{Tea diaries}

Given there's only a handful of readers that drop by this blog occassionally, every single comment counts tremendously. After the recent burst of productivity, I am receiving "complaints" over the large vacuum that exists between the half-finished Hokkaido trip to the latest Beijing adventures...
Let me tell you I take this very seriously. Hence, Libra in nature, thought it's best to balance your views... which of the following are your preferred topics?
Destination write-ups on:
        - Beijing
        - Singapore
        - US
        - Hokkaido
        - & random stuff on Nepal, Khao Lak, and Europe that I never managed to update
Or, would you prefer more write-ups on the restaurants in HK?
Would love to hear your thoughts~ any thoughts!

After a morning of sight seeing, M suggested heading to Hou Hai to have a chill out lunch at this fab Vietnamese place he knows. Us four ducklings, without a clue as to where we were, were obedient followers and Hou Hai we went.
After a 20 min cab ride we arrived at this place that looks errily similar to Boat Quay in Singapore, albeit with more Chinese-y buildings. There weren't many tourists this pleasant Monday lunch time, and off we went in search of M's destination. Most of the buildings along the lake have kept their traditional facade but completely revamped on the inside - with the majority being restaurants and tourist galleries.
We began doubting M's sense of direction after he brought us all the way to the end of the footpath and back, especially since he already called up K asking for directions. Bossy me decided to take charge and began flipping our tour book to find the address - at that point I made this startling discovery - we were in Hou Hai (back of the lake) while the restaurant was in Qian Hai (front of the lake) - totally at the opposite end! We agreed to just stay in this nice area and decided to try South Silk Road.

After our eye-opening stroll at the night market, we made our way to the Grand Hyatt, where we have reservations for dinner at Made In China, its Chinese cuisine which has been getting rave reviews from everyone I know. Expectations were high...
We walked into a modern and sophisticatedly decked out dining room, with some Chinese touches here and there. My first thought was that this place looks very similar to Mezza at the Grand Hyatt in Singapore - not sure if it's the same designer. Anyway, we were starving by now (it's 9pm) so everyone was eagerly waiting for the food to arrive.

The trusted stir-fried string beans - I tend to stereotype food quite a bit, and for me, this is a classic fave of all foreigners - we always order this dish when there are foreigners, and they almost always enjoy it very much. This time it was no exception.

After settling down at our hotel, we immediately headed out for the Wang Fu Jian area for dinner. Since we had an hour to spare before our reservation, we decided to walk round the Dong Hua Men night market. Not a good idea when we were all on empty stomaches.
The night market consisted of a long busy stretch of outdoor food stalls right round the Wang Fu Jian main street, offering a wide variety of food.
Most of the stalls we encountered were selling meat and veggie skewers. The chargrill aroma was pretty intense and the hawkers were very eager to get any type of business. There was a wide selection, from lamb, beef, chicken, to intestine, tripe, and even weird looking bits. R, who is a vegetarian, steered clear of the stalls and looked rather ill at ease.

My motivation to post dropped again to zilch after my last post, but was revived with the discovery of one lone reader of this blog (thanks CXB). So I now feel obliged to post a quickie here... 
I took a week off in late May to visit Beijing, courtesy of M, who was ever so kind to let me join his "ECRST Summer 06" tour group. This was my first time as a tourist there, so everything was an eye-opener. Must admit that before the trip, I was concerned with the hygiene level with the many horror stories one hear. But must admit was more than pleasantly surprised by how developed and advanced the place has become since my last visit (which was a biz trip and consisted of two destinations - airport & hotel). Of course, much of the credit goes to M, who did a great job in organising and attending to our every single whim and request. (am trying to make amend for all my complaints whilst on the trip... )
Anyway, while waiting for the other three members of our little tour group to arrive at Beijing airport, we nipped off to the basement of arrivals lounge for some lunch - since we had more than two hours to spare. After checking out the proper restaurants, we settled on the foodcourt, which seemed the most popular of them all.

No, I haven’t disappeared, just been v lackluster in updating the site although have been an avid reader of others’… guess this must be another prime example of my three minutes attention span... Am happy to say haven’t really stopped taking pics in between though, so got a zillion backlog to plough through now.

Just the thought of having to go through stuff from half a year ago intimidates me, so have decided to work backwards instead… stay tuned.

