Update September 2011

Warm Greetings!

Being September it’s one of those months where the calendar is not just full but bursting with activity! It starts the first weekend with Father Day, proceeds to my Wedding Anniversary, my birthday, my Mothers birthday, and concludes last, but by no means least with my Wife’s birthday. So no wonder it’s either a time of angst or stress and most usually both. That aside as my own foot firmly ages yet another year it is a good time to pause and reflect……..That over I am pleased to let readers know that coming up is a review on the outdoor dining option poolside at the Grand Hyatt but in the meantime on to some recent Bouquets and Brickbats sent to haunt as all.

Brickbats-

Hotels- Love them or hate them, they really can be their own worst enemy at times. Mostly with certain groups that actually do believe their own PR and think they are gods gift to society. They moan about how local Restaurants “eat” (no pun intended) into their own margins with HK in particular having no shortage of excellent if not superb stand alone dining venues on offer. So while some Hotels complain about this competition they seemingly do little to entice the general public to feel comfortable or in some cases desire dine, eat meet or whatever at their establishments. Case in point. Most HK Hotels DO NOT offer WiFi in their Café’s, Bars, etc; if they do they have the nerve to charge (in same cases US$ 10 per hour). Well all I can say to this, is if these Hotels keep living in the past then there is no reason to patronize them at all. Get real guys, with even the likes of dare I say Starbucks offering some type of WiFi access and most other quality outlets offering it for free then we have even less reasons to put up with your stuck up attitudes.

Bouquets-

Overall it is great to see so many venues in HK able to consistently meet high standards of both food and service, case in point with the Castello Concepts group, of Wagu Oolaa and Cru fame. This group really does know their stuff and put a capital H back in the word Hospitality, well done guys!

In closing this short rant, I for one will be more than delighted when the HK weather takes a much needed dip in both the humidity and temperature range. Other than that is has been an uneventful monsoon season and here’s to cooler times and more alfresco dining! Cheers and Enjoy.

This is Hong Kong:

“This is Hong Kong” or so a tourism PR ad many years ago featured as a catch cry in promoting Hong Kong to the wider masses aboard. It was meant to show case the attractive elements of visiting the place. Nowadays sadly “This is Hong Kong” takes on a different meaning.

Un-Welcome to Hong Kong:

One never gets a second chance to make a first impression, and so it seems on arrival into Hong Kong while the brilliant airport makes a stunning warm welcome, getting out of the place does not. As most visitors arrive subject to the usual Hong Kong Immigration formalities, time and time again all I hear from friends and business people visiting is just how long, often an hour and half or more just to “get through” Immigration. All this after a long haul flight and one has to long haul themselves through a long slow queue. A very un-welcome to Hong Kong.

The Airport Express service from the Airport to the city is again an shining example of efficiency, however the pending queue and long wait for a connecting Taxi to your final destination can mean getting around this seemingly compact city can take you up to three hours from the time you disembark from your aircraft.

Hotel Blues:

Add to this the fact the fact the developers in Hong Kong actually take down Hotels to build office blocks that yield higher returns, means there is an acute shortage of Hotel rooms. Take for example the recent episode in which some 340 Qantas passengers had to spend the night at the airport, with most sleeping on the ground or benches. While Qantas tried hard and would of happily provided frustrated passengers with rooms for the night, it seemed all Inns were indeed full. Not even breaking up the passenger group was viable as demand exceeded supply. (see: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-incidents/qantas-passengers-sleep-in-hong-kong-airport-after-wing-problem-20110729-1i386.html)

Come on Hong Kong!

So from the start to the end some visitors have their time In Hong Kong fraught with inconvenience. Hong Kong will loose it’s edge if it cannot or will not get basic services in better order, you can dream build and create the most amazing place on earth, but it takes people to make it a reality. The reality is Hong Kong needs better and further development to ensure people keep coming here for the right reasons. This is indeed, Hong Kong.

Spasso Italian Restaurant and Bar Kowloon Hong Kong

Over at the dark side....

