Food Journey #30 - "Shanghainese" Buffet at Clipper Lounge

Time flies when you are busy and another year has arrived for the Hairy Crab Season. I was invited by the hotel team to sample Clipper Lounge's latest Shanghainese Lunch Buffet. Least to say, my last visit to Clipper Lounge for a proper was easily 3 yrs ago and majority of my visits were really for their signature & legendary high teas. Before my visit, I was extremely curious on how the setting & food was gonna be and it just turned out to be exactly what I had in mind. Don't get me wrong, it is an interesting approach but the theme of Shanghainese Lunch Buffet could be slightly mis-leading to real Shanghai food lovers. It was a very traditional approach by a hotel group as there technically were only a few handful of dishes that were remotely Shanghainese and the remaining dishes were catered for their regular patrons, hotel guests, tourists etc such as Fresh Sashimi, Seafood Platter, Roast Beef Carving Section etc. If you are heading to Clipper Lounge with the hope of feasting on items like Beggar's Chicken (乞丐雞), Shanghai Style Nian Gao (Shanghai Style Fried Sticky Cake), Drunken Chicken (醉雞), Dan Dan Noodles (Szechuan Spicy Noodle 擔擔麵) etc, you will be disappointed.

Although, it was slightly disappointing that the choices for Shanghainese dishes were minimal, the usual suspects were lying around such as Xian Long Bao, Fried Dumplings, Sweet & Sour Fish Fillet, Shanghainese Stir Fry Noodles etc.

Highly Recommended Dishes / Selections:

To be honest, I didn't really try out the Shanghainese items on offer but instead, what caught my eye was the Sashimi Platter + Sushi Platter + Seafood Platter on offer.

Sashimi Platter - Very ordinary selection with no major surprises such as Salmon, Octopus, Maguro, Ebi, Surf Clam etc. Salmon was extremely fresh and melts in your mouth and I had to enjoy a 2nd round on this. Another bonus point is a kudos to their team on the speed in replenishing the sashimi to ensure they are always fresh from the chef's knives!

Seafood Platter - Oyster from Chile & New Zealand, Mussel, Crab Legs, Crayfish, King Prawns, Whelks were all on offer and special mention must be the Oyster selection as was so fresh that you can still taste the freshness of the sea-water. It is not easy to find restaurants or hotels in Hong Kong that has a good oyster selection but I can definitely recommend Clipper Lounge for this. The sizes of the oyster were also very consistent unlike other hotels or restaurants whereby the oyster sizes for your sea-platter vary a large range in sizes. Another bonus point was the speed in replenishing the seafood platter was a speed of lightning and the seafood was always on offer.

Roast Beef - Another surprise of the lunch was Roast Beef considering I have never been a fan of such item maybe due to the fact that I have eaten this every weekend for the past 15 yrs. However, this roastbeef was a lot better than my previous review on the ClearwaterBay Country club's roastbeef and it matched perfectly well with some good English Mustard The roast beef was tender, pink in just the form I like it.

Bread Basket - Believe it or not, the bread basket was for me the CHEER OF THE DAY and please see below photo of the rectangular shaped bread and a big thumbs up to the pastry chef who baked this fine piece of bread. This in my opinion has got to be one of the finest piece of bakery skills in the whole of Hong Kong as it was warm, soft & extremely floury. I cannot quite work out what it is exactly but it tasted like a combination of a combined scone & muffin. The bread was so delicious that I also finished my lunch partner's share and it has enough reasons for me to return to The Clipper Lounge for another meal.<
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Shanghai Hairy Crabs

The Clipper Lounge Shanghainese Buffet also included a Hairy Crab to each guests and it was quite an experience eating such delicacy as this is the best season for such item. Why are they called Hairy Crab - because they are an extremely hairy crustacean with hard as bristle hair on their legs and their pincers have hair as well, which is as thick as seaweed.

Such crab is a famous delicacy in traditional Shanghai cuisine and us Hong Kongers prey on the female crab roe which is the the GEM and the reason to why people pay thousands of dollars for such yellow or orange crab roe. The crab itself does not have much meat due to its relatively small size and is best served steamed with ginger vinegar sauce. From a Chinese medical perspective, the crab meat is also believed to have a "cooling" effect on the body which balances out the Yin-Yan composition of a body. One note on eating this, watch out on your cholestrerol levels.

