Wineshark HK Restaurant Review - Commissary

This American restaurant is located in Pacific Place, a causal all-day dining eatery and bar. Apart from the indoor dining area, there are outdoor covered seating but in such hot weather we chose to eat more comfortably inside.

The decor is decent, without much frill, offering a friendly ambiance to diners. The seating is comfortable, with the table size appropriate as I often found many restaurants are having a table too small for dinner nowadays. There is also a bar with some high chairs for customers just to want a few drinks.

I ordered a Jasmine Green Kombucha ($30) to start. The naturally carbonated fermented tea has a nice sour taste and refreshing, no wonder it is getting more popular in town. The Chip & Guacamole ($88) is always a safe bet. The corn chips are crispy, while the guacamole in my opinion could use a bit more lime juice to add the sourness. Instead of tomatoes, the restaurant added some paprika to add to the color but that results in a lack of complexity of flavors. Not bad but certainly not impressive.

The Chicken Caesar Salad ($178) should be another safe bet in most restaurants. There is nothing wrong on the salad, except the croutons, which are stale and not crunchy, apparently not made fresh. The chicken was grilled with herbs and served in a single piece, but I prefer that it is cut into pieces for sharing.

Before the main we had Clam Spaghetti with Chili and Shrimp Oil ($188). The texture of the spaghetti is very good, with a nice chewy bite. The chili is not too spicy but increases the complexity in taste, and the shrimp oil further adds flavors to the pasta. However, I found the clams too 'fishy'. Having cooked the same type of clam myself, even if very fresh they tend to have such challenge though.

The main dish was Pulled Pork Shoulder ($218). Served with Corn Cob, Pickles, Salad and Corn Toast, it is the best dish on the night in my opinion, with the pork shoulder tender and juicy, marinated well with BBQ sauce which are flavorful. But given we were already very full we could not finish the pork.

Service was quite friendly and I saw the bartender interacting with the customers happily while mixing the cocktails. The bill on the night was $772 and overall the price was a bit on the high side. A bit disappointing to be honest, I hope they can correct the issues to improve the quality of its food. 

Wineshark Cooking Class - Pig Ear Salad 豬耳沙律

Ingredients (for 4):

• Pig ear - 2 
• Turnip - 150 g
• Salt - 1/2 tsp
• Green bean vermicelli - 20 g
• Chicken stock - 1/2 cup
• Salt - dashes
• Green bell pepper - 1
• Red chili - 1
• Spring onion - 4 sprigs
• Oil - 2 tbsp
• Fish sauce - 2 tbsp
• White vinegar - 1 tbsp
• Sugar - 1 tbsp
• Salt - dashes
• Sesame oil - 2 tsp
• Ginger - 1 small piece
• Shallot - 1 (smashed)
• Garlic - 1 clove (smashed)
• Chinese yellow wine - 1 tbsp

Procedures:

1. Put the pig ears, ginger, shallot, garlic, Chinese yellow wine in a pot, add water to cover the pig ears, and cook for 30 minutes.

2. Take away the pig ears and put under running water to cool down. Return to the pot and add fish sauce, salt and a cup of water to boil for another 20 minutes.

3. Remove the pig ears and put in fridge.

4. Cut the turnip into thin strips.

5. Massage the turnip with some salt, then squeeze the water out.

6. Cut the green bell pepper, red chili and garlic into thin strips.

7. Soak the green bean vermicelli in water until softened, then cook with the chicken stock and a bit of salt until transparent. Cut the green bean vermicelli.

8. Cut the pig ears into thin strips.

9. Cut the spring onion into strips and then cook in hot oil until fragrant. Pour the spring onion and oil into a large bowl.

10. Mix with fish sauce, white vinegar, sugar, salt and sesame oil to form the salad sauce.

11. Add the pig ears and mix well.

12. Add the turnip, green bean vermicelli, green bell pepper, red chili, garlic and mix well.

13. Put the salad in fridge for at least 2 hours to let the flavors absorb into the ingredients.

Wineshark Cooking Class - Fried Noodles with Shiitake Mushroom and Shredded Chicken

Ingredients (for 4):

• Chicken fillet - 320 g
• Egg noodle - 4 
• Shiitake mushroom - 8
• Cabbage - 1/4
• Garlic - 2 cloves
• Oil - 1 tsp
• Soy sauce - 1 tsp + 1 tsp
• Corn starch - 1 tsp
• Black pepper finely - 1 tsp + 1 tsp
• Oyster sauce - 2 tsp