Here’s something of a first on my blog, a look at a restaurant on the Kowloon side, some would say the dark side, of Hong Kong. Just to clarify Hong Kong proper is an island, north of this is the area of Kowloon being a peninsula of land in mainland China but part of the Hong Kong territory which includes Hong Kong island, Kowloon and further north again, the New Territories. Now back to restaurant!

The Restaurant:

Spasso (will explain the name later) is located in the heart of Kowloon in the shopping area of Harbour City on Canton Road. The area aside on this recent occasion I took to meet friends for lunch on a typical wet monsoon like day. Braving the rain and taking a harbour ferry across, that was just about as far into the dark side I would venture.

The Restaurant itself, once found in the warren that is “Harbour City” posses a modern “euro” feels about it. While the overhead lighting may seem a bit too edgy for a restaurant and perhaps better suited to a Karaoke Lounge, the upholstered chairs are a comfy respite compared to a lot of other dining venues. However, this place is promoted as being with “Harbour Views” well sort of, providing you are outside, this obviously is not an option on wet days and inside any view is indeed limited. On a positive note Spasso does offer well laid tables with crisp white linen and napkins with the obligatory olive oil and balsamic set up to further complement the home made bread and dips. The former of which gets bonus points for being a delectable array of crisp, sticks, and foccacia.

The Meal:

Lunch at Spasso can be by way of an extensive A La Carte Menu or the more popular choice of three types of set lunch ranging in price from HKD$ 158 to HKD$ 208. Being a choice of just the extensive antipasto buffet right through to three courses inclusive of antipasto, mains pizza and dessert. So certainly good value all round, if not making you pretty round in the process.

The food itself that we enjoyed was excellent, great antipasto, complete with smoked salmon, Italian cold cuts, cheeses, my favorite Prosciutto with melon and salads. The Pizza’s were more than good and the mains of either meat or fish exceeded our expectations. The service firm but friendly and overall more that satisfactory. If Spasso were on the Island side of Hong Kong I would certainly be a regular. Sadly it’s not and I guess I just have to venture over to the dark side more often. As for the name Spasso, apparently in Italian it means “happiness and joy.” Where I come from it means something quite different if not now a politically incorrect term.

Bouquets: Good Italian food and reasonable value for money.

Brickbats: Yes it’s in a shopping mall.

Why you would come back: To try and actually manage to finish a full three-course lunch.

This is an independent review and all restaurant visits are unannounced and paid for.

Ritz Carlton Hong Kong, Ozone Club / Bar…..whatever it is trying to be.

There are no shortages of stunning venues in Hong Kong, however, just once in while a new “signature” venue of note comes along, it is a rare event indeed. Ozone at the Ritz Carlton Hong Kong is not one of these.

The tardy, tawdry and desperate

I find it difficult to believe that this is in fact a Ritz Carlton product, it is so out of place, from their usual offerings. Indeed the only possible reason why it has been so popular may well be that of it’s claim to be the tallest bar in the world. That’s a bit like saying herpes, while technically a venereal disease, it the least worst of the bunch to contract. I for one, for now, will avoid the place like the plague! Here is why…..

Next to visiting the Dentist, the last thing anyone in the world likes is to wait, or more specifically queue. A slight wait for a Lift is ok, but being made to line up like Pavlov’s dogs in the ground floor lobby of the hotel is not what one expects from a Ritz Carlton. Whatever happened to a dress code? More than that, I am certain that the room guests of the Hotel don’t want to be confronted with a motley line made up of the tardy, tawdry and desperate of Hong Kong. But so they are. Wait there’s more!

Upon being granted the right to ride a in a Lift that resembles a padded cell (an advance warning if there ever was one) you then change lifts at the main lobby area on level 103. Take my advice, stop there, do not proceed to level 118 (Ozone) the padded lift should be deterrent enough that only the insane proceed.

