting of a bean curd roll and shredded chicken in a peanut butter and sesame sauce.

These were two highly popular traditional Shanghainese appetizers that I thought were nicely presented but I didn't find them to be much different than the ones we had at a typical Shanghaiese restaurant (4/10).



Next up was "Two kinds of signature dim sum" which on this date were a pork dumpling with crab roe and a steamed vegetable dumpling. Both dumplings were fine but once again I didn't find them particularly tasty (4/10).



The wok fried wagyu beef fillet with black bean sauce was a fine dish. The wagyu beef was very tender but looking at the amount of oil there....super oily (4/10)!



The steamed cabbage and dried shrimp soup was average at best with the dried shrimp providing most of the flavor (3/10).



Finally a dish with a little bit of Japanese influence! It came from a bowl of fried rice with Japanese sardines and garlic. 

I really liked the wonderful bite of the fried rice. It used Japanese rice which was most famous for its short grain and the somewhat sticky texture. The intense flavor of the small dried sardines also provided extra seasoning effects (7/10).



Our dessert was an almond tofu pudding that we found quite refreshing (5/10).



The presentation was definitely 1-star material but unfortunately the food and service were not. To me, this is really a work in progress.


Food Rating: 4/10

Price: $$$

Address: 5/F Harbourfront Landmark, 11 Wan Hoi Street, Hunghom, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: None
Website: www.KOdining.com