Procedures:

1. Soak the shiitake mushroom until softened, then cut into strips.

2. Cut the chicken fillet into cubes. Marinate with soy sauce, corn starch and black pepper finely.

3. Peel the cabbage into small pieces, then blanch in boiling water for 30 seconds. Drip dry.

4. Peel the garlic and cut into finely.

5. Put the egg noodles in boiling water and cook for 2 minutes. Remove and place under running water.

6. Heat the wok and add a teaspoon of oil, stir-fry the garlic until fragrant.

7. Add the shiitake mushroom and chicken fillet. Continue to stir fry.

8. Add the egg noodles and then add the seasonings. Mix well. 

9. Then add the cabbage and mix well before serving.

Wineshark HK Restaurant Review - Cafe Malacca

This Singapore/Malaysian restaurant is located in Hotel Jen in Western District, with a simple decor offering comfortable and friendly atmosphere for diners. Being awarded Michelin Bib Gourmand in 2014 and 2015, it tried to recreate the tone and theme of the hawker stalls famous in the two countries with many of the signature dishes.

In the early 18th century, traders from the Middle East, India, China and Indonesia were coming to Malaya through the Straits of Malacca, merging their cuisines with all the foreign flavors and spices with the local cuisine from Malaya. This melding of tastes has evolved to the cuisines found in Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca and Singapore, which are the features of this restaurant.

I ordered something I haven't drunk for ages to start: Milo Dinosaur ($58). This drink is basically an Iced Milo with Milo toppings. Although simple but really delicious, it brought back a lot of fond childhood memories when I had the same drink in the food stalls downstairs from where I lived, which nowadays is already non-existent in HK. This one is nice in that it had the right sweetness, and also not having too many ice to dilute the beverage even at the end of the meal.

We had a few appetizers too. First is Fried Carrot Cake ($108). The turnip cakes are cut into cubes and then fried with bean sprouts, radish toppings, and served with homemade chili sauce. Quite spicy, the turnip cake was soft but it lacks the steaming hot 'wok hei' in many hawker stalls. There are prawns in the dish to add some crunchy texture to the dish. Overall it is a fair dish but not impressive.

The other appetizer was Penang Chee Cheong Fun ($88). The home-made steamed rice rolls are of Penang style, thinner than the HK version, flat instead of round, and rather short in length. Reasonably silky on texture, the rice roll is paired with hoisin (seafood) sauce, prawn paste, chili sauce, with also a sprinkle of sesame seeds and fried shallots. The sauce had a really intense seafood and prawn taste, which is very different from the local one. I would say the taste is rather polarizing as I can see people might not be used to and like it.

For the main dish we had the Klang Bakut Teh ($138). The fragrant herbal pork rib soup has intense flavors, with a nice sweet aftertaste from the herbs. The spare ribs are boiled well, with the meat easily detached from the bone, paired with soy sauce and chili sauce for dipping. The bean curd puffs, which absorbed the soup, are good in taste and there are also some fried fritters which can be added too to have the same effect. Quite good in fact, but I personally like the Singapore version with the white peppers more.

The other main dish was Malaysian Curry Chicken ($128). The sauce is a bit too strong in the tumeric flavors for me, but not sure whether this is the original local style. The chicken was not particularly flavorful, with the potatoes tasting better in fact. The dish did include steamed rice so on its own this can already be a good meal for one.

Fried Ipoh Bean Sprouts with Salted Fish ($108) has something I wanted to try for a while. One of my colleagues at work is originated from Ipoh, and he always bragged about how good their bean sprouts are. Short and fat, the bean sprouts are certainly very different from the look, and I found they are in fact very good, without the grassy notes many bean sprout can exhibit. The salted fish further added the savory notes to the dish. This one is the better of the dishes on the night.

The service is decent, with the staff attentive and friendly, and the overall dining experience is rather pleasant. The total bill was $691 and I would say it is fairly reasonable. 

Wineshark Cooking Class - Chicken Leg 'Country Style'

Ingredients (for 4):

• Chicken leg - 4
• Salt - 1 tsp
• Flour - 1/2 tbsp
• Brandy - 2 tbsp
• White wine - 175 ml
• Paprika - 2 tsp
• Whipping cream - 80 ml
• Parmesan cheese - 50 g
• Milk - 160 ml
• Bread crumbs - 1/2 tbsp
• Parmesan cheese - 20 g
• French mustard - 2 tsp

Procedures:

1. Clean the chicken leg and wipe dry with kitchen paper. Marinate with salt for 30 minutes.

2. Pan-fry the chicken leg to golden after coating the skin with some flour. 

3. Remove the extra oil on the pan, then pour in the brandy and burn off the alcohol.

4. Add the white wine, cream, paprika, milk and Parmesan cheese to cook for 10 minutes.

5. Put the chicken leg onto an oven tray and sprinkle with mixture of bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese.