 

Last year when we came to Hirafu, there was one night when I was stuck in the hotel for work. As food at Prince Hagashiyama, where we stayed, was overpriced and unexciting, A & T kindly brought me back a pizza from the village for dinner. The pizza was sooo good that I managed to finish three quarters, quite an accomplishment for moi, who doesn't really fancy pizza. So this time, we made our way to Pizzeria Niseko Paraiso again. 

Originally this was only a sports school and serenaded as a pizzeria at night on first trial in 2005. Guess it was proven to be such a hit that this year, the pizzeria has been expanded to a huge area within the complex to accommodate more diners. 

   The restaurant was decked out in an intimate and cosy way, with an electronic fireplace on the side and a projector screen playing mellow MTV on the background.
This was a great place for chilling out over a carafe of red - which only cost a bargain Y2,000.
We had garlic toast (Y300 for 2 pieces) to start, a chicken cream stew (Y2,000), To finish, we ordered the daily dessert with coffee (Y800). We also had the salmon salad and potato wedges. For the pizza (Y1,000), we added mozzarella cheese (Y100) and proscuitto ham (Y300) as toppings. For spaghetti, we had tomato sauce with bacon and onion (Y1,100). The garlic toast arrived in these long narrow strips which looked weird. It seems that instead of cutting it into slices like the normal restaurants, this place has decided to cut a whole baguette the full length to give long pieces. In any case, because the bread and butter and garlic are so yummy, this was great too.
My order of fried potato with tomato sauce was good but a bit oily when fried and was not as special as the rest of the dishes. The salad was good enough, but the chicken stew was the true delight – the chicken pieces again were so tender that one could easily cut it up using a fork. The creamy sauce was just right too – and it came with some delightful tagiatelle. 


The spaghetti that we ordered was more plain and less special, even though it was well prepared. Even though we have had so much to eat, we easily finished the whole pizza which was crispy and full of tasty melted cheese. T, normally not a big eater, managed to down three slices in one go.
 
   We then started this big debate over how many portions of dessert to order for sharing. The waiter told us it was creme brulee, and A and S immediately said they wanted their own portions, given creme brulee in general is very small in the little ramekin. T and I disagreed, on the basis that every single dish here is rather large. After much heated discussion, we decided to get three in total, T & I sharing one. We found out it was a mistake on our part, as the portions were small and the taste luscious. Creamy and sweet with a nicely torched caramel sugar crunch layer on top. 
The hot chocolate that accompanied the dessert was hot and warm and rich, preparing us for the long road back to the hotel (yes I exaggerated, it was less than 10 min walk).

Pizzeria Niseko Paraiso niseko.cafe-paraiso.com 0136 22 2436

For our third night in Hirafu, we decided on Big Cliff. The reason is shallow – one of the friends we bumped into on the mountain told us that they had been to Big Cliff and said not only was the food there good, but that they also bumped into some HK entertainment stars there. Those stars have been spotted in Hirafu a few times so we concluded the restaurant must be good enough if they decided to revisit. This was another busy restaurant, but luckily we did make reservations in advance. One of the key attractions is the 23 type of yakitori on offer. As usual, starving after a day of strenuous skiing and snowboarding, we just pointed to almost every single item on the menu. 
For yakitori, we went OTT and ordered gazillions - beef sirloin, shitake mushroom, bacon asparagus roll, pork, chicken gizzard, chicken liver, chicken heart, and spicy sausage kebabs. The bacon asparagus rolls were yummy with the bacon fatty enough.

The Big Cliff's sald with lettuce, tomato, tofu, corn, and cheese was colorful and attractive, using thousand island sauce as the dressing. With such delicious local produce, it is virtually impossible for anyone to screw up on the cooking, I think. This was so popular with our group we decided to order a second plate shortly after cleaning off the first. In a way, it is also because the izakaya style dining in Japan seems to discourage veggie intake, with very limited selection. Curiously, salad is a staple at breakfast time in Japan...

In accordance with the Hokkaido potato feast, I ordered the potato rice cake as well. And this potato rice cake was a surprise hit – made probably with some form of glutinous rice, it was chewy and cooked to a crisp finish. It was so good that A decided to recommend to the Australian group sitting next to us, when we saw they looking in shock at the rice balls that they had ordered. 

As a grand finish, we ordered the deep fried jumbo oysters – which were very good – considering I normally steer clear of cooked oysters. Equally scrumptious were the other deep fried food we ordered - the crisp squid and the chicken wings.



Because the meal had been so enjoyable we opted to have dessert here as well. S chose the deep fried pumpkin balls with ice cream, which received top marks from us. T and I decided on the waiter’s favorite, which was soybean pudding in syrup. It was very similar to the sweet tofu dessert we have in HK, but the brown sugar tasted different. It was an acquired taste, which sort of grew onto us after a while. Having said that, will probably order the pumpkin balls the next time I visit.


