Tasting Menu at L'Atelier, Hong Kong pictures (1 of 16)
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My good friend N is a huge fan of L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon. He is a foodie and has been raving to me about his many dining experiences at L’Atelier (especially the one in Las Vegas). So, when N told me that he chanced upon L’Atelier at The Landmark in Hong Kong and would like to invite me for dinner, I said YES before he could finish his sentence. I was stoked. First of all, I’ve never been to any restaurants by Joel Robuchon. Secondly, I wanted to find out what N has been telling me about—the open kitchen, the well-orchestrated kitchen crew, the impeccable culinary creations and most of all, the overall dining experience.
(Michelin Hong Kong gives 2 stars to L’Atelier recently.)
The tasting menu is priced at HK$1450 (about US$190) per person plus tax. I won’t go into the details of describing each dish and the tastes because it was simply impossible to describe such sublime dishes with justice. Every single dish served that night was a perfect execution of culinary art, with tastes so refined and sophisticated and ultimately satisfying. After each serving, I thought I’d had the best but the following dish exceeded the previous one and blew it right out of the water. That pretty much summed up my dining experience that night…(read more about my favorite dishes after the jump)
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Garlic Noodles and Roasted Crab pictures (1 of 8)
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If you live in the Bay Area or the Greater Los Angeles Area, I am sure you have heard of–and most likely dined in–the famed Thanh Long Restaurant and its better known sister property Crustacean. Their signature garlic noodles and roasted crab not only won over food critics, foodies, and aficionados alike, they also help launched a multi-million restaurant empire (counting 3 and growing!) for the An’s family who hailed from Vietnam. The legacy lies in the “Secret Kitchen“–a completely enclosed kitchen within the main kitchen, off limits to all employees, where the family members churn out the legendary garlic noodles and roasted crab, using secret recipes that were passed down for three generations.
I had dined at Thanh Long in San Francisco many years ago and really enjoyed the garlic noodles and roasted crab, but it’s not until this week that I reacquainted myself with them. This time, the location was Crustacean Beverly Hills; the dishes ordered were roasted crab, grilled tiger prawns with garlic noodles, and Maine lobster with garlic noodles.
The taste of the garlic noodles was exactly what I remember. In my honest opinion, their roasted crab was too dry for my taste (I think the crab was boiled and then roasted in the oven hence it lost all its juicyness). The lobster garlic noodles was good, but not spectacular. The best dish was definitely grilled tiger prawns with garlic noodles. The sweetness of the grilled prawns complemented the garlic noodles perfectly. Everything ordered that night was also a tad too salty. Anyway, I was still smitten by their foods, and most importantly, intrigued by their “Secret Kitchen” and secret family recipes…
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Thanks to my friend Syrie at Taste Buddies, I savored some of the best Thai food that I have ever tasted in my life–at the famed Longrain Restaurant and Bar in Sydney today.
The food was so good that I just had to buy the cookbook right there and then.
I have to call your attention to [...]
Seafood is exceedingly expensive in Sydney–think $150/kg lobster sashimi (average 5-7 kg per lobster, so do your math), $88/kg mud crab, and $48/kg clams or “pippies.”
(Edited: Read the comments area)
OUCH!
I’m not moving to Sydney anytime soon, regardless how nice and how much closer it is to Malaysia.
(Edited: I just came back from the Sydney Fish [...]
If you are in Penang and haven’t checked out Shanghai Ding (上海鼎), do pay it a visit. (You can read my previous review here.) If you have tried it and haven’t been there lately, they have expanded their menu with new dishes such as the Shanghainese specialities Dongbo Rou (braised pork stomach/东波肉), vinegar pork ribs, [...]
Last night, I had a fantastic set dinner at Paper, a chic restaurant serving modern Chinese cuisine in Beijing. (Paper is owned by my fellow Malaysian Cho, who is also behind the hugely popular and successful Cafe Sambal and Bed Bar in Beijing.)
Clockwise from left: fried calamari & fruit salad, cucumber, lotus root, ground pork [...]
Bukit Tambun–a quaint and small fishing village about 30-45 minutes across from Penang Island–is a seafood lover paradise. While Penang is blessed with a wide array of great seafood eateries, many Penangites often drive across the Penang Bridge to look for the best, freshest, and cheapest offerings. The answer is simple: sitting by a kuala [...]
As much as I love cooking, I don’t do it on a daily basis. When I don’t cook, there are a few restaurants that I always frequent in Orange County, and one of them is certainly China Garden.
Serving authentic Cantonese cuisine (you have to know what to order though), China Garden has never failed my [...]
