My Cathay Pacific flight (P.S. they served one of the worst omelettes unfortunately) touched down at the Hong Kong International Airport at 12pm exactly; I was starving by the time that I reached the hotel and completed all the necessary check-in procedures.
Really, that meant only one thing – it was lunch time. I needed to unpack and reply a few important emails; so I did the unthinkable: Order In-Room Dining.
On hindsight, what was I thinking – Ordering in-room dining service on an overseas trip, in Hong Kong no less. By the way, it is times like these when those daily hotel credits come into play!
Thankfully, what I had ordered did not disappoint!
Read on to see the two dishes that I ordered from the menu!
Ah.. Peking duck. I feel deeply in love with them from the moment I visited Beijing back in 2004!
Can Singapore’s Imperial Treasure live up to the ones that I’ve tried in Beijing? Read on to find out! For one, the chef brings the entire duck out and slices them up, right in front of your table. Talk about skills! These guys made slicing the skins off the duck seem like an easy task.
When the craving for those bite sized dumplings that are filled with flavourful broth and minced pork (a.k.a. Xiao Long Baos), two places come to mind – Crystal Jade and Din Tai Fung. Granted that there are other restaurants serving up XLBs, Din Tai Fung’s xiao long baos are still my favourite.
Din Tai Fung recently hosted a meet-the-bloggers outing where a Din Tai Fung master chef showed us the art of making Xiao Long Baos. In my opinion, calling it an art would be an understatement in itself. The chef informed us that due to the stringent quality controls and the need to uphold it’s status as one of the world’s Top Ten Best Restaurants as ranked by The New York Times, a chef needs to complete at least two years’ of training, before he or she is allowed to make these dumplings.
But, a show-and-tell session would have been far too boring. Din Tai Fung, arranged for us to personally make these dumplings, albeit with red bean filling. Understandably, it was difficult to achieve the required characteristic 18-folds of a properly made xiao long bao. (Hey, who was I to kid!)
But just when we thought that a show-and-tell-and-make session was more than enough fun for the morning, we were treated to a sumptuous lunch. Read on, to see what delicacies we had the honour of sampling.