If you do proceed, upon entering you will notice, that despite being made to wait half an hour to get up there, the place is only 60% full. That aside, the interior looks like the designer was on bad crack, the place is a schizophrenic mélange like mess. Even the music can’t decide want it wants to be. Open and divided into part eating area, part disco, part bar all badly executed along with un comfortable seats and a “dining” area that resembles a cafeteria, and to top it all off the service that follows would do Basil Fawlty proud. Again this is not what is expected from a Ritz Carlton, right down to the filthy tiny toilets.

Disconnected and distant

While the height may be the selling point of the place it may also be its nemesis as well. It is too high, that’s the problem, better views over Hong Kong can be had from places like Aqua (1 Peking Road Hong Kong). At Ozone, the novelty of the tiny buildings below, that are in fact skyscrapers in their own right, soon wears off as you quickly realise you can hardly see anything at all.

There are so many other great places in Hong Kong to enjoy, Ozone may be the highest bar in the world, but it will never be top of the list to re visit.

The above expressed opinion is un biased, all visits are un announced and paid for.

Ritz Carlton Hotel Hong Kong, ICC Bld, 1 Austin Road West, Kowloon, Hong Kong -(852) 2263 2263

Divine Dining....Oolaa is the word.

Once upon a time on a side street tuck away behind Hollywood Road in Hong Kong, there was a very large vacant space in an A grade building. The months and then the years passed by and it indeed remained empty, forlorn and vacant. Then Oolaa came along……

While some may remain bemused with the chosen name, trust me a rose by any other name smells just as sweet. Not withstanding this, Oolaa in Soho, part of the Castelo Concepts team that brought you Cru and Jaspers, located along Bridges Street is pretty much an instant success story. This in a city where venues come with much hype and go under with little fanfare. Oolaa now being open some six months has captured and captivated the local dining scene.

The setting:

One very long venue with mostly high ceilings (a refreshing change in HK) is divided into three distinct yet cohesive areas. The beautiful main dining area, decked out with white table cloths and cloth napkins, with a centre piece of fresh flowers and low open semi circle booths along the side offers the best in “casual yet refined dining”. Moving along the entry area rests to the side of the main dining area with additional casual tables in what is part of the “free” seating area. Then stepping down to the main bar floor with a raised centre table and additional free seating on the side. Ending with a casual free seating café style dining area with plump and comfy sofas and marble table tops. (Note the café area is open from 7.30 am.) The entire area is complemented with cosy teak wood, light coloured marble and patterned floor tiling, while in the evening the ambiance of the closed glass sliding doors, dimmed lighting and warm glow of the candles is simply divine.

The Food:

One interesting and appealing aspect is the fact the all three dining areas offer the same complete menu, be it breakfast, lunch or dinner. So no matter where you are seated you have the same great options and variety of food available. Breakfast offers the usual array of eggs any style along with a nice choice of fresh fruit and muesli. One of their signature dishes is a breakfast Pizza with Vegemite and cheese. Note they have their own wood fired oven, producing fresh, thin authentic style pizzas. Lunch offers either the full menu or a changing set lunch from HKD 108+. For a full meal the dinner Menu provides a wide choice, ranging from tapas style snacks to quality salads, antipasto, pastas, and prime meat dishes. For dessert a must try is the chocolate pudding, crispy outside and inside awaits a lava like flow of warm melted chocolate!

The Service:

Okay, during the first few weeks things did go awry, but any errors were well handled and corrected. Initially the long space provided a challenge for both the management and the servers, however, this quickly settled and being the professional lot that Castelo Concepts are I am pleased to say the service is great, pretty much most of the time, even when busy. (Yes the place is frequently packed, but they cope well.)

Bouquets:

Great food, consistency of both service and food, stylish yet casual and good value as well.

Brick Bats:

Being on Bridges street with an open area facing the road means that the pollution from passing trucks and the foul odor from the seemingly frequent waste management vehicles proves a real challenge. My only hope is that they see the error of their ways and keep more of the front glass sliding doors closed during the day in the coming months!

Oolaa Soho, Bridges Street back of CentreStage. For reservations telephone: 2803-2083

A matter of manners.

Manners anyone?

