The Press Room: Springalicous Tasting Number Two

I was invited to another press tasting for the Springalicious event today, this time at The Press Room. I've wanted to check this place out for a while. In a way it is in the same vein as Liberty Exchange but a little bit more high end (they have a raw bar)and definitely more expensive.

Most of the tastings I've been invited to consisted of a few courses with pretty small portions. This, for some reason, was not like that at all. The portions were huge (well, if not huge certainly normal) and whereas typical springalicious diners would be able to chose, say, between the fish and the steak, we were served both,and the optional oysters (which would be extra for a normal diner) and a cheese course with desert. Anyway, I'm exhausted.



It started like this. Classic French Onion Soup Gratinée with shallots, red wine, brandy, emmental & Parmesan. This one definitely did not have the same cheese problem as the Liberty Exchange version but unfortunately it did have the same seasoning issue. It was woefully under-seasoned. Well, I did finish the whole thing within a few minutes anyway...



Ah the oyster course: Freshly shucked international trio of oysters, wild salmon & Atlantic cod ceviche with lime, chili, cilantro, garlic and horseradish. I love oysters. As far as I can tell the chilli, cialntro, garlic and horseradish from the menu were all in the cocktail sauce which tasted deceptively like the store-bought stuff (not complaining, love that stuff)and the citrus on my plate was lemon not lime, but who cares. As for the oysters themselves? The first was nothing. Really almost no taste, not briny, not sweet. The second was super-briny. Too briny. Floating in brine. And the third? Well the third (pictured) was delicious: meaty, sweet, slightly briny. Scrumptious. The ceviche was fine. I love ceviche and I really enjoyed it but it didn't pop off. Sometimes ceviche can seem almost shockingly refreshing and this didn't. Still good though. I would definitely order it again.



Next up, the Boston lobster risotto with star anise, Parmesan and french butter. Nope. This was the worst dish of the meal. Way too over-spiced. It just tasted strong. Too much salt, too much pepper and none of that smooth, rich bisqueiness that I love in lobster risotto. I only had a spoonful of this. The lobster meat was good though...

Now came the two main course options at once...



Yeah! Now we're talking! Chilean Sea Bass with black truffle butter, tagliatelle and peas. This dish was great. It made me happy. The fish was perfectly cooked. The pasta was al dente and spot on. You could smell the truffles before they got the dish to the table but still they didn't over-power anything. Very nice, simple and well executed.

And then...



Prime steak frites featuring a grilled, dry-aged, US prime sirloin with Béarnaise sauce. Another home run! The best steak I've had in Hong Kong. Delicious meat. Perfectly cooked.




See! Great flavor, great char, great blood, yummy fat. Oh and the fries were awesome. I'm starting to get very very excited about the quality of french fries in Hong Kong. Who Knew? Oh, and let's not forget what is perhaps the greatest part of this dish the Bearnaise sauce. Just perfect Bearnaise. I want Bearnaise shampoo. I finished my little pitcher of then started dipping my fries in my neighbor's, then his neighbor's. Let's just say it was a scene.



Next up, the cheese course. Eh... I do love Stilton but skip that onion mess. The menu said the cheeses were supposed to come with quince paste which would have been much nicer. The bread was good.



Desert time! Calvados Parfait served with apple & cinnamon fritters. Another great effort. The fritters were basically fried slices of apple, nicely puffed up and dusted in cinnamon and sugar. They looked like little donuts and tasted like baked apples, very yummy. The parfait was a light moose on top of a cake base. The moose was somewhere between whipped cream and marscapone cheese and subtly flavored with Calvados (I love Calvados, send me a bottle). It went perfectly with the apples. A surprisingly light and lovely end to the meal.

You know, admittedly this meal was spotty in places (I'm looking at you risotto) but at opther times it was really delicous and in the end it left me feeling satisfied and in a good mood. Not perfect for sure but I am considering canceling my Bo Innovation reservation and taking my girlfriend here for Springalicious instead.

Disclaimer: I got this meal for free. Like a baller.

Liberty in a Non-voting Partial Democracy

So I've been missing a particular kind of food. Just basic restaurant food. I suppose it's American but they have places like it all over the world. Someplace not too expensive, not fast food where I can get a big salad, or a burger and a beer. I love New York for this reason. The quality of the food there is so high that these basic beer and fries joints often make me emotional. Anyway in Hong Kong it is not the same. Simple western food restaurants seem to be WAY over-priced, or suck, or (often) both.

