Friday!

Paul's massive (of 2) meatball sub

Big exciting things going on in San Po Kong tonight.  First, I come home from tutoring and Paul is elbow deep in ground chicken.  He made meatballs!!  After he got the balls going, I put the sauce on, and within 20 minutes we were good to go for dinner.   Who knew that was so easy!?  And delicious.  We accompanied our meatball dinner with Rock Star Rouge 2007 (Syrah, Tempranillo, Cinsauld) that we bought several weeks ago from California Vintage.  Totally bumped those meatballs up a notch.

<3 Cali Wines

As if all that wasn't exciting enough, we totally stepped it up post dinner.  Recently blueberries have been on super sale everywhere, I keep reading about these green breakfast shakes, and I have wanted to make a tomato or pumpkin soup for ages.  I've just been waiting on one thing. A blender.  Well my friends, tonight we hit up the Mikiki mall and bought ourselves our very first blender in Hong Kong.  As we speak I am boiling pumpkin so I can have a banana pumpkin soy smoothie for breakfast.  It may fail, but at least I'll fail blending.  

My new best friend

Linguini Fini Steps Into the Lead

So you know how I always rave about the Globe?  It's definitely my favorite go to-hang out-relax with a good drink sort of place, but man has Linguini Fini given it a run for it's money!  I mentioned a few weeks back about amazing cocktails at amazing prices at LF.  Well it gets even better. I should really start from the beginning.

My Favorite Cocktail; Prosecco, Vermouth and Bitters

Paul and I both finished tutoring and met in Sheung Wan to hit up Le Shop des Createurs spring party at The Space.  We get there and there's a line- meh.  We wait it out, I see my friend Cherry of Aeris Magazine (you should check it out!), then head upstairs.  It's an amazing space, ha, totally open yet totally filled with vendors and guests.  There was jewelry, clothing, oh and did I mention, a ton of people. I should say a big Congrats to Cedric for putting on an amazing party!  And he was worried no one would show.  Paul and I ran into some friends, enjoyed the hipster scene, sipped on the one glass of wine we managed snag and then bailed for open pastures.  I had just read earlier in the day that LF has happy hour, so we hoofed it 10 blocks over.

Oh heavenly fatty delicious burgers, you

Oh LF.  There was a decent crowd there, but definte breathing room and an entire side of the bar to ourselves.  Happy hour consists of buy one get one cocktails, which is nuts as they're already super reasonable by Central standards.   I get my go-to Prosecco cocktail, Paul gets a Mexican mule, and we just melt into the scene.  There's a DJ spinning in the back and the bartender is super attentive in ensuring our waters are filled to the brim.  Round two and the bartenders chat us up and we tell them how much we love their cocktails and can't wait to come in for dinner sometime...you know the typical 'I love this place' chatter.  As we're approaching the end of our drinks the bartender comes out with a plate of four sliders.  Not just regular sliders; pork belly wrapped (housemade) fennel sausage sliders.  True story.  It's their signature meat, and as a part of happy hour they toss them on little buns and dish em out gratis!  And if that wasn't enough, while we're paying Jay puts down his name card with signature and says our first drinks are on him the next time we come in.   Jay, you are officially my favorite person in Hong Kong.  Sorry Paul, but this guy makes a killer cocktail and brings me mini burgers. 

  

Post LF, we were feeling a little guilty so we head up to the Globe to show some love. As always, I got a great recommendation from the bar for North Coast Brewery's Pranqster.  It's brewed in traditional Belgian style, and had I not known it was from Cali I would have sworn it was from Brussels! There's something gravitational about the Globe that every time P and I are down in Central we have to pop in. Even if it is just for one.

So that was it.  A little crawl of our favorite Soho/Sheung Wan haunts.  If I didn't have tutoring again tonight, Paul and I would be back in LF, this time with pizzas!

Race night!

Trying to get a view of the track

We had so much fun at the races last night!  Paul won his first race, then I blew his winnings on Elephant Cheers the next race.  Stupid horse with an awesome name.

 

 

Paul's so happy about his big win!

 Wedneday night races are awesome and somehow the starts aligned that I didn't have to work and it wasn't raining....much.  We met up with our friend Ashley who was in town visiting from Korea, and made our way into the track.  It was probably 7:30 when we got there and pretty deserted.  We used up my free tastes (thank you HK mag!).  I got a Cali Cabernet Sauv that was ok, Paul got a French Saint Emilion that was smooth but thin, and Ashley got something else.  I don't recall.  Bacus (pictured left) helped Paul figure out how to bet, andon his first go her won $1.50 over what he bet!!  Nice work baby!  Then I let the names get the best of me and stupid number 7 came in, well 7th! 