Since the hairy crabs at the Clipper Lounge were complimentary to all guests, I didnt expect the crabs to be full of surprises. The Captain brought us the crabs skipping step 1 as below which was fundamental to ensure to guests the freshness of the crab. The size of crabs were relatively small which was disappointing BUT when I cracked open the cover, there was SO MUCH CRAB ROE which I was very pleased with. The flavour of the crab roe was extremely fresh & pungent and it was a definite treat on eating such delicacy. Very little meat in the hairy crab but again, who cares as I am a crab roe lover!

Steps in Eating a Hairy Crab!

1) Place the hairy crab flat on your table so that you both should be looking at each other as you want a crab that is alive and kicking.

2) Steam the Crab for 20 mins with simply ginger & herbs and should be more than ready!

3) Take off the crab cover and if you crab is a female specimen, you should find all the golden roe and get tucked in.

4) Pull off the crab legs and snap the legs in two. Use your chopstick to gently push the crab meat out or you can also suck out the meat. This is where you taste all the flavourful, sweet chunks of crab meet and please eat everything aside from the lungs, a brown coloured fat sac & intestines.

5) Beware that most of the juiciest flesh are in the claws and please ask your server for a delicate cracker to open this part.

6) Best wine pairing with Hairy Crab must be Chinese Hua Diao Wine or Sherry.

Key areas to improve are:

a) As a leading 5-star hotel operator reknowned for its services to guests, I found the service during the lunch slightly unattentive at times especially the speed in changing used plates & refilling hot water for my Chinese Tea considerably slow at time. Perhaps some of the speed in replenishing the seafood & sashimi can be transformed to this area.

b) Level of English ability from staff has areas of improvement as the Food Captain was explaining to us on how to eat a Hairy Crab and I honestly did not understand 50% of what she was mumbling about. Imagine what would a demanding hotel guest react to her mumbling! Not Good!

Despite what was a Shanghainese Buffet theme was perhaps slightly misleading as majority of the dishes on offer were not remotely Shanghainese. Nonetheless, the quality of the other dishes on offer were extremely fresh & full of flavours and I do highly recommend our fellow readers to check out the lunch buffet at Clipper Lounge. Remember, do try out the bread basket as that was the gem of the lunch experience at Clipper Lounge.

UPCOMING REVIEW: GODIVA FALL COLLECTION & HALLOWEEN CHOCOLATES

Address: Mandarin Oriental Hotel, 5 Connaught Road, Central, Hong Kong (中環干諾道中5號香港文華東方酒店閣樓
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Tel: 2825 4007

Food Quality (5* the highest): 3*

Price for Lunch (5$ = very expensive): ****

Website: http://www.mandarinoriental.com/hongkong/dining/bars_and_lounge/clipper_lounge/

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT & BREAKING NEWS

If your Birthday is this month, you are one lucky bugger just like myself. Just recieved this eDM from Awfully Chocolate, very decent chocolate cakes & ice-cream with locations in Causeway Bay & Caine Road. Please visit Awfully Chocolate on 28 October at 8pm sharp and the first 100 people will recieve a FREE CHOCOLATE CAKE. This is very exciting stuff indeed and see you all there! Happy Eating! Geoff View Larger Map

Food Journey #26 - Dim Sum The Art Of Chinese Tit Bits (譽滿坊)

