A special restaurant with only 12 seats, Momofuku Ko serves tasting menu both for dinner at $100 for lunch at $160. The web only reservation system needs your credit card to secure a spot, as well as penalty for no show-up. However, people still get up early trying to get the chance to eat here. What do they offer? 

       To disclose this secret gem, we finally managed to have dinner on a Saturday evening. It was a small place in the east village, only having seats at the bar. And the chef are just cooking in front of you. But I doubt they still have another kitchen underground. The first dish offered is the garlic bread, which is warm, oily, and heavily flavored with garlic flakes and brown sugar, yummy!

       

        Then it comes the tiny chopped potatoes with some green onion sauce as toppings in a spoon, the taste is good, but I wish it was some caviar in that spoon. Nice presentation although. The following is  fluke sashimi with some  rainbow color sauce. At this moment, I have to say, since it is a up-scale tasting menu, please give us some better fish. Café boulud has yellow tail sashimi in the similar way, which taste s much better. But the next one is a highlight, uni  in a soup. It is so elegantly presented, looks like a Chinese or Japanese painting. The uni is sitting on a green boat (which is the pea skin), floating on the soup, with some flowers and leaves. It also reminds me the Japanese Sado, which has improved the eating or drinking to the spiritual level. Following the uni is smoked egg with black caviar. The egg is smoked to be medium-rare, with the honey heart flowing outside. Next is the scallop,   seared on one side to be crispy, tender and chewy in the middle. Love it! At this season, they also have soft shell crab, topped with some creamy and spicy sauce. It is good, but the sauce does not match perfectly with the crab. It is hard to describe, but I would say it did not make much difference if I had the crab alone without the sauce. And I start wondering when will the signature Foie Gras come. Finally, it is here. Quite different from my expectation, it is is shaved to be the topping, covering canned leeches and brown sugar. It is very creative, but I prefer the classical way better. And the piece of brown sugar is so big, I kind of feel I am eating candies. Another highlight is the deep fried short ribs, rich in flavor, crispy outside and tender inside..

       The two desserts are the failures of the day. The sorbet is too sour, and the last dessert, ice cream with fried funnel cake. It is not a snack bar, and the presentation just looks weird. Anyway, we finally tried Momofuku. I really appreciate the way they present the dishes. Although I am not sure if I am coming back, it is definitely a place worth trying. 

 

My gourmet tastings started with 蛇王良, a very small and shabby eatery. As its name, the Sanke King, it sells very decent snake soup as well as some simple entries such as stewed lamb, fried rice etc. It was my first time to eat snake. Since it was stewed in the soup over hours, I could not tell the texture any more, but still felt like eel but not that tender. There were also some Chinese medcine in the soup so it  should be very nutritious.  The lamb stew was OK, very home style. Maybe it was what I should have expected here, the warm home made soup and rice, but not the splendid cuisine. I will give it 3.5 starts for the soup, 3 stars for the lamb, 1 star for the environment.

 

蛇王良

 

The second day in Hong Kong I had lunch with David at Superstar in Causeway bay. It was a renown seafood restaurants and famous for the fatty crab and stone fish. Unfortunately, it was not the crab season when I was there. We tried the special soup, steamed stone fish, some dim sum including stone fish roll, penguin dumplings and rabbit cotton candy. The stone fish looked very ugly and just like the reef. But I really enjoyed the taste, very fresh and tender with few bones. For the dim sum, they might be the best presentations of dim sum I have ever tried. The stone fish roll are made of stone fish and mango, very Malaysian style. The penguin dumplings and rabbit candy are all right so I do not think I will order them if coming back some time later. It cost ￥700 HK dollars in total, not a cheap lunch at all. I will give 4 stars for the fish, 3.5 stars for the dim sum and 3.5 stars for service.

 

 

Quebec City Dinning Guide

Due to the strong European influence, the Quebec cuisine features fine French dining and traditional Canadian local food. From hundreds of restaurants, we chose each from different categories, Café de la Paix,  Casse Crepe Breton, Saint-Amour and Aux Anciens Canadiens.

Café de la Paix

It is a classical French restaurant with a traditional French menu including Escargot, Frech lamb chop, orange duck and seafood. The food make you neither surprised nor disappointed. The environment is nice and romantic. I will give it 3 stars out of 5 for the food, 3.5 for the environment, and 3.5 for service.

 

Casse Crepe Breton

It is a popular Crepe place, people were waiting in line at lunch time to get in. It looks like a small cafe with a few seats and a bar. More interestingly, they make the crepe right in front of you. We tried the onion soup, ham and cheese crepe, mushroom and asparagus crepe. They are all fresh and delicious! If you want something light and casual, it is a good place!

 

Saint-Amour

This was the highlight of our trip! Voted No.1 romantic restaurant in Quebec City, it has a beautiful garden hiding inside. Imagine you are sitting inside a botanical garden, with the flowers and leaves hanging around you, is it like Eden? I have also been to One if by land, which claims to be the most romantic restaurant in New York City but can not be compared with here. My eyes opened big when I saw their menu as thick book, since most restaurants in the US only have a less-than-10-page menu with so limited selections. We ordered its signature dish, six-ways to enjoy foie gras, and a pre-fix menu with vegetable soup, veal and chocolate mousse cake. Everything is fantastic, especially six-ways to enjoy foie gras, which includes some creative inspirations such as foie gras cream brulee, foie gras truffles, etc. It is a four star dinning experience, so is the price. We spent 180 Canadian dollars for 2 people in total. So it is definitely not a place for every meal but for some special occasions.

          

Poutine

I can not finish this dinning review without mentioning Poutine, a snack in Quebec. It is just French fries with some meat sauce, and you can find it in any casual dinning places. It is heavy and rich in oil, but the taste is good.

 

Au Pied de Cochon (Montreal)

This crowded and a little noisy restaurant was a great starting of our stay in Montreal. It is long and narrow, with mirrors down one side and open kitchen on the other side. We got there around 10pm, and was asked to wait even for the bar  since  the wooden dinning tables are crowded with boisterous eaters of every age and description. They have a full page of foie gras, foie gras burger, foie gras on a pizza ,foie gras terrain......  We chose Plogue à Champlain (Pancake, potatoes, foie gras, maple syrup, thick cut maple cured bacon)  and the very classic Seared foie gras. My goodness! The Foie Gras just smelt in my mouth. And the portion is generous, I never had a better foie gras experience! Especially Plogue à Champlain , the sauce is sweet and sour, and the pancake tasted great with foie gras, such a creative chef!We also tried Guinea Hen Liver Mousse and a pork dish which are OK. Maybe the foie gras dishes were so overwhelming.