We watched 4 or 5 races, but come 9:30 it was getting late for these old people, so we said our goodbyes and MTRed it back to to Kong. 

I miss Steeplechase!

Ginger

I have this new obsession with ginger.  Pretty much everything in Chinese cooking requires it, so it's available everywhere and super cheap. I picked up a gigantic knob the other day on a whim, and I'm telling you, I'm putting it in everything.

Yesterday and today I made amazing salads for lunch.  I suppose I've been in Asia when I say that I have found the most amazing shrimp cakes (picture fish balls with shrimp, cuttlefish, and corn)!  Spinach, shrimp cake, green tea soy sauce, kimchi, tofu, and of course ginger.  Delish I tell ya.

Tonight Paul and I cooked up an egg drop soup.  I flipped through and old Food Network Magazine (I wish we had that here) and found the parameters and it just so happened we had the necessary basics.  Plus some.  We boiled chicken broth with garlic, onion, chili pepper paste (that I put on everything), and ginger.  Then threw in some eggplant and zucchini we needed to use up.  Toss in some rando Chinese booze we didn't want (didn't realize it was 40%- thought it was sake) with some cornstarch to thicken her up.  After that cooks down a good while we tossed in fish filets and some chicken until it was cooked through and finished with two eggs.  This made enough to feed 12 people, so my guess is Paul will have it polished off by tomorrow night.  Something out of our normal repertoire, Chinesey, still healthy, and quite tasty.

Nim Nim Time!

Weekend Update!

The fruit of 3 hours labor

Saturday was, alas, another grey day.  Instead of basking in the sun on my day off, I spent it milling around a mall feeling dejected by how many things I want cost $1,000 (I'm talking USD).  Why can't cute quality stuff be cheap?  JCrew, I miss you.  Please come to me. I seriously spent 3 hours trying on stuff and ended up buying a pair of black pumps from Marks & Spencers.   The only other thing I even considered buying was this beautiful tank top from Paul Smith.  It had beautiful flower print and flowed freely.  But it was $2,400.  Yes, that's almost $300USD for a tank top! 

Cute, but not $300 cute

Maybe when this wine things pays off big.  (Ha! In what lifetime!?)

Small square bottle on the left was my fav

I also stopped in to my favorite wine shop in Kowloon City to say hi to my best wine friend Jimmy.  Paul and I always think of excused to go see Jimmy.  He's so sweet and knowledgable about wine, and always walks us through a fun and informative tasting.  This time I was solo, but needed wine for Kina, so I popped in.  He only had one red (Italian, nice), but tons of whiskey!  We worked our way through four whiskeys, a young Japanese that had been aged less than a year in fresh oak being my favorite.  Ended up picking up a nice Australian Shiraz for the Kinster, which was brought out hours later. Twas quite good if I do say so myself.


Saturday Paul and I spent an amazing night with our amazing friends.  Nina and Kenny both turn 30 this week, so they threw a 60th birthday party.  First off, I cannot say enough about the catering company they had!  As you walk into the door you are instantly greeted by one of the 3 (I think) men working asking what beverage you would like.  That's service.  They continually walked around the party offering up different little trinkets of delicious food.  There were mini burgers which I heard were nice but didn't try, tuna atop sweet potato-yum, salmon ontop of something I don't know but was delicious, mini potatoes hallowed out and filled with pork,goat cheese topped pastry-yummmmmm, and a chicken quesadilla that was not my fav- you can't win em all.

I hadn't been to a catered party in someone's home here, and it was a really nice touch and I'm guessing took a lot of pre-party pressure off Nina and Kenny.  Ohh and did I mention the wine???  Catered by yours truly!  Thanks, Kenny!!  The whole evening was flawless.  We hadn't seen Kina in a while, and we got to meet some of their friends from home and work whom we hadn't met before, and then caught up with other friends in common. The whole Thanksgiving crew was there, one of which we found out was pregnant.  Congratulations Helen and Dave!!!   Totally asa night and the only thing that I would have done differently was not have had to work the next day. Boo.  At the stroke of midnight P and I took off in our red taxi to retire to bed.

Sunday turned out to be amazing!  It was super grey and miserable when I left for HOFWs, but by the time we pulled into Cyberport (SW HK Island) the sun was a shining and the weather was hot.  Greg and Sean were up in Discovery Bay, so it was just Young Lionel and myself.  Not going to lie, I was totally nervous we would bomb and make no money and then have Greg on my back all week about how bad I failed.  Turns out we did good!