Have been exceptionally busy this week at work and thus, haven't had the time to blog about my previous adventure. For a change this round, I will be blogging about Chinese Cuisine with a peculiar name of Dim Sum The Art of Chinese Tit Bits located the heart of Happy Valley. Our group visited this restaurant on the eve of Mid-Autumn Festival and it was definitely worth every dollar spent. Chinese cuisine is not something which I particularly enjoy every so often as I always find it very time-consuming & greasy. My experience at Dim Sum The Art of Chinese Tit Bits changed me to have 2nd thoughts on this perception and it is a restaurant whereby I will re-visit very soon. Ambiance: Very traditionally Chinese styled restaurant in Happy Valley with wooden chairs & tables and even accessories such as teapots are also very authentic. Not a very large spaced restaurant but nonetheless, it was very cosy and our visit on the evening wasnt too busy which was perfect for the occasion. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED & MUST ORDER Dishes: 1) Chinese Soya Chicken (Signature Dish): Flavourful, Tender, Succulent and one word -- MARVELLOUS. Can totally see why this is the signature dish and why a 3-day in advance pre-order for this chicken is required. Only question which I have is, since the restaurant used a fresh chicken for this dish, I wonder how much more the taste will further improve if an organic chicken was used? 2) Steamed Fish Maw Stuffed with Minced Shrimp: This was a dish cooked to perfection -- the steamed fish maw was very tender & soft and the portion of the minced shrimp was very generous. The shrimp was also very sharp & fresh in flavour which was extremely important. Portion sizes were just perfect and everybody on the table at least had 1 portion. Ladies out there - fish maw is mainly consumed by woman as a source of collagen which is good for your skin! 3) Steamed Cod Fish: This sounds & appears like a very simple dish but yet I have seen many restaurants totally screw up on this. Key area is not to over-steam the cod fish or else the fish will become very dense & flakey which is not something you want. The timing of the steaming procedure was spot on and apparently, the soya sauce used on the fish is a secret recipe from the restaurant. This is the sort of dish I am happy with to pair with a bowl of rice! 4) Prawn Dumpling: Sounds very odd to have dim-sum at night time but this restaurant serves it up in style. At $35 a pop at 2 Prawn Dumplings, they better be good dumplings and I was not disappointed. The Prawns were MASSIVE, I mean absolutely massive and you know it is fresh prawns by thd freshness of it. Slight let down was the pastry was slightly too thick which is not to my liking. Perfect pairing for this will be some Gui Lin Chilli Sauce. Should Try Dishes: 1) Vegetable Stew: Refreshing, Healthy, Fresh vegetables boiled together with ZERO OIL CONTENT in the broth. Enough said. There is a sense of pure-ness about the broth and unlike many other vegetable stews around town, I am very certain this does not contact any MSG content. 2) Fried Scallops with Broccoli: This was a hit & miss dish because the broccoli's were skill-fully cooked as it was not tough & to the stage of difficulty to chew. However, the scallops were the let down as you can still taste the frozen flavour as it was literally just been taken out from the freezer in the kitchen. Disappointment! 3) Fried Egg with Prawns & Scallops: Egg dishes are always my #1 choice of comfort food when one is extremely hungover and I can never get bored of such dishes. Again, the prawns are generously large & fresh but the scallops were same as above which you can taste the frozen flavour out of it. Nonetheless, regardless of the scallops, this is my favourite dish to go out steamed rice with a dash of Gui Lin Chilli Sauce! Dishnes NOT TO Order! 1) Chinese Style Lobster & Shark Fin Clam Chowder -- When I first ordered this, everything was the name of this dish was attractive and thinking it was HKD35 per bowl, what an absolutel steal. When I got the bill, realising that it was $85 per bowl, I was stunned. This was claimed to be the restaurant's signature dish and I really did not see why this was so highly praised. The Clam Chowder was extremely watery unlike the thickness of the American style Clam Chowders. On top, it was extremely difficult to find or even locate where the lobsters were. MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENT but if you have a fat wallet with cash lying around, please go ahead and order this. 2) Pork Siu Mai's (Pork Dumplings) -- I took one bite of this and was not pleased about it. It was extremely greasy and the taste of an inch of oil in your mouth is not very appealing. The Pig's skin that is used on the top of the pork-ball was in my opinion very grotesque. I dont think this will be the sort of dim-sum which the expat community in Happy Valley will be pleased to see. One should never regret about food but this dish is something which I will always regret in ordering. Our overall experience was very pleasant and it is the new discovery of Happy Valley. This restaurant has also become the hub of the Japanese and foreign expat community. Good hearty food along with flavourful Chinese tea is the key attraction. However, eating at this restaurant can be considerably pricey and some of their prices cna rival a 5 to 6 Star Hotel Chinese restaurants. Do check out the restaurant and let me know whether you think it is worth the money! NEXT UPCOMING REVIEW ON GEOFF's TWITCHEN : CLEARWATERBAY COUNTRY CLUB SUNDAY BUFFET Happy Eating & Drinking! Geoff Address: G/F, 63 Sing Woo Road, Happy Valley, Hong Kong (跑馬地成和道63號地下) Tel: 2834 - 8893 Food Quality (5* the highest): 3/1/2* Price for Dinner (5$ = very expensive): ***
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Food Journey #18 - Crystal Jade Xiao Long Bao (翡翠拉麵小籠包)

Am always a regular at this hot-spot in Times Square on the basement floor for some simple Shanghainese dumplings & noodles on the weekends. Always try to avoid the weekdays as it is virtually impossible to get a table in the Times Square location & the IFC location.

