Robert Esser

I guess I'm not sure the whole point of the guide, anymore. I want to think that they just put out a silly list in HK because they aren't familiar here and didn't spend enough time, and that it doesn't cast aspersions on - for example - the French list. I said this before, and what really disappoints me now is the notion that because the HK list was random and silly, does that honestly mean the French one is too? I think everyone in culinaria has some sort of nostalgic investment in the idea that Michelin in France is sort of THE arbiter of what's what and most of us tend to look at it with respect when we visit and are choosing places to eat. Second question this brings to mind is - are all the stars the same? All things being equal, does that mean for example that Bernard Loiseau and Alvin from Bo Innovation are chefs of equivalent talent (both 2 stars)? I guess in theory it should, but this appears to be a foolish conclusion - one guy apprenticed since age 12 to the greatest kitchens in France working 18 hours a day for 30+ years to learn his trade and another an enthusiastic amateur who makes ice cream from Chinese sausage? Don't get me wrong - a dinner at Bo is a lovely experience, but it's a separate world from Hotel Troisgros or Tour D'Argent, I do think most people would agree. What WOULD be nice would be a common guide to HK food, like the Makansutra in Singapore, that featured the proper local cuisine in little street-level restaurants, and that had real street cred. Openrice is as close as we get, but it's not very professional or reliable and it's only available in Chinese, which leaves it lacking as a guide for visitors, at least. I have lived here for 20 years, speak Chinese well, and indeed I live up in the hood, in SSP, and even I know I probably haven't been to more than a handful of the really good places that are around. We seem to find a new one every few weeks.

Hi Gang - anyone know of an arabic or middle eastern grocery store (small or big) in Hong Kong? I regularly go to the stores in Chungking Mansion, but they are more Indian leaning to Pakistani. Not Middle Eastern. There are also smatterings of tiny shops scattered around Sham Shui Po and Mong Kok, but again mostly Pakistani/Nepalese, i.e not Arabic, Turkish, Lebanese, etc. Anyone help? Would appreciate it. Thanks.

Bingo. Add to this the fact that the restaurant "reviews" in certain HK media are puff pieces where the reviewer is known by, and comped by, the restaurant... gimmie a break. I'd rather read what some blog-ranter has to say than that. No need to wait until Oct 09 if you want to hit Kimberly for stuffed pig... I'm ready! ← HKD - We'll go, too. I saw that picture and was right keen. Count us in for 3. Call me.

This is really bad. What a complete and obvious crapshoot. And BTW some of these don't even make their criteria as a meal there would be over the budget.

"If you are a carpenter, and all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail". I think we have a situation here where you have a bunch of Michelin guys who are used to looking for and rating restaurants just like this and lo and behold they come to HK and find a few who fit their mold. (hey, that even rhymed!) So, we got a list of fancy French restaurants in hotels which is pretty much what they pick everywhere else on earth, and then some fancy Chinese restaurants in hotels so they could sort of look impartial and down with the locals. Um, duh. Honestly, I am pretty disappointed. This is like looking behind the movie set and seeing what's really there. If these guys can drop the ball so big time right here where we know what's what, then how much faith can we now put in them when we go to France or wherever? I had always assumed they had it right in France and used the guide (plus a few others) when I was there. So now if they blew it here, I have to assume they blew it there too? Eeeeee. I reject the notion that you have to be Chinese to appreciate Chinese food. You need to know what you are talking about, culinarily, but I think any trained chef - or even grounded and intelligent amateur - can assess a dish to know if it is prepared and presented properly. Oily, overcooked, burned, muddy, heavy - it doesn't matter if it is Moroccan or Burmese, a pro can tell. Equally you can also see real accomplishment in a simple perfect bowl of Pho. You don't need to be Vietnamese to evaluate the technical quality, but possibly the visceral appeal, which is a little different, and anyway maybe irrelevant to a guidebook. Anyway, my point is that this is beside the point. I think these guys look for stolid, hoity-toity traditional French and then local places in each market and validate the status quo for a bunch of old people in expensive clothes. No, it isn't about the food. It never was. The book even says so. It's about the "total experience" including service, decor, and ambience, plus food, as defined by them. And clearly they have a formula for elegant, clubby, oligarchical type places. Only Bo stands out on this list as being not that, which is rather the exception that proves the rule. They chucked it in there to try for some street cred with the homeys, dude. I wonder why anyone thought they would wade in up at Sham Shui Po and try the siu mei or the shrimp egg noodles with one butt cheek on a plastic stool and one hand on a bottle of Blue Girl with a big ol fan blowing a clackety gale in your face on a steamy June afternoon and nine million people yelling in your ear? It doesn't really sit well with the Michelin formula, although we may all agree the best food is to be had in places like this. I do have to say though, that I like the idea of evaluating L'Atelier twelve times before they made up their mind. I would too I suppose if it was totally free. Maybe even thirteen times. I would indeed save the bo jai fan experience in Lai Chi Kok for my own nickel and not tell anyone either. Maybe these guys got it right.

