The Cafe, Hyatt Regency, TST, Hong Kong

Hyatt Regency was re-opened in TST in October, 2009 and located on the K-11 mall between Hanoi Rd and Mody Rd. The old one was my regular visit, especially the Chinese restaurant and Cafe. Today I got to re-visit this old friend in new frame. The buffet is still good as before.

1/2. The decoration is like somebody's home with a touch of something literary.

3/4. Spacious buffet stations. Most of the food are served to your order and the dessert put in the cabinet for better hygiene.

5. Freshly tossed salad. Very fresh veggie and also chilled. 6. More cold dishes. Selected and quality food. The sandwich is surprisingly good.

7. Parma ham at average. 8. Something Indian and quite spicy.

9. Lentil paste - pretty nice. 10. Mussels in white wine creamy sauce. Very fresh and imported ones.

11. Check the tuna. It's not like those artificially colored, but it's very fresh, so are all other seafood. 12. The scallion pancake is awesome! Pizza too and it's put on a very nice warmer.

13. Chutney and some Indian pickled. Pretty good. 14. BBQ sardine, sausage, beef and chicken burger. Grilled to your order. What can you say?

15. Something Chinese. 16. I was too full to try the Japanese station. So I could only get the beef roll shitake mushroom. The variety is more than expected.

17/18. See how nice they have a tray for the presentation and yet they are all put in the air-conditioning fridge. The soft ice cream is nice to go with the fresh fruits.

19. Vanilla soft ice cream with strawberry with some strawberry syrup. Very nice syrup and aromatic. 20. iced coffee and iced lemon water. See that little mint in the lemon water. Some little thing but makes it a whole lot different.

21. Nuggart and apple tart. 22. Choco cake and cheese cake. All are good! Lunch buffet at HK$258 on weekends and $218 on weekdays. Dinner buffet at $438 on weekends and $388 on weekdays.

Tugboat 18, Yau Luen 友聯拖船十八號, in the 70's, Hong Kong

This powerful tugboat used to be the playground of me and my sisters. The boat #18 also brought us to a no. of boat trips in Sai Kung. #18 has 2 powerful propellers and it also has a spinning wheel in the middle of the boat. My father told me the physics about a heavy weighted spinning wheel on balancing the boat from rocking too much. When the easterly wind blows, the sea off Sai Kung is very rough. #18 can break the fierce wave like a giant axe. As you can see the ship body is so stable in the sea. #18's propellers are also on a rotational function that it can swift the direction right away instead of the conventional tail flag. BTW, the background is Mei Foo Sun Chuen 美孚 and Lai King 荔景 (no high rise buildings on the hill then).

Shopping alternately, Bangkok, Thailand

When Central World/Siam area were closed, I went to other shopping areas.

1. This one is not like those popular shopping malls as it's more educational with a large book shop and many mid-priced restaurants. It's because the mall is just next to the university. Naturally there are lots of language learning centers and other tutorial institutes.

3. Loft is also there. 4. Got depression?

5. After that, I went to Rachada and browsed around in Esplanade. Suggest to play bowling or watching a movie.

Thang Loong, Langsuan, Bangkok, Thailand

Thang Loong in Vietnamese means flying dragon and it's the ancient name of the current Vietnam's Capital city Hanoi. The first time I tried Center Point Langsuan was dated back to the year of 1999. It was also the time I got brought to a condo named PST as well as to this Vietnamese restaurant Thang Loong. Later on whenever I passed by this restaurant, it just brought back some memory of those good old time I stayed in Langsuan. It was an evening of 4th April, 2010. I decided to visit this restaurant again.

1. these 2 sauces are still the same. 2. Steamed rice roll wrap. Pretty nice texture with balanced ingredients like minced pork, diced water chestnut and black fungus...etc.

3. Stir fried morning glory. Quite hot though. 4. Shrimp paste on cane. Fresh shrimp paste and deep fried very well.

5. veggie to go with your meal. This place has been serving some very nice and fresh veggies. Seldom have I found some rotten veggie. Something not significant but it is an index for how the kitchen is managed. 6. grilled beef. Not bad either. 7. deep fried fish with lemon grass. Still pretty good. Crispy and dry on the coating, but the fish chunks are not cut in average size.

8. Stuffed squid with minced pork. 9. the restaurant setting used to be all white with a high ceiling from the 2nd floor on one side so that in the afternoon the sun light could come in to make the room so clean and bright. Now the decoration tends to be very dim with more green and wooden color.

10. this was what the high ceiling area. 11. the 2nd floor is good for some functions like private party.
12. the entrance.

Sunset at Natai, Phang Nga, Thailand

Round 2, The Chef's Table, Aleenta Phang Nga, Thailand

I promised to come back for another try and Mr. Leon didn't let me down. However, that night turned out to be with one more table - 9 table setting in total and there were 6 taken already.

1. The menu. I choose 4 course this time with 2 appetizers together. 2. Coffee milk shake. Why I ordered it is because when I was at the beach front cafe, I smelled a very strong coffee aroma. It turned out to be pretty good.

3. more arts. 4. the complimentary appetitzer - snapper in crayfish sauce with a zest of light herb and pepper. Very fresh snapper and it's steamed. Steaming can't fake the freshness!

4. Hokkaido raw scallop in salsa sauce. Wow, when I took that green thing, it's avocado thin slice in curl. Very good cutting skill. Avocado gives the smooth texture with scallop with the no-too-spicy salsa dressing. Perfect! 5. Salmon pan seared with mussel. The salmon is cooked to a very nice texture. If it's overcooked, then the texture will be rough. If it's under cooked, then it will be not aromatic enough. This one is excellent!

6. pan seared tiger prawn. Also good and again it's cooked in a perfect timing. 7. lemon sorbet for tonight's break.

8/9. main course. lobster tail in seaweed sauce. Actually I should order the grain fed 120 days lamb loin! Mr. Leon felt a bit disappointed when I ordered this lobster tail. However, this one is also a pleasant surprise. He really knows how to make good use of local ingredients. The seaweed sauce is really special and at least it's something different to me.

10/11. Check what's the difference between these 2? They are actually 2 plates but on the left there is one more cheese cake and on the right, there are more fruits. :) So devil.