Crystal Jade was originated from Singapore and first moved into Hong Kong on 2002. 8 locations all over Hong Kong and in general, the quality of the dishes are good and authentic. 4 of us visited Crystal Jade on Saturday and we ordered our usual dishes:

a) Deep Fried Eel -- not my personal favourite and it actually tastes like twiglets. In fact, it is deep fried eel with Shanghainese Soy Sauce. Very crispy texture but very odd fishy taste if you ask me!


b) Drunken Chicken (醉雞) -- One of the signature dishes on the menu and as I have recommended such dish in several reviews, it is simply chicken which is marinated in Chinese wine and served cold. The chicken which they use in Crystal Jade is "organic" -- apparently so but only costed $60 for this which I was highly doubtful. Nonetheless, the chicken was very good and the meat texture was very tender and sweet.



c) Xiao Lun Bao (Steamed Pork Dumplings) -- Another signature dish at Crystal Jade and one of the most traditional Chinese national snacks or dishes -- http://is.gd/3e00t. How Pork Dumplings didnt make it to the Top 50 dishes, I am puzzled. The Xiao Lun Bao is very juicy, and the most important point is that it was extremely hot when it arrived. However, I dont think the quality is as good as the dumplings I tried in Taipei (read Food Journey #11 in Taipei)


d) Various Noodles Dishes -- We ordered the sweet & sour soup with noodles, traditional Shanghainese Noodles with Fried Pork Cutlets + my personal favourite Spicy Szechuan Broth Beef Noodles. If you like something to spice up your start to the weekend, the Spicy SzeChuan Broth Noodles is so riduclously spicy that it makes you cough and you will be tears the next second. You dont want to know how much chilli there are in this bowl of soup but it definitely give you a good kicking. The noodle texture is very fine and all noodles are fresh made and you can see the kitchen staff working their b*lls off inside the steaming hot kitchen. Another special mention must be the deep fried pork cutlet, not greasy and perfect meat texture!




If you like something simple, authentic & cheap, this is the place for you. Food is well flavoured, seasoned, traditional and definitely NON pretentious. Highly recommend my readers to visit the outlet in Causeway Bay instead of the IFC location as it is impossible to get a table on regular basis. Definitely one of my favourite spots in Hong Kong to enjoy a simple, casual and pleasant meal.

Address: B221, Times Square, Matheson Street, Causeway Bay(銅鑼灣勿地臣街1號時代廣場地庫 B221A )

Tel: 2506 0080

Food Quality (5* the highest): ***1/2

Price for lunch (5$ = very expensive): $


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Food Journey # 2 -- Heichinrou (聘珍樓)

Food Journey # 2 -- Heichinrou (聘珍樓) Never been a big fan of Yum Cha in Hong Kong due to the amount of grease and calories in Dim Sum. However this was all soon to change after my visit to Hei Chin Rou (聘珍樓) Arrived there at 100pm and the place was very nice & peaceful located in the heart of Tsim Sha Tsui in New Sun Arcade on Canton Road. Chinese Tea is a vital part to the whole yum cha experience and that did not disappoint at all, very richly flavoured. Whilst we were waiting for the in-laws to arrive, we had a very interesting experience with one of the waitresses as we made a comment to her about closing the exit door and the air conditioner were leaking out, the waitresses turned around and screamed at one of the food runner that the area was 熱到X街 which we thought was quite amusing. In terms of food, we ordered below:: a. Rice roll with Prawns b. Deep Fried Spring Rolls c. Prawn Dumplings d. XO Sauce Stir Fried Rice roll (XO醬腸粉) e. Sliced Turnip Prawn Cake f. Steamed Sweet Chinese Cake (馬拉糕) g. Chicken Wrap with Bean Curd and Mushroom (雞Zhai) Must say, I was blown away by the quality of the dim-sum especially (g) & (d). Overall quality, taste was top notch quality and in my opinion in terms of price, this is the best dim sum house in Hong Kong by far. One special menion is when you go next time, pls remember to order their chilli sauce (see pic below) and it is also very tasty and spicey which is perfect for the the XO Sauce Stir Fried Rice Roll Address: 尖沙咀廣東道28號新太陽廣場2樓 Tel: 2375 7123 Food Quality: **** (5* the highest) Price: $$ (5$ = very expensive) Highly recommended and will return next week for sure! Drop me a comment on whether you agree with me on 聘珍樓. Watch out for the next blog posting!!