So, I was juiced to try out Liberty Exchange Kitchen and Bar. This place has been around a while (I really have no idea because I haven't been) but they just recently got a new chef Vicky Cheng who used to work at Daniel in NYC which is definitely a good sign for my needs. I interviewed Vicky as my first assignment for my magazine and he made a really good impression. He really sold me when he talked about his burger. We both shared the same disappointment with burgers in Hong Kong, and coming from Daniel I knew he at least knew what a burger should taste like.

Anyway, an opportunity arose this week and I went with a co-worker and her friends to check it out.

Oh! and before I forget, thanks to Jocelyn my gracious co-worker for the lovely pictures, even though they were taken on a blackberry they are WAY better than mine would have been.

Jocelyn ordered the french onion soup and was nice enough to share it with everyone. It was fine I suppose, just way under seasoned. Under seasoned to the point where she had to ask for salt and pepper and really DIY it. Also not very cheesy, but I suppose that's a personal preference thing.



Next up was the calamari. We weren't going to order this but then we saw that they were miso-marinated and served with a shiso mayonnaise. That sounded more interesting and we decided to go for it. They were fine. Typical basic fried calamari, which in itself was kind of nice in a way because it really reminded me of what I would order in a bar at home. That said, I couldn't taste the miso at all. Not at all. Although Jocelyn said she could detect a hint of it. Also I love shiso; I think its such a cool flavor, but the shiso mayo didn't really do it for me. Not enough of the shiso came through and I ended up dipping my little guys in the truffle mayo but more on that later...



Now we're talking. This burger was really nice. Not fancy, not crazy just nice. Really nice. One of my biggest problems (aside from all of the others) with Hong Kong burgers is the fat content. Even eating some of the better burgers out here is like eating a text-book. This burger had a perfect blend of meat and fat. It was juicy. Really really juicy and the butcher board it was served on proved its functionality by gathering all of my leavings in the blood groove. Nice touch. It was also cooked perfectly medium rare and lovely. Vicky mentioned in our interview that he was going to serve his burger with basil mayonnaise and that kind of freaked me out. Basil is just such an over-powering flavor. But, I have to say it worked really well and perfectly matched with the fattiness of the beef and the tomato confit (confit, people love that word these days).

Also, the fries are bangin. Straight up. Hot, crisp in the right places, soft in the right places and lightly dusted in salt and Parmesan. With the burger, the fries are served with ketchup but if you order them as a side they are served with truffle mayo. Of course we asked for some truffle mayo and here is where Liberty gets a lot of points from me, they brought out three tubs of truffle mayo, more than enough for everyone at the table even if they hadn't ordered any fries. And then they didn't charge us a penny for it! This is after I got the fries with truffle mayonnaise at Classified and was given a shallow thimble of the stuff. Good looks Liberty Exchange!

MORALITY

So here's the thing. I started doing this for fun mostly and to make my friends jealous. As I've been spending more time here, reading more blogs, meeting bloggers and actually working in the food industry, I've had to think a little bit more seriously about this whole endeavour. It's a shame because I hate doing anything seriously and especially don't want to let thought and good intentions get in the way of my snackies but here it goes...

A bunch of other bloggers follow this "Blog Code Of Ethics" thing. Basically it's: don't review free food, eat anonymously, and don't accept money for reviews. Let me say that this is undoubtedly ethically correct. This is the way to go, no doubt.

Now let me tell you what I'm going to do...

I get invited to all kinds of free meals and tastings and other fun food stuff for this job. Seriously, like four times a week, and I want to share it. Also I have opinions about it. I completely get how this causes a bias. To be fair I've been invited to some pretty shit free meals and afterwards I don't blog about it because I felt guilty about it...


Anyway, I will try and make it abundantly clear when a meal is free or what the circumstances around the meals I enjoy are. But if they're still great, or interesting or fun or worth writing about at all I'm still gonna write about them. So there we go. Oh and folks who might be giving me free meals, don't get all butt hurt if I don't like it. Gotta keep it real.

And just sayin' I'm a little too broke to have ethics right now... I don't know how many people would really want to keep reading about the noodle place next to my house. Although that spot is BANGIN.