6. Bake until the surface turns golden brown.

Wineshark Cooking Class - Russian Borscht

Ingredients (for 4):

• Pork rump - 600 g
• Celery - 250 g
• Carrot - 250 g
• Onion - 250 g
• White cabbage - 250 g
• Cooking oil - 2 tsp
• Green bell pepper - 15 g
• Red chili - 1
• Beetroot - 1/2
• Bay leaf - 2
• Garlic finely - 1 tsp
• Tomato - 1
• Tomato paste - 50 g
• Maggi - 1 tsp
• Tomato juice - 125 ml
• Tabasco - dashes
• Salt - 1 tsp

Procedures:

1. Prepare the stock by boiling the pork rump, half a onion, 2 stalks of celery, half a carrot, 2 bay leaves and 10 black peppercorn with 1 litre of water. 

2. Cut the celery and carrot into strips.

3. Cut the onion, green bell pepper into strips.

4. Cut the beetroot, tomato into strips.

5. Cut the white cabbage into pieces.

6. Stir-fry the vegetable with oil.

7. Add the stock and other ingredients. Cook for 45 minutes.

8. Season with salt, maggi and tabasco. 

9. Cut the pork rump into cubes and mix back into the soup.

10. Serve with sour cream if desired. 

Wineshark HK Restaurant Review - The Drunken Pot

This hotpot restaurant is located in Causeway Bay V-Point, but there is another outlet in TST. Decorated with interesting street arts, lights that look like traditional lanterns, there is a hip atmosphere which give a great contrast to most of the hotpot restaurants in town. The name translates to 'a pot of wine', it is renown for the many different soup bases.

Arriving early in the evening there are not that many customers yet, and we were seated on the window side with a nice view. However, we felt quite hot and the staff helped us to move to another table in a side room, which was much cooler.

We ordered a drink to start, with me going for Cucumber & Lime ($58) while my wife had the more traditional Sugarcane and Imperatae Drink ($28). The former is quite refreshing and is a good beverage to accompany hotpot, while the latter has a modern twist, served using a bulb-shaped glass. I found the sugarcane drink a bit weird on the taste though.

The soup base was Fish Maw and Chicken with Chinese Medicine ($198). There was half a chicken in the soup with a few pieces of fish maw, and even before we put other food in, the soup was already very tasty.

The restaurant has some signature hand-made meatballs. We decided to try both the Drunken Chicken ($88 for 3 pieces) and Happy Penguin ($88 for 3 pieces). Both looks very cute, but in fact they are nothing special, with one a shrimp ball on fish ball 'egg-shell' while the other is squid ball. They are also quite pricey.

We also ordered a live fish for sashimi. Visiting the fish tanks I decided to have a live Sea Bream ($788). Fresh and tasty, the fish has a great texture, offering a nice bite and a delicate flavor.

As the size of the fish is large, the staff recommended us to deep-fry the belly, bones and head with garlic salt. Really good for pairing with beer (but unfortunately I was not drinking one), it was a nice 'two-way' for the sea bream.

The other dish I liked was the Onion, Pork, Shrimp and Egg Dumplings ($58). Although it sounds trivial, this one was in fact tasty, with the good mix of pork and shrimp giving a nice crunchy texture wrapped inside the egg 'crepe', and the onion added good flavors. Compared with the signature meat balls ordered, this one was much more tasty and better value for money.

We also had Frozen Bean Curd Cubes ($38). A great dish for most hot pot, the cubes absorbed the flavors from the soup, making them bursting in mouth (be careful!) with great taste. In my opinion a no-brainer choice.

Wrapping up the Assorted Vegetables ($68) offered a mix of different seasonal vegetables, including different types of broccoli, corn, pumpkin, cherry tomatoes, kale and Chinese lettuce. All were good and fresh but the corn was a bit too old for me.

Service is in fact quite good, with the staff friendly and advising us to order the appropriate portion. The bill on the night was $1,601 and frankly it was quite expensive, but mainly due to the fresh sea bream ordered. If you want to try a place for hot pot with nice view and hip design, this is an option. But if you just want a nice hot pot, there are many other choices.