All in all it was yet another delightful meal. Somehow I would be surprised if someone says that the restaurants here are not good – although A & T assured me that there are a few overpriced thumbs down restaurants. Oh another one that we were recommended was the Bang Bang, which wasn’t opened on the Wednesday we wanted to visit. You can try and let me know when you visit Hirafu next. 
For those interested, dinner was around Y3,000 - 3,500 per head at both places, very reasonable and enjoyable.

Big Cliff www.bigcliff.net 0136 22 0182

 

 

 

 

When we were on the ski lifts, I asked my ski instructor, Kentaro-san, which are the popular dining spots around the Hirafu-Kutchan area. He named JoJo’s and Yummy’s for western food, and A-bu-cha for Japanese. A-bu-cha happens to be one of our favorite Japanese restaurant around the area too. By day, it is a cafe with its own bakery, and at night, it is filled with a constant stream of visitors, both local and foreign. This was our dinner destination on our first night up on the mountains. 
S and I made our way down the hilly slope at around five forty five hoping to grab a table when it opens shop at six. Arriving with five minutes to spare, there were already a few small groups of people waiting patiently in front of the restaurant, shivering in the cold. At this point we were slightly worried that we might not get a table, but were lucky enough to be spared one. A and T were in charge of ordering, as they were regulars and had visited A-bu-cha many times. I happily sipped my plum sour while taking in the wooden hut surroundings. 
We had the corn with butter (Y400), tuna & tofu salad (Y750), whole mackerel (Y1,600), chicken wing in gyoza, Kose-Nabe (Y1,700), Japanese udon (Y200), and teriyaki chicken with mayo (Y1,200)S was disappointed when the tuna & tofu salad arrived as she discovered the restaurant uses canned tuna instead of fresh. However, the home-made salad dressing and the silky smooth tofu combination more than made up for this. Next to arrive was one of our faves – the chicken wing stuffed with gyoza – fried to a golden crispy finish, the chef was generous with the stuffing of vegetables and pork, which was cleverly conceived in the wing. 

The teriyaki chicken with mayo was very inviting in appearance, and tasted even better when we took a bite – very tender and soft – and the sauce was tangy and slightly sweet. 

T normally doesn't like fish, and skipped lunch on the plane even though she was starving because it was a fish curry. However, she was the first to order a whole grilled mackerel here - grilled to a golden finish, the local produce was so fresh and delicious that before long, the whole fish was gone.

Next, the waiter swiftly placed the pork hotpot at the table and asked us to wait patiently for eight minutes for it to boil. 
 

We always eat copious amount of potato and sweetcorn in Sapporo as Hokkaido has phenomenally good dairy products and potato crop. Both the potato and the sweetcorn arrived with a generous slab of butter melting in the center. Sensationally good and wholesome and yet very simple and basic. Every single corn was sweet and fresh and the potato was even better than the new potato that I used to crave in London. 

By the time we had picked up every last bit of the sweetcorn, the nabe was simmerly nice and quietly. It looked at tasted delicious – I kept fishing in the hotpot for more udon, even though I was stuffed, as it was chewy and good tasting. 

Using fresh local produce and simple cooking can almost always guarantee good food. As you can see, nothing we ordered was fancy, but we could find nothing to criticize with any of the dish – wholesomely tasty is probably A-bu-cha’s signature. This was also helped by the friendly and helpful cheery staff. I have yet to find anyone that could pick a bone with A-bu-cha. Remember to arrive early though, or else you’d be like the disappointed diners that we saw kept coming in and leaving when told it’s full. 

Enough drooling for one day~ will write about the Big Cliff - another equally delightly local fave - tomorrow... 

A-bu-cha www.abucha.net 0136 22 5620

 

 

 

 

 

Been a bad blogger for various reasons~ travelling, sickness, and work... But luckily Phoebe has stepped in to help out as our Beijing correspondent and guest contributor... see below for her excellent write-up on Shudi Legend.

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I’m SO honoured to be asked to guest blog but at the same time, HKFoodie and Shirls, have been doing such a GREAT job, that I really can’t help but get stressed about it how I’m going to meet their standards.  I’m such an amateur compared to my two dear friends, so please bear with me.  Even before my first posting, I’ve managed to forget my camera on a number of occasions, only to run out of batteries the next couple of times.