Summer Palace, Island Shangri-la, Hong Kong

I was out to romance my wife on Valentine's Day so we went to the two Michelin-starred restaurant Summer Palace, which is in the Island Shangri-la hotel in Admiralty for a 'late lunch'.

Actually the place was not all candle lit (perhaps this Chinese restaurant does not sell itself out for Valentine's day), and with it still being in the Chinese New Year period, it was fairly busy with families. There are no windows to let light in but it is not a dark place, with sparkling chandeliers and an elegant Oriental interior.

We were shown to our neatly laid out table, given the menu to contemplate over and asked if we wanted a drink at first. We opted for Chinese tea and drank Iron Bhudda tea for the evening.

Table Setting

The menu is split into various sections such as soups, appetisers, mains etc. We ordered two starters and the first to arrive was the Sea Moss Soup, shown in the picture below. This soup was good, with a strong flavour and contained the sea moss and two dried oysters for some opulence. There was also a slice of meat, which might have been ham or possibly tongue.

Soup

Our other starter was Pan Fried Bean Curd Skin Filled with Shredded Vegetables, which was returned unfortunately. The skin was too soggy and not crunchy for our liking, which it usually is after frying. Turns out they steamed them after frying, losing the crunchiness, and our liking for them and so we asked for this dish to be taken away.

Bean curd skin

For the main courses we ordered a fish, chicken and pork dish. The Spotted Garoupa fillet with black bean sauce was the first course to arrive. The fish meat could have been a bit softer but the sauce was good and there was the spring onion garnish.

Garoupa

Stewed Chicken with Salted fish and Scallion in a stone hot pot and Stewed Spare Ribs in a clay pot were the other two main courses that we ordered. The chicken was nice, the best dish of the night. The meat was tender and in small chunks, with the scallions and salted fish offering some extra flavour. The spare ribs were very red in colour and cooked until the meat was really soft, but could have done with a touch more seasoning.

Chicken on left, Pork on right

We also chose Beef Fried Rice as our starch dish. This was cooked with egg white only and along with the little pieces of beef there was shrimp paste too, to give it a decent flavour. The one niggle was that it was a little too oily.

Fried Rice

We could not finish all of the rice between the two of us and took the remainder away. The waiter then gave us the dessert menu to look at but we did not choose anything so we paid the bill and went on our way.

Now, I am not a professional food critic but to give Summer Palace two Michelin stars surprises me. I have been better one-starred places and the difference between this and a three-starred restaurant I have eaten at is wide.

That is not to say this place is bad, far from it. The food is good and well presented, as expected for the price you pay. However nothing is that exceptional to make you remember it. It is a pretty place and staff are friendly but do not have that hospitable warmth to make you want to return in a hurry.

Scores:

Food: 3/5

Presentation: 4/5

Service: 3/5

Setting: 4/5

Total: 14/20

Total Bill: HK$1193, about GBP£50 a head.

I ate: All of the above.

I drank: Iron Buddha Tea.

I wore: Gieves & Hawkes tie and cufflinks.

The Lobby, Peninsula Hotel, Hong Kong

We are stepping back in time here for this blog entry as we are at the Grand Dame of Hong Kong, the Peninsula Hotel, for afternoon tea, so more of a cake quest that occurred back in December. In fact, due to me going through my backlog I actually lunched at this place before one of my previous entries for the Kowloon Shangri-la visit.

It was my sister's birthday so we went to the hotel for her treat. As it was in the month of December, there were Christmas decorations decked out all over the lobby, preparing the hotel for the festive season. It is a grand place anyway, with large open space and very ornate finishing to the interior so the decorations make it more spectacular, as shown in the photograph below.

View of the Hotel Interior

Whilst there were three of us we opted for an afternoon tea set for two. We ordered different teas each, with myself going for the Assam variety. Service was, as expected very friendly and attentive for this type of hotel. The teas were served first in the elegant silver pots and then along came the platter of afternoon tea items, shown in the photograph below.

