Get a local taxi driver to recommend his favourite dish (in writing) and someone else to suggest the restaurant where you could order it (in writing!). In my case it turned out to be thinly sliced squid in mild chilis eaten at a restaurant in Wellington Street (Central), and this is what it could look like:

The friendly gentleman who helped me find Yung Kee also recommended I try a more local favourite for Dim Sum and pointed me to Jade Garden, where I found myself for breakfast on the 1st of May public holiday, which seemed to be the occasion for daughters and their mothers to eat together. I was surprised how little the daughters and mothers had to talk about - but soon focused on the excellent dumplings - highly recommended. The delicious looking mango pudding turned out to be less impressive - and I would recommend sticking to the buns instead! I went to the Causeway Bay branch, apparently the Central branch is more lively, but (that’s a negative thing?) also attracts more foreigners.

Find the little seafood restaurants in the non-glitzy (and non-seedy) part of Wan Chai. Follow Wan Chai Road until you cross Morrison Hill Road. Then check out the little alley ways to the left and right and find a place you like. It’s roughly here.

I stayed at the Charterhouse Hotel, which is on Wan Chai Road just before you get to Morrison Hill Road. It’s not the cheapest (and certainly not the most expensive) but quite a good mid-level option on Hong Kong island. My room on the 19th floor overlooked the race course, which was perfect.

There is a food guidebook for tourist that you can pick up at the airport. I tried a few places and they were all great - but the local cab driver just sneered at what he considered a marketing scam.

Cafe de Goldfinch (see this review, from tastytreats.wordpress.com which has more good hong kong recommendations) is worth a stop if you loved In the Mood for Love (which I did, although I preferred the earlier Fallen Angel, and Chungking Express). I thought the Western-Chinese-Style food was pretty bad, but it was packed with locals during lunch time …

When it comes to tea, you will find the best views and some reasonably prized variety at Sunsing Teahouse on the 32rd floor across from the Time Square shopping mall. However, to have an in-depth conversation about the thermal characteristics of tea pot clay, and taste some of the finest hand-picked teas around (including Chairman Mao’s), check out Ming Cha and try to get owner Vivian Mak to share her philosophy on tea with you.

I stumbled upon Ming Cha after dinner at Xi Yan Sweets, where I liked the oil paintings, the spicy Szechuan Dumplings, the great ice teas, and most of all, the amazingly light and creamy coconut desert. Incredible! If you are eating by yourself, the projections of Agnes B. artsy fashion videos onto the building across on the street can be entertaining.

Other stuff:

Take the Star Ferry as many times as possible. Go out of your way, delay your dinner, take detours - it’s worth it.

If you have time do the 48 hours of cinematic Hong Kong - a movie based itinerary of the city.

Visit the Happy Valley race course, both at night, when it is open to the public as an exercise space and you might watch office teams battle it out in football, and during the race days to watch some serious betting - people who bring years worth of research to determine the next certain winner. Flaming Lamborghini turned out to be more of a VW donkey and I had to walk home.

There is a budget cantine-style place in the IFC Mall building, which offers reasonably priced food with an incredible view of the water amidst the luxuriously soul-less shopping experience.

Google Maps has Hong Kong streets mapped including chinese characters!

A friend from China also recommended staying Eaton Hotel, which looks much fancier than the Charterhouse at a similar price, but seemed a little out of the way from the places I was most interested in. Another recommendation is Chungking Mansions, but probably more for the Wong Kar Wai connection than comfort or convenience, although the location on Nathan Road is good and close to the Star Ferry.

Ming Cha
8 Shipyard Lane 8C
Quarry Bay, Hong Kong
www.mingcha.com.hk
closes around 21h, but if you lurk outside they might still let you in

Cafe de Goldfinch
13-15 Lan Fong Road
Causeway Bay. Hong Kong
Tel: 25777981
best to go for lunch (12-15h)

Jade Garden
1 Hysan Ave
Causeway Bay
(tel. 852/2577 9332)
open daily from 7:30am to midnight.

The first weekend we cooked a truly South African dish, Shakalaka, with polenta instead of pap for a bit of international flair.

We used the Shakalaka recipe from the very nice Kitsch’n'Zinc blog and added some extra bits, including jalapeno pepper.

250 ml canola oil
30 g fresh chopped ginger
30 g fresh chopped garlic
20 g chopped chillis
200 g chopped onion
500 g tomatoes roughly chopped
100 g green pepper roughly chopped
100 g red pepper roughly chopped
50 g leaf masala
200 g grated carrot
450 g baked beans
10 g fresh coriander

Fry ginger,garlic,chillis,onions in the oil. Add the leaf masala or curry powder of your choice. Add the tomatoes and cook for 10 mins. Add peppers and carrots and cook for 10 minutes. Add baked beans and cook for 5 mins. Remove from heat and add coriander. Check seasoning. Serve with whatever you want, hot or cold.

Since then, we have cooked a hungarian stew, mince-meat pasta, and an unidentifiable red sauce.  We have also served a piece of fruit, bread, and cookies with all of our meals so far. Unfortunately, we are a bit limited in our selection while are waiting for some food donations to start rolling in (hopefully). If you can help us cook better food, please get in touch!

We are very much looking for sponsors (food, pots, knifes, money to buy any of these) to sustain the kitchen club. Contact phi.schmidt at gmail.com if you’d like to find out more about what we do or come visit.

