Tag Archives: Jason Black

The Great Big Turkey Feast!

18 Nov

The great big turkey feast hong kong

It’s almost that time of year again - a time for feasting! As a year-end celebration, my company, Empire, is bringing you not just any kind of feast, but the most wonderful feast of all: The Great Big Turkey Feast!

After the success of Eat Your Words in June, we are again bringing together some of the best chefs and food writers in Hong Kong to cook and serve a delicious meal for you that combines all the best dishes associated with Thanksgiving and Christmas.

the great big turkey feast hong kong

On Monday 25th November, at 7.30pm at Linguini Fini, come and feast with us! There will be roast turducken (yes, that’s right, I said turducken - turkey stuffed with duck, stuffed with chicken, stuffed with rice and cornbread!), roast gammon, roast lamb, cold cuts, pates, cheese…. finishing off with festive puddings and pies!

The event features the following superstars:

Aarik Persaud - The Butchers Club
Anthony Fletcher - Shore
Jack Carson - Restoration
Michael van Warmelo - Souvla
Neil Tomes - Alfie’s by KEE
Richard Ekkebus - Amber at The Landmark Mandarin Oriental
Tracy Wei - IHM
Vinny Lauria - Stone Nullah Tavern

Adele Wong - HK Magazine
Alicia Walker - Foodie
Debbie Soo - Crave
Janice Leung Hayes - E-ting and Island East Markets
Lisa Cam - Time Out
Lynn Fung - Fungry and Fabulous
and ME!

Tickets cost $888 and all profits will go to the Hong Kong Neuro-Muscular Disease Association (HKNMDA), in honour of Frank Gocht, a fellow chef who suffers from this disease. For more information about the charity, please visit their website.

Please follow this link to book your tickets. We look forward to feasting with you next week!

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Three Blind Mice

16 Oct

three blind mice wine quote

A wise man once said, “A meal without wine is like a day without sunshine.” This sentence could not be truer, particularly when it is good wine, matched perfectly to your meal. Yet, often, one takes for granted the importance of the sommelier, that vital expert who will take your dining experience from being merely good to excellent.

I mentioned a little while ago that I have started working with Jason Black in a new company called Empire. Part of what we do is create awesome foodie events. Remember Eat Your Words? That was Empire.

Three Blind Mice event Hong Kong

This time we bring you Three Blind Mice, an event designed to highlight the importance of the sommelier.

For one night only, we are taking three iconic Hong Kong Chefs – Patrick Goubier, Jeremy Biasiol and Anthony Fletcher – and three of Hong Kong’s best sommeliers including Sarment’s Sebastien Chevalier. One person alone has chosen 15 wines, keeping them a closely guarded secret. The sommeliers know neither the menu, nor the wines; their goal will be to identify each of the wines and pair what they feel is the best match for your four-course dinner. You will be able to try the wines and also have a go at guessing yourself.

three blind mice wine bottle

It should be a fun, unique event with excellent food and wine, of course!

Here are all the details you need:

When: Monday 28th October
Where: Chez Patrick, 2/F Garden East, 222 Queen’s Road East, Wan Chai
Time: 7pm
Cost: $888 (profits go to charity)

Book your tickets online now: 3blindmice.empire-hongkong.com

 

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Sarment Icons 2014 Cookbook Calendar on sale now!

19 Sep

The moment you have all been waiting for is now here! The Sarment Icons 2014 Cookbook Calendar is on sale NOW!

Icons Chefs

What is the Sarment Icons 2014 Cookbook Calendar, you ask? Only the most beautiful and exciting calendar to hit Hong Kong possibly ever! Jason Black, who brought us the quirky COW PIG CHICKEN cookbook earlier this year, has done it again, this time with something even bigger and better.

Featuring 12 of our fine city’s most prominent chefs (Harlan Goldstein, Gregoire Michaud, Peggy Chan, Vinny Lauria, Neil Tomes, Patrick Goubier, Vincent Thierry, Richard Ekkebus, Esther Sham, Jeremy Biasiol, Anthony Fletcher and Jason Black), this calendar showcases them as gorgeous fashion models, as opposed to in their chef whites as we are used to seeing them. Each of the chefs is photographed wearing designer suits and dresses from the likes of Thomas Pink, The Armoury, Dunhill, Ika Butoni and Angela Chung, as well as jewellery and watches from Graff Diamonds. This is photography at its very best, captured by the talented food and lifestyle photographer Josephine Rozman.

Icons food shots

Each of the chefs has contributed five recipes, including everything from 3-star Michelin recipes to simple pasta dishes, making this a cookbook suitable for any food lover.

The calendar costs $328. It is not just something you will have on your desk all year, it is a collectors item that will last a lifetime. A portion of the proceeds from the calendar go to Foodlink Foundation, to eliminate hunger in Hong Kong.

Buy yours now from www.iconshk.com

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Disclaimer: I know good food from bad food

2 Sep

Good morning wonderful readers,

I just wanted to take a minute or two to tell you about what’s been going on in my professional life recently. As many of you may have seen on various social media platforms, I resigned from my previous job a few months ago in order to start doing something much more in line with my love of all things culinary. I have kept this pretty quiet in the early stages of setting up the business, but I feel it may now be time to explain all.

I will be working with the super talented and very lovely chef Jason Black. We will not only be creating more wonderful cookbooks (one very exciting one will be hitting the shops later this month), organising tremendous events (remember “Eat Your Words”? That was just the first of many of its kind), but we will also be working with restaurants and restaurant groups, handling their social media and, in some cases, their PR.

