Wah san wai 和三味

My selected fare well to HK meal is at this Japanese restaurant, having the luxurious sashimi set lunch. It is one of the restaurant (raw fish and Teppanyaki) in HK that I have visited in the last few years where the quality of ingredients and cooking has been consistently high. 

Black sesame sweet soup 黑芝麻糊

Finally made this typical Cantonese dessert using the black sesame paste. It is good to know that you need to use only 1 heap tablespoon of paste to make a bowl of sesame soup, not using up the jar fast. 

First dissolve some rice flour in water (same as thickening a soup). Add a bowl of water in the pan with a tablespoon of sesame paste, mix/whisk well to disperse the paste in water. 
When boiling, pour in gently rice flour water while stirring all the time. Stop when thick enough, sweeten to your taste. 

Kai Lan & Bean sprouts

Last chance to feast on local greens before heading back to Ireland …. until my veg garden starts to produce in end April. 

Percussion performance

Joined the Fringe Festival for a percussion performance by a young lady, playing on many drums and percussion equipment, one of the music used 13 pieces. 

Her skill is amazing, and requires strong physical effort to perform. Not really impressed by the selected musics as the rhythms are not easily caught on.

Seared squid

Saw this way of preparing squid, not the usual criss-cross pattern, but 2or 3 cuts through the piece. When deep fried with batter; it cooked through fast and has more crispy surfaces without using a thick batter. 
I used the same preparation but seared the squids, presentable and cook through fast too. 

The Atrium 中庭, Convention and Exhibition Centre Hong Kong

Enjoyed a well made Chinese dinner with friends at the Atrium, used to serve Shanghainese food before. 
In the menu there is a good selection of Cantonese dishes. The set meal selected that night has a lot of very high quality traditional ingredients, like giant yellow fungus, fish maw, coconut soup with black silk chicken etc. Excellent cooking skills and very delicate complex flavours. 

2026年2月9日 及時行樂

今日天氣陰沉微雨，好開心昨日去了淺水灣走走，日落時段，那米色長沙灘、翠綠山峰、型格建築物、瑩亮蔚藍水天光彩，令人目眩神馳。

去淺水灣，藉口是看張愛玲去世三十年展覽，細小場地，重點展出她和那已被拆除的淺水灣酒店的關係，和介紹酒店歷史。

看資料她出世那年，酒店剛好完工開幕；她來到港大讀書時，父母已經離婚，母親從上海來港，在淺水灣酒店長住。張愛玲常去探望，寫下以酒店作為背景的「傾城之戀」。

展覽重點之一是介紹這部電影，播出部份和酒店有關的片段，其實拍攝時酒店已經拆卸，要在清水灣影城重建酒店外貌，其中一幕，是女主角繆騫人走到窗前，看那迷人海景….. 那其實是從清水灣看到的西貢山海風光，而非淺水灣也。

「傾城之戀」電影未有看過，但故事印象深刻，和香港有關外，記憶中似是張愛玲小說中，少數有美好結局的愛情故事。

張的長篇短篇小說，全部看齊，文字美好，當年文青必看外，她筆下的時代背景：戰爭逃難、新與舊思想、東西方文化衝擊下的人生，深深吸引我的好奇心。

Fried glutinous rice flour pancake

I thought of another way to enjoy the black sesame paste. Using glutinous dumpling dough, but make a thin flat pancake, the size of your frying pan. Sear at medium heat with a little  oil, until cook through (thicken) and golden crispy on both sides. Spread black sesame paste on top and serve. 

Tai Wai Dinning Room 大圍小館

Went there with friends living in that area, a convenient location with 2 MTR lines intersecting making it easy to get to all 4 corners of HK. 

A well decorated medium size restaurant serving Cantonese dishes, some traditional some with twists. Many interesting sounding dishes and excellent cooking skills, need to go back again to try more dishes. Deep fried 九肚魚 is a must have dish, the batter is so thin, crispy but not oily, with tender soft flesh inside. 