The tray

The top plate shown below was the more sweet selection, which had macaron, cookies, butter cake, log cake, crunchy coffee truffle and caramel tart. All these were nice, if nothing spectacular, with the macarons the item I like the most. The caramel tart has a bit of an acquired taste, though. There was also a panna cotta with orange sauce and almond crumble, which was served separately and not pictured. This was creamy and tasty and the best out of the sweet items.

Top plate of sweet items

The second plate pictured below was more savoury, with sandwiches, quiche and puff pastry. Sandwiches were a smoked salmon on brioche, cucumber and turkey and rocket, which were all fine and filling. The quiche was my favourite here, with shrimp and pumpkin making the tasty filling. The presentation of these dainty items were all very nice to look at.

Middle plate of savoury items

Now to the 'business end' of afternoon tea, the scones. They were placed on the bottom tray and numbered four in total, two plain and two with raisins and accompanied with Devonshire clotted cream and strawberry jam. The scones were very nice, soft and not dry; the clotted cream was thick and not too sweet. This was the loveliest part of our afternoon tea session.

Bottom plate of scones

They also presented my sister with a little birthday cake, which was very kind of them but we did not try it as we had sufficient.

Needless to say The Peninsula is a great place to have afternoon tea. The food itself is good on the whole, with some items not too everyone's liking. Service is great and the setting is very grand, even the placemats (shown below) are lovely. Definitely a place to try or to return to.

Placemat

Please note that the Peninsula does not have a reservation service for their Afternoon Tea so normally you will have to queue up.

Scores:

Food: 4/5

Presentation: 4/5

Service: 4/5

Setting: 5/5

Total: 17/20

Total Bill: HK$730, about 20GBP a head.

I ate: Afternoon Tea Set for two, and we still could not finish it between the three of us.

I drank: Assam Tea

I wore: Smart casual shirt and pants.

Pho Hung Vuong Saigon, Footscray, Victoria, Australia

On our way out of Melbourne, we drove through Footscray for a late lunch (dinner), which was on the way to the airport. The reason we chose this area was because of the Vietnamese community there, as we were looking for some noodles (pho). (Not very Australian I know, for our last meal in the country.)

We wandered along the main street looking into different restaurants and opted for this one, Pho Hung Vuong Saigon, as it seemed fairly populated with diners.

Exterior Signboard

The furniture inside was modern and functional and the menu is written on big sign boards in three languages (Vietnamese, English and Chinese).

Without too much of a wait the waitress came to take our order. I chose a medium bowl of noodles with sliced beef and tripe, as I am quite partial to the offal.

As we were waiting we helped ourselves to Chinese tea that was available on the tables in flasks, to retain their heat.

When my order arrived it was a decent sized bowl of flat, white noodles with slices of beef and pieces of tripe. There was a plate of bean sprouts, lemongrass, lime and freshly chopped chillies to add as condiments to the noodles. This is all shown in the photograph below.

My noodles, with condiments at top of picture

The noodles were good and well cooked, broth was flavoursome and tripe was chewy. The beef was the best part and excellent, thin (hopefully Australian bred) slices that cooked in the hot broth. My wife ordered ordered a small bowl of noodles and was not disappointed either.

After we finished we paid at the counter and went on our way to the airport.

We enjoyed ourselves at this restaurant. It was clean, convenient, tasty and relatively inexpensive. In fact it was probably the cheapest meal we had here so a good way to sign off our trip to this country. Thank you Australia for all your culinary treats and offerings!

Scores
Food: 4/5
Presentation: 3/5
Service: 3/5
Setting: 3/5

Total: 13/20

Total bill: AUD$19.00 about GBP£6.50 a head.

I ate: Pho with beef and tripe.

I drank: Chinese tea.

I wore: Travelling clothes to take us back to Hong Kong.

