Mr Shallot celebrated (lament is probably a more accurate description) a milestone birthday recently and to mark the occasion, One of the Best Women (OBW) and her man (who shall now be referred to as Boat Boy) visited. It was the beginning of a week of festivities (or miseries depending on perspective!).

The evening’s festivities saw us at The Drawing Room where we ate our second best meal in Hong Kong. Our favourite has been Robuchon for our anniversary a couple of years ago.

We began at the bar, where many good (and often messy) nights do start. We were slightly worried when the bar guy referred to a book before making two cosmopolitans but it did pick up from there. The nibblies were salted cashew nuts that seemed to also be dipped in cinnamon sugar. This resulted in a flavour that is now known as ‘nut donut’.

After our cocktails, we were escorted to our table. A rather large circular table for four gave plenty of room for the various wine glasses and food dishes to follow.

The room itself is up a few flights of stairs and is quite dark with high ceilings and soft lighting from shaded lamps. The windows all have heavy curtains (not much of a view there anyway) and the walls have various paintings and drawing. The dining tables line the two main walls with one end being blocked by the kitchen and the other end being the entrance into the venue. It’s quite a cosy feeling and not as claustrophobic as what this probably sounds. It’s part of the JIA Boutique Hotel and they refer to it as ‘chic ambience’. Stylishly cosy is a more accurate description but it doesn’t attract diners.

We were given two choices of tasting menu (varied in course number and dish) as well as a wine list the size of small book. Hot bread was placed on the table and we were advised the dishes of the day. Remarkably, we were able to all order different dishes from the tasting menu and even replace dishes from one menu with dishes from the other. The really fantastic part was they would wine match for each of us. We were suitably impressed because it’s a pain to try to order a bottle of wine that suits beef, fish and chicken as well as the various other courses. I think we had seven courses including dessert.

As the bread basket was nearing empty and we hadn’t decided all our courses, OBW announced one of her pet peeves was restaurants not replacing the bread basket. No sooner was this out of her mouth, than there was a fresh basket on the table. Lucky for her, this also happened at another restaurant we went to later in the week. This phenomenon is now to be referred to as the magic pudding bread basket.

The sommelier poured our wines and explained why he had chosen each one to accompany each particular dish. The dishes had been explained prior to ordering. We had a chat with him about some in particular as it can be difficult to source some of these in HK so he provided the contact details of the importers.

Three of us ordered a dish that mentioned truffles. Expecting a shaving, we nearly fell off our chairs when one of the waiters came by to shave large chunks onto our dish that we could already see truffle flecks in. He was accompanied by another waiter who held the tray of truffles.
I was thankful of the magic pudding bread basket at this point as my grandmother would have a heart attack had I left any of this sauce in my bowl. The three of us mopped it up and the bread basket was again replaced. One of my uncles would describe this behaviour as something typical of my family – obviously he married in and needless to say, he has been known to do the same thing!

Nearing the end of the meal, I had ordered a cheese platter for dessert. The Cheese Guy (do they have another name?) explained what they all were and the order that I should eat them in. I love cheese. I had eaten most and was up to the Gorgonzola which is generally a cheese that I like. This one tasted and smelt like sweaty socks.

It was at this moment, the Head Chef, Roland Schuller decided to do a walk of the restaurant. He informed us about the truffles, which were from Tasmania but as of next week, they will be from Western Australia as the season has changed. Perhaps he’d seen how much we enjoyed this dish.

He then asked me what I thought of the food and I told him. Exactly what I told him was roughly “the dishes were fantastic but this cheese smells and tastes like sweaty socks”, to which the Cheese Guy replied “I don’t think much of this one either but there is a nicer one”.

With this, Roland (I can call him by his first name now given what happened next) asked me if I’d like a tour of his kitchen. Difficult to imagine how so much great food came out of such a small kitchen but I guess that’s why the restaurant doesn’t seat too many. He explained to me about different Gorgonzolas as he realised why I didn’t like this particular one and had another chef take out a different one and slice it for me. I was shown the fridge area and the pantry where he explained where he sources all of his vegetables.

I left the kitchen with two lemons from the Ivory Coast in a brown paper bag. Not a bad way to end a meal.

* Thanks to whoever came up with this nursery rhyme. Click here for the history and all the words.

Thanks also to those of you that have contacted me to start posting again – sorry for the delay!