2026年2月4日 九蒸九曬石磨黑芝麻醬

今次回港，最開心是找到這店，所做的黑芝麻醬又香又滑，起初看到標榜九蒸九曬，以為是誇張了的宣傳句子。細看成份，見到在黑芝麻旁注明是九蒸九曬石磨方法製造，才相信是真的。

在網上查看，才知道不少藥材，也要經歷九蒸九曬才成，藥力增加容易吸收外，有害物質亦會減少，傳統中藥製作方法，自有其道理。

如何享用這個黑芝麻醬？

店內賣的黑芝麻軟雪糕，又香又滑，上面澆了些黑芝麻醬，增加層次，也可以在吃雲呢拿雪糕/乳酪時，澆些黑芝麻醬同吃。

回家第一樣試做的，自然是黑芝麻湯圓，父母的家鄉食物，以前的冬日美食，以豬油拌黑芝麻粉作饀。

現在這黑芝麻醬，放到冰箱內也只是軟雪糕質地，不能搓作球作饀用，只好退而求其次，改做「翻轉」露餡湯圓好了，省下好多功夫！

朋友到來飯聚，要有飯後甜品，想到這黑芝麻醬的質地，和做 chocolate mousse 用的朱古力 ganache 一樣，就嘗試把黑芝麻醬加入打到略起泡的忌廉內，成為黑芝麻mousse ，質地輕盈，芝麻香味更濃，超級滿意的創作。

Inside out black sesame dumplings

Another round to play with this favourite dessert, one that I made regularly in my younger years around CNY period for the family.

This time I used coconut milk to mix with Glutinous rice flour, roughly 1:1 ration to form a dough. This is then shaped into small balls, plain boiled until floating, around 1 -2 minutes. Serve in a bowl with a little sugar and the liquid, then mix in as much black sesame paste as you like. 

The dumplings are softer this way. 

Fringe Festival 2026

Another evening at the Fringe Club, listening to local musicians playing Chinsee string type instrument Zheng 古箏. So skillful and a lot more new ways of playing the instrument than what I have seen/heard before. 
It is amazing to see their skill at such a young age, and great that Fringe Club organises events to let them have the opportunity to have solo and group performances. 

Protein feast

A casual dinner gathering and afterwards friends called it a protein feast! 
Started with mi-cuit foie gras brought from France.
Then slices of Portuguese sausages from Macau.
Grilled NZ lamb chops seasoned with freshly grounded black mustard seed, fenugreek cumin, black pepper and salt. 
Grilled Spanish Iberico pork collar in Char Siu flavor.
Grilled grass fed Australian Black Angus rib steak.
Mixed veg cooked in Air fryer
Black sesame mousse as dessert.

Black sesame mousse

The newly found Black sesame paste is so delicious that we thought of using it as a dessert in a gathering. Instead of making chinese dessert, we use it like chocolate ganache, to be mixed with lightly whisked whipping cream to form this velvety black sesame mousse. The fragrant of sesame comes out better in this lightened and aerated form. 

It is spread on a crushed biscuit/butter base, decorated with whipped cream. 

200gm whipping cream, lightly whisked to soft peaks, with
15 gm fine sugar

170gm black sesame paste, whisked in briskly

Iberico pork collar

Found this nice cut in the deep freeze in a supermarket, lovely dark red meat with fine streaks of fat. From description, the pigs are kept outdoor in Spain, fed on the last 60 days with a portion of chestnut and acorn from their foraging in the forest. 

I seasoned the chops with a mixture of miso, soy sauce, 5 spices/curry powder, wine, black pepper and honey for a few hours. Then either bbq or cook in air fryer to slightly charred edges, good tender texture and Char Siu like flavour. 

Seafood feast

After shopping in Sai Kung town, feeling hungry and that I haven’t had seafood for a while, decided to have a treat. 
Went to the wet market to look for seafood, decided on Flower crab, bamboo prawn and clam. Brought them to the water front restaurant Chuen Kei, to have them simply cooked, what a great evening (HK350 for seafood and 300 for cooking and drinks).