Donovans, St Kilda, Victoria, Australia

We are in our fourth city of our Australia trip and by St Kilda beach, Melbourne. After spending part of the morning catching some rays and swimming we headed to Donovans for lunch, which is a restaurant by the beach. It was busy, being the public holiday but we had booked a table. Our seats were by the window, which was a great place for people watching.

The restaurant is in a single storey building and has a very homely feel about it. All the tables are laid out neatly and they have bar and sitting areas. Service was good from the onset, with a friendly maitre'd to show us our table and explained parts of their extensive menu.

Building Exterior

We ordered a starter and main course together, for both if us to share (the reason for this will be explained later). After ordering we were given some fresh bread with a fava bean purée dip, which was a very pleasant way to start the meal, with the dip being really tasty.

Bread

The cos leaf salad was simple yet very nice with parmesan slices and a fresh lemon dressing on top.

Duck was well cooked and pink, with the meat and fatty skin combining well. The confit was a cuboid shape of leg meat and hazelnut, which was tasty and crunchy. The sauce was really nice too, with shiitake mushrooms, spinach and farro grains combining well. Whilst sparse looking on the plate it was enough for us two.

Salad and Duck

Moving onto the dessert course, we ordered what we actually came for: Bombe Alaska. This is the most I have spent on a dessert, $48AUD. It looks like a pineapple and is chocolate and hazelnut ice cream on a biscuit base covered in meringue, which had been toasted to give it the 'bombed' look. It is massive and certainly enough for two as advertised and the reason we shared the starter and main. The meringue covering was more like marshmallow in its firmness. The ice cream was still firm as well and tasted fine but it was not like a premium brand. The base was good although a small part of the overall dessert. We both managed to finish the dessert, just.

Bombe Alaska

The food in Donovans was really good and excellently presented, not only ours but dishes from neighbouring tables looked tempting. The waiters were helpful and knowledgable, without being patronising and the whole place is comfortable, warm and inviting. It is not cheap by any means but well worth a visit if you are ever in that area of Melbourne, especially to try the dessert we just had.

Scores
Food: 4/5
Presentation: 5/5
Service: 4/5
Setting: 4/5

Total: 17/20

Bill: Approximately GBP£45 a head.

I ate: Roast Duck with 'brick of confit leg, spinach, shiitake and cherry sauce; Cos Leaves; Bombe Alaska (all shared).

I drank: A small stub bottle of Victoria Bitter lager.

I wore: Thongs, or flip flops in UK English.

Hungry Jacks, Sydney Airport, Australia

My early afternoon flight to Melbourne meant I had the opportunity to continue the compare and contrast of global branded restaurants at Sydney airport. This time I am at Hungry Jacks, the Australian arm of the Burger King chain.

The restaurant is located in the departures zone with other eateries. They have the usual items from the standard menu and I was going to go for a Whopper but instead opted for the Aussie burger seeing as where I was and that it looked substantially bigger than their flagship bun.

As I ordered the counter staff asked the obligatory question of if I wanted to make it a meal but I declined on the fries and ordered a Diet Coke with my burger. Cash was transacted and food arrived quite promptly, after which I found my seat.

My burger was put into a paper take away bag even though I was going to dine in the departures hall, so I was a little disappointed in not getting a plastic tray.

My Hungry Jacks Lunch

After unwrapping, the burger did not look too dissimilar from the menu picture. There were a lot of things packed into this burger, which included a big beef patty, bacon, egg, red onions, beetroot, lettuce and tomato. It all tasted quite nice (although the onions were quite strong) and like a burger from a gastro-pub. It was also very filling and my choice of not ordering chips was a correct one.

So my verdict is that this is not the cheapest Burger King but the Aussie Burger is the tastiest item from BK I have had around the globe.

Scores
Food: 3/5
Presentation: 2/5
Service: 3/5
Setting: 3/5

Total: 11/20

Total bill: AUD$9.70 about GBP£6.50.

I ate: Aussie burger.

I drank: Diet Coke

I wore: Rain jacket, as it was not sunny!