One absolutely definite "non-recommendation" for Hong Kong is Po Toi O. This is a little "fishing village" in HK, way out on the end of the Clearwater Bay peninsula, near the golf club. It is still picturesque in the 30 years ago HK kind of way, and they have a few fish farming ponds floating in the small bay, but its main business now is appearing to be a hidden gem sort of seafood destination for tourists - mostly scads of locals who are looking for a bit of nostalgia, and a bargain which is what the location would suggest. The food goes from ordinary to bad. There is the usual shtick of choosing your seafood, but the selection is nowhere near what you get in Sai Kung or Lei Yue Mun, and most of the livewells look a little suspect, and not terribly clean or bubbly. There used to be an old routine in HK and elsewhere, that you would choose your beautiful, live crab (fish, lobster, or whatever) and they would duly take it into the kitchen, then drop it in a tank back there and cook you up something out of the freezer. After you left, they put your fish back in the tank in front. The old saying was that some of the prettier lobsters actually did this so many times they were trained to jump into the net. There's not much of this left - HK people are too prosperous and too busy to fool around with pennies now, and the competition is too great to risk it. Plus, you can actually be prosecuted, and in super honest HK these days it's a real deterrent (a good thing, BTW). Anyway, you can guess what comes next - they pulled this one on us with the crab we chose. What we got was obviously not what we bought or paid for, and had clearly been frozen, then overcooked. The clams were the one bright spot, nice with black bean, garlic and chili, but the rest was very forgettable. The really memorable part was the bill - $600 HK (US$75) for 4 dishes, which is more than you would pay for a real quality meal in even the best places in Sai Kung or Lei Yue Mun. An important understanding these days is that practically none of the seafood in HK is caught by the local picturesque fishing boats. It's almost all imported and arrives on an airplane at Chek Lap Kok, or it comes over the China border in livewell trucks. Most of it ends up at the seafood wholesale market at Aberdeen (proximity to harbour a now unrelated historical consequence), where it is then redistributed all over HK. So, those fishing village dinners by various harborsides in HK are more or less romantic contrivances at this point. The crabs are from Sri Lanka, prawns from pens in China, lobsters from Thailand or Australia, and oysters from the USA. I guess what this suggests is that you are just as likely to have a good Chinese seafood meal right in Central as you are if you drive way out to the NT. Which is more or less the case, although it certainly is a good night out with a bunch of beer (or Sauvignon Blanc) and seafood at one of the local places in Sai Kung, in the Autumn when the weather can be beautiful. So, give Po Toi O a miss. Kylie Kwong shot a bunch of footage there for her most recent TV season, and the implied recommendation is misleading. There are better places to be sure, but not hidden gems as HK has almost none of these anymore. Keep in mind also that there are no bargains - a good chinese seafood repast in HK will cost at least $60 US per head, regardless of how rough & ready the place appears.

One absolutely definite "non-recommendation" for Hong Kong is Po Toi O. This is a little "fishing village" in HK, way out on the end of the Clearwater Bay peninsula, near the golf club. It is still picturesque in the 30 years ago HK kind of way, and they have a few fish farming ponds floating in the small bay, but its main business now is appearing to be a hidden gem sort of seafood destination for tourists - mostly scads of locals who are looking for a bit of nostalgia, and a bargain which is what the location would suggest. The food goes from ordinary to bad. There is the usual shtick of choosing your seafood, but the selection is nowhere near what you get in Sai Kung or Lei Yue Mun, and most of the livewells look a little suspect, and not terribly clean or bubbly. There used to be an old routine in HK and elsewhere, that you would choose your beautiful, live crab (fish, lobster, or whatever) and they would duly take it into the kitchen, then drop it in a tank back there and cook you up something out of the freezer. After you left, they put your fish back in the tank in front. The old saying was that some of the prettier lobsters actually did this so many times they were trained to jump into the net. There's not much of this left - HK people are too prosperous and too busy to fool around with pennies now, and the competition is too great to risk it. Plus, you can actually be prosecuted, and in super honest HK these days it's a real deterrent (a good thing, BTW). Anyway, you can guess what comes next - they pulled this one on us with the crab we chose. What we got was obviously not what we bought or paid for, and had clearly been frozen, then overcooked. The clams were the one bright spot, nice with black bean, garlic and chili, but the rest was very forgettable. The really memorable part was the bill - $600 HK (US$75) for 4 dishes, which is more than you would pay for a real quality meal in even the best places in Sai Kung or Lei Yue Mun. An important understanding these days is that practically none of the seafood in HK is caught by the local picturesque fishing boats. It's almost all imported and arrives on an airplane at Chek Lap Kok, or it comes over the China border in livewell trucks. Most of it ends up at the seafood wholesale market at Aberdeen (proximity to harbour a now unrelated historical consequence), where it is then redistributed all over HK. So, those fishing village dinners by various harborsides in HK are more or less romantic contrivances at this point. The crabs are from Sri Lanka, prawns from pens in China, lobsters from Thailand or Australia, and oysters from the USA. I guess what this suggests is that you are just as likely to have a good Chinese seafood meal right in Central as you are if you drive way out to the NT. Which is more or less the case, although it certainly is a good night out with a bunch of beer (or Sauvignon Blanc) and seafood at one of the local places in Sai Kung, in the Autumn when the weather can be beautiful. So, give Po Toi O a miss. Kylie Kwong shot a bunch of footage there for her most recent TV season, and the implied recommendation is misleading. There are better places to be sure, but not hidden gems as HK has almost none of these anymore. Keep in mind also that there are no bargains - a good chinese seafood repast in HK will cost at least $60 US per head, regardless of how rough & ready the place appears.