Cyberport set up

Greg and Sean would check in periodically throughout the day telling us where sales should be.  But they were never quite there.  Come 3 when Paul showed up I was kind of freaking out.  With three people there it was easier to manage the table and solicit more business.  We were doing tastings of most of our wines, and oddly, no one wants to drink wine at noon.  Come 4 or 5 it's a different story.  Once people taste the wine 90% chance they're going to buy something.  It's pretty annoying when people don't, although I know I've done it before.  Margins people, we need greater margins!  At the end of the beautifully sunny day, I walked around bottles in hand as Sean does at all events, and gave our end of the day prices.  To my surprise they sold.  I actually sold out of our Prosecco and Pinot Grigio that way!  Asa, one less thing to carry home.  All in all we beat Greg's goal by a couple thousand dollars.  Wooot!!!  And most importantly, proved that I can run a successful event!  Did I mention we got to 'taste' the wines too?  I think the liquid courage helped more than a little.  And Paul would be pissed if I didn't mention that he had a big sale!  He worked with a guy talking about wines and foods, and dude ended up buying $1,800 worth.  Perhaps I have a budding salesman on my hands.  And twas tots more fun once P got there, too!  Hopefully they'll put us on Cyberport every month.


Back to work...

Week of Brian!

Sunday Champagne Brunch at Jumbo (thanks for Steve Alex!)

Really what I should do is go back and see what my last post was about.  Instead, I'm just going to go with what's on my mind.  I think I already covered champagne brunch (sooo not a good idea when you have to go to work the next day), so I'll move onward.  Monday night we were all feeling a little defeated, so Paul and I went down to the Conrad to meet Brian.  Ohhh the Conrad.  Since Brian travels so often, he is like double extra super platinum with Hilton, he often gets upgraded.  This is on top of the 5 free night vouchers he has earned.  His suite is no joke 2-3x the size of my two bedroom apartment.  There's a huge bedroom and huge bathroom with bathtub in the master part of the suite, then go to the other side and there's a two couch sitting area furnished with desk and working area.   And chocolates.  A new treasure chest of chocolates everyday!  So obviously Paul and I moved in for the week.

Back to Monday.  We were all beat and the Conrad had a free cocktail hour with hot buffet from 5-7, so we hit that, I went to a Wine MBA info session, and then we all met again to chill on the couch at watch National Geographic.  I miss having real TV.  Then we all get up at different times, Paul being the earliest, and hit the breakfast buffet.  Ahhh, I started every morning with a deliciously dark coffee, Greek yogurt and strawberries, and a salad with the best scrambled eggs and smoked salmon.  Life was good.

Tuesday we went out to an event at Pure with Cathy.  Free drinks and select snacks for 2 hours.  That wasn't enough so we hit up Otto in LKF after for more unlimited drinks.  That was the end of the night and beginning of a tough 2 days for me!  Wednesday felt like garbage.  Barely got anything done at work and then had to play host at our Wednesday Wine Tasting.  Ugghh.  I did start feeling better after a couple glasses of wine.  But then the tasting continued...and continued...until 1:30 we were hanging with the good folk at Randstad recruiting firm.  Paul and Brian were at the races in the meantime.

My daily breakfast in the Executive Lounge

Thursday and I just couldn't handle it.  Greg totally understood since we were out so late and so I layed in bed and did absolutely nothing alllll day.  Until tutoring with my favorite two new kids.  They are soooo sweet.  Sorry Agnes, you're out! (replaced)

Osage Gallery in Central

Friday evening we all met again and hit a gallery opening.  Was something different, then hit up a noodle place and enjoyed the light show  (me kind of could see it) from the Central Piers with some fancy European beers.

All in all a pretty good week despite what my liver will tell you.  I swear I don't even drink that much and I just feel like death the next day.  From here on out, back to healthy Lauren.  Wine only 3 times a week.  Cut the beer.  Cut the noodles.  I'm eating fresh veggies, exercising, and moderating the monkey juice.  Back on track.

Woah what a week

So as I may or may not have mentioned, Brian's here this week!! That means I've been staying in a sick suite down in the Conrad instead of out in the Boonies in SPK blogging. 

Here's some of what I have been/will be up to:

http://houseoffinewines.blogspot.com/

Full report coming soon of all the debachery of the week. 

xoxo Ciao!