Oscar Wilde once stated, “youth is wasted on the young” while I may well concur with this, particularly as I approach the early 40’s, (is there such a thing?) It brings to attention the fact that not just youth is wasted on the young. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for X’ers and Y’s and whatever, what really is disappointing is the uncouth and rather frightful behavior of some people when in public. In particular as I write this, in the Club Lounge of a leading international airline.

To get to the point, what ever happened to manners and etiquette?

Just across from me is some gentlemen, (and I use the term loosely) sitting with his feet up on the table, it started with a toe, progressed to a foot and now both feet are firmly planted on an edifice designed and being used for serving food.

Just to set the record straight, I stopped making public scenes of retribution years ago, so being the passive aggressive type, I moved to another table. But it gets me thinking, why if someone, is well educated, travelling in business class or at least well travelled, committed to such poor standards of public behavior?

All in all, this brings me to the topic of falling standards in general, I am hip enough to accept jeans, even blue, now being worn at semi-formal events, but one needs to draw the line somewhere. While air travel itself has pretty much been reduced to being stuck in a large metal tube along with slipping standards of service does less really mean more?

Not too long ago, I was fortunate enough to meet up with some dear family friends, I was at the home of the parents of an old school chum, they, now in the 80’s, were reflecting on the golden age of air travel, and how on an Constellation, (it’s a type of aircraft) they travelled, in style with service and room to match from Australia to the UK. Of course it took days and the fares back then came at around the same altitude as the planes flew at! Either way it still sounded much nicer that how we travel today.

So while feathered hats a blue blazers may well be travel accessories of the past, all I really ask is if we have to travel, let’s just ensure we take our manners with us, no matter how we are travelling, there is no reason why our manners cannot be first class!

N.B- My forthcoming posts will be more relevant to the the Hong Kong dining scene!

Jasmine revolution ? China's Arab Winter?

Quote from Asia Wall Street Journal - 30th March, 2011

"China's crackdown on domestic dissenters continues, with a 10-year prison sentence issued on Friday to Liu Xianbin, a founder of the China Democratic Party and a signer of Charter 08, a pro-democracy charter. Mr. Liu was sentenced for subverting state power, which in China can mean anything the authorities want it to mean, even advocating for democratic freedoms.

Ten years is unusually harsh and especially so for the 43-year-old Mr. Liu, who has already served almost a decade behind bars. His wife, Chen Mingxian, was allowed to attend the trial otherwise closed to the public and she reports that Mr. Liu was routinely interrupted by the judge as he sought to defend himself. After serving his earlier prison term, Mr. Liu was harassed by security agents who made it difficult for him to hold a job.

Mr. Liu's latest jailing is part of a crackdown that started in February, when a U.S.-based website posted a call for peaceful democratic protests in China. Beijing proceeded to round up scores of activists, human rights lawyers and others. Some have been confined to house arrest; others, like blogger Ran Yunfei, have been criminally detained.

The most worrying cases are those who have simply "disappeared" into the maw of China's extralegal shadow jails. Human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who has been tortured before, hasn't been seen since April 2010. Teng Biao, Jiang Tianyong and Tang Jitian haven't been heard from since February.

The government is also squeezing the media, both domestic and foreign. The South China Morning Post reports that an outspoken columnist for Southern Weekly, a relatively liberal publication by Chinese standards, was recently pressured into a two-year "sabbatical." Internet censorship remains heavy. Foreign journalists in China's biggest cities have had their movements restricted and some have been physically assaulted by security agents.

China's cruelties deserve to be widely publicized and condemned in the West, not least so the country's brave activists know they are not suffering in vain. As in the Middle East, the democratic aspirations of the Chinese people will one day be impossible to contain. Here's hoping that Mr. Liu and his courageous countrymen live to see that day."

END Quote.

Office Romances?

A Fine Romance !

Marilyn Monroe once sung the song “A fine romance” while this was originally a movie score from the film “Swing Time” (an interesting title) with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Now what that has to do with this blog is indeed the thought of: the Office Romance, and that is a fine question.