• vegetarian burger, grilled aubergines (eggplant), zucchini, tomatoe, garlic on a toasted pita bread (something was missing / i think sundried tomatoe pesto)
• very German main course, boiled potatoes with quark, smoked salmon, cucumber salad, hmmmmm - delicious
• desert mania, lena brought fruit tiramisu (which we did not know she would), and we baked lemon merengue pie, which did not work out
• we drank white wine

Having been a long time Pastafarian myself, I endorse the Carbonara Compromise, and am happy to accept up to 50% of pork in my bolognese. However, as every true believer will know, it’s Aglio Olio that rules the Pastafarian universe — and there is no meat in that.

I love Gnocchi with Gorgonzola (and maybe Spinach), but could not find a recipe that I liked online.

There is a whole show on gnocchi on KQED (public broadcasting for California).

The end result is called Churchkhela, but you could get hurt trying to pronounce it.

Here is what the whole procedure looks like (courtesy of grandmother Babutsidze):

Before moving to Maastricht I visited Iceland and was surprised to find a huge appreciation for coffee. A number of bars in Reykjavik send teams to the Annual World Barrista Championships, and I have seen some 4th and 5th places trophies on display. I am not sure if it is an anecdote, but I read somewhere that Icelanders even take their own coffee when they travel to Italy — as they don’t trust any other nation could make equally good coffee.

After almost 10 days of experimenting with my drip-filter I finally went on a quest for a good cappuccino in Maastricht, and found it at Coffeelovers. The place is owned by a small company (Maison Blanche Dael) that roasts the beans themselves. They have a great store in Wolfstraat 28, where you can see the roaster through the window.

Coffeelovers
Ruiterij 2
6221 Maastricht

MBD
Wolfstraat 28
6211 Maastricht

The festival is so full of wonderful things, that I can’t even start explaining. I can’t wait to go back, next year (and the one after that, and the one after THAT, and and and …)

So obviously our main focus (for once) was not the food. Nevertheless we found two gems that are worth sharing with whoever might read this:

• On the first day, we had a quick and delicious lunch at at a little Italian sidewalk cafe called Sadivino, where we had a nice lentil soup, a sandwich and home-made tiramisu. They also sell a wonderfully flavored (melon and passionfruit, with a twist) sparkling water called Aqua Libre. It is produced by orchiddrinks, which seems to have been taken over by britvic (their site either does not work in Firefox and Safari, or is simply useless)
• What better way to keep at bay the inevitable depression that I knew would hit me after this much-too-short trip in the best of company, than focusing on the proper farewell dinner. The Grain Store Restaurant offers a nice mix of Scottish tradition (cured salmon, rack of lamb) with modern influences. All the dishes we tried (grilled mackerel starter and a mix of mushrooms wrapped in a soft crepe, in addition to the salmon and lamb) were well prepared and delicious, but the desserts were simply outstanding. The Pear Tartin went straight from the oven onto our table, where it tried to melt a single ball of caramel and nuts ice cream, before we would eat it all up (it wasn’t a fair contest, and the tarte did not even come close). However, the espresso chocolate cake was dark and strong and not intimated. Especially as it did not arrive alone, but was very well accompanied by a dessert wine fittingly described in the menu as “the business”.

Just in case you were wondering, we did not try the haggis. I admit, the fact that boiling heart, liver and lung inside an animal’s stomach, simply does not sound so exciting to me might have had to do with it. However, more importantly it was the first cab driver’s confession that, actually, it’s the tourists that eat the stuff. The people of Edinburgh only have it once or twice a year themselves and he certainly did not seem very excited about it. He recommended we try some Chinese food instead.

Off to Iceland tomorrow.

–

Sadivino
West Richmond Street (close to Pleasance)

The Grain Store
30 Victoria St (1st Floor)
Tel: 0131 225 7635

Bukhara in Burg Street — the pretentious “arguably the best Northern Indian cuisine on the planet” on the take-away containers might just be true. But don’t get take-away, make a reservation, and enjoy the view into the tandoor kitchen. Personal favourites: chicken cheese, and the best Palak Paneer I have ever had (and I have tried many! if you know a better place for PP, let me know!)

Olympia Cafe in Kalk Bay — no doubt, my personal favourite all around, never disappoints. When I first asked the waitress (Traci, who became a very good friend) if the fish was good — she nearly threw me out. “You won’t eat fish anywhere else anymore …” and boy is she right. Best fish in the world. Also great are the Linguine Del Mare, which give you pieces of fresh fish, mussles, shrimp, in a slightly spicy tomatoe sauce. Hmmyum ….

Birds Boutique Cafe on Bree — the best place for lunch in town, no doubt. I can’t wait until they open for dinner. Read my review here.

Noon Gun Cafe in Bo-Kaap — I might be biased, because the restaurant is run by my neighbours and I live in the house, but this is authentic Malay cooking with the best view of any restaurant in Cape Town. And it is not overrun (yet?). Most popular for lunch and tea, but I would recommend an early sundown dinner (you won’t see the sunset, but the sky turns a beautiful pink and then the city lights come on … spectacular). Say hello if you come visit (and I am back from Holland / Feb 2006).

Royal Eatery on Long Street — great place for a quick burger if you can stand the slightly over-the-top young artsy-fartsy crowd. Better to go to the Royal Kitchen (just around the corner) where you should make friends with Liesl if she is working. Have a Royal with double-cheese and a shake.

There are many many other great places and dishes in this town — the chocolate beef at madame zingara is amazing, melissa’s on kloof has a great lunch buffett, posticino in sea point makes the best pizza, etc. — but I will end here or I will never be able to leave. Drop me a note if you are planning a visit to Cape Town and want more detail (or if you have any recommendations for where to eat in Maastricht)

I am going to miss this place.