Is it the lure of love or is it just plain lust that causes us to unwittingly or otherwise get involved in office romances at all? Perhaps it’s the attraction of power that makes us go after or fall for the boss, for the boss though is it the sinister fact that they wield power over a plethora of people and use this to their sexual advantage? Personally I believe it is wrong to misuse this kind of power, but alas it probably goes on all the time. After all this is Hong Kong with money comes power, often in that very order, also of course people in power often acquire considerable wealth. Case in point being so much in the press of late, what with various Dictators being deposed, then having their assets frozen. Or in the case of a certain leader of a European country with both power and money he gets kicked in the ass for so many alleged affairs both in and out of his “Office.”

Of course the ultimate Office Romance debacle was with the one time U.S President Bill Clinton and a certain young intern in his oral office, sorry I mean Oval Office. That issue certainly both stained and strained his term as President. (Yes pun intended). Other U.S Presidents also have a questionable past; this brings us back to Marilyn Monroe and none other than President Kennedy. Again, this fact seems even more obvious when Marilyn sang yet another song…Happy Birthday. It seems someone certainly carried a torch, or perhaps a candle at least for that particular President.

So putting aside Marilyn and Presidents for the moment, what about the humble folk that just get caught up in an Office Romance? Either with juniors or seniors, or just plain each other. Actually I couldn’t think of a less romantic place than the office to begin with, so how romances start from there is rather amazing anyway. I guess just getting thrust together with the same people in the same place day after day for hours on end doesn’t help either. Well after all some people spend more time with their colleagues than with their spouse, unless of course you work in the same office as your spouse, now that really is an un bearable thought!

So to all those either in an office romance or perhaps thinking about getting into one, all I can say, is stop it, you will go blind, go back to work instead!

$$$ Valentines Day$$$

Love, Money and Valentines Day.

Once upon a time, not too long ago, we use to refer to Valentines Day as Saint Valentines Day after the patron Saint of lust….sorry I mean Love* (in reality apparently some martyred Roman Priest during the reign of Claudius the second.) Of course centuries later none of that matters as long as randy devils get a pathetic excuse to palpitate for a supposed love one. Not to mention the effects of commercialism. Let’s face it, sex sells and no matter how romantic one intends to be love isn’t going to come cheap. Here in Hong Kong, despite the chilly weather, five star Hotels and posh restaurants, pulled out all stops to heat up the action and their coffers with “romantic getaways” and dinners. A leading Hotel, had a stunning one off package valued at USD 10,000 for the night, in the Presidential Suite, including a helicopter tour of the harbor, a diamond ring and Rolls Royce transfer. Another leading Restaurant touted the usual aphrodisiacs of Champagne and Oysters along with Caviar and Vodka. Sounds to me the only thing you are likely to get up for that night is a very upset stomach!

So why oh why do we bother with Valentines Day at all? Do single women pine for an unexpected romantic liaison? Do single men out there have a chance anyway?

I once knew one married couple, wherein the female stated, “who needs some card and gift, after ten years of marriage you should know by then if you are happy in love without all that nonsense.” Sounds to me like the romance has well and truly gone out the window on that marriage. Ok now here I will start to sound like a real hypocrite, however, in my defence I am a romantic at heart. So even after my very own fifteen years of marriage, I still give my wife a card and flowers on the V day itself. Even if I am not in the country at the time, if I was really that romantic, wouldn’t I make an effort to actually be there on the day?

Back to the sordid subject of money, how much does or should love cost, oh how I love thee let me count the cash….sorry I mean ways. Oprah once said, in life you can be surrounded by a whole bunch of people but the ones you want are not the ones that will only stick around while you have a Limo, but those that will also be with you when you have to catch a bus. Right I can really see that happening in Hong Kong, I don’t even know how to catch a bus here let alone anyone that actually does. So love may well be a pretty lonely place in Hong Kong after all.

So as Valentines Day passes us once again, I write this while listening to Sarah Vaughn signing “Sweet Affection.” Oh yes how sweet it is…enjoy$.