I will of course continue to write about my food adventures on The Dim Sum Diaries and hope to give you more recommendations on where to eat. I’d just like to take a moment to tell you that although some of the restaurants I write about may now or in the future become my clients, that remains nothing whatsoever to do with The Dim Sum Diaries; my reviews will always be completely objective and honest, whether it’s a meal I have paid for, a meal I was lucky enough to get for free, or even a meal at one of my clients’ restaurants. Whatever relationship I have with any restaurant has never and will never affect my reviews. Jason and I both have a reputation for integrity and I know when food is good and when it is not, and that, dear readers, is what I always seek to divulge to you.

Now that that little matter is dealt with, let’s decide where to eat next…

Happy eating!

Ale

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Tramshed, London

7 Aug

the dim sum diaries hong kong

 

 

tramshed londonCows and chickens have played a large part in my life recently, starting with Jason Black’s wonderful cookbook COW PIG CHICKEN. Needless to say, when, on a recent jaunt back to London, I heard about Tramshed, a restaurant specialising in solely cow and chicken (not sure what they have against poor pigs), I thought it quite a fitting choice for dinner.

Tramshed, in the heart of uber trendy Shoreditch, is the seventh restaurant opened by renowned chef, restaurateur and food writer Mark Hix. As you may be able to gather from its name, the grade-II listed building was once an electricity generating station for trams; its toweringly high ceilings and steel arches also give testament to this. The main focal point as soon as you enter the vast restaurant, however, is the specially commissioned piece of artwork by Damien Hirst: a giant formaldehyde-filled tank containing a real cow and chicken. Just in case anyone is still unsure what this place is all about, at the back of the restaurant, a huge painting (also by Damien Hirst) of the cartoon Cow and Chicken adorns the wall of the mezzanine level.

tramshed londonThe menu, of course, is pretty much limited to cow and chicken. The starters (designed for sharing) change on a regular basis, whilst the main courses consist of either chicken or steak (for one or to share) with a range of sides to go with either. There are of course vegetarian options if you insist on being difficult, but, generally speaking, if you don’t love a bit of chicken or steak then perhaps Tramshed just isn’t the place for you.

tramshed london

To begin, we couldn’t resist ordering the Yorkshire pudding with whipped chicken livers. Living in Hong Kong, Yorkshire puds are not something I regularly come across, which made this gloriously crispy yet doughy pud even more of a treat. Who cares if the deliciously smooth, rich chicken pate served alongside it made the whole dish even more unhealthy – it tasted wonderful and that’s surely all that matters, right?!

To chase this, we each had a shooter of pea and ham soup. Served chilled, it was refreshingly minty and light, topped with crispy pork crackling, making it the perfect prelude to the chicken and steak feast that was to come.

tramshed london

Wanting to make sure we tried a bit of both animals, we opted for individual portions of each. Having had pre-starters at Callooh Callay down the road before our actual starters (fatties), the individual portions stretched more than far enough to serve as sharing portions for two. Tramshed’s chickens come from the village of Goosnargh in Lancashire, where they are apparently treated and fed like royalty, resulting in “memorable poultry that really is a joy to eat.” I concur; the interestingly presented spring chicken was succulent and flavoursome without even a hint of dryness. I rarely order chicken in a restaurant, given that it is one of the easiest things to cook at home, yet I would certainly order this one again.

tramshed london

The Glenarm ‘Mighty Marbled’ sirloin steak was even better, however – beautifully tender, sweet and flavoursome, achieved through dry-ageing it in a Himalayan salt chamber.

tramshed london

Sides of Scrumpy fried onions, minted peas and broad beans, as well as the chips that came with the steak, were the perfect complement to all of the above. I’m not usually an onion ring kind of girl, yet these slightly sweet, not too heavy rings of goodness were decidedly moreish.

tramshed london

To finish, despite the food babies that were quickly growing inside us, we stuck to what we had already decided at the beginning of the meal: that the Cornish salted caramel fondue needed to be tasted. A cute ceramic pot of bubbling salted caramel sat atop a tealight candle, alongside fluffy homemade marshmallows and crispy doughnut chunks – yes, it was every bit as delicious and indulgent as it sounds!

Service at Tramshed was spectacular, as our friendly waiter offered us recommendations and personal tips to make every bit of our meal all the more enjoyable. One thing that mildly annoyed me, however, is the fact that a 10% service charge was automatically added to the bill – something that, unlike in HK, UK restaurants never used to do. We obviously would have been more than willing to tip generously had it been our choice, but having this choice taken away from us left a slightly sour taste. Regardless, for a satisfying meal of this calibre, washed down with a bottle of ‘Tramshed Red’, we paid £48 (approx HKD570) each, which, given how much a similar restaurant would charge in HK, wasn’t unreasonable at all. Tramshed, you really know how to make those cows and chickens of the world truly shine, thank you.*

Tramshed

32 Rivington Street
London
EC2A 3LX
UK

Tel: +44 (0)20 7749 0478

www.chickenandsteak.co.uk

*Apologies to all the food photo critics out there – I get frowned upon every time I get my Canon out in the UK, so these are quick low-light iPhone snaps that clearly do not do the food any justice!

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Eat Your Words - where the critics get critiqued

3 Jun

Those of you who follow me on Twitter (@dimsumdiaries) may have seen an increasing number of tweets going backwards and forwards between me and the wonderful (if a bit of a teaser) chef Jason Black (@jasonblack_hk), in which either he dismisses my ability to cook, or I dismiss his. We are not simply being rude to each other (much); we are in fact creating a buzz about an exciting upcoming charity event called Eat Your Words, in which we will both be cooking.

Eat Your Words Hong Kong event

Take 5 great Hong Kong chefs, pair them with 5 awesome food writers (if I may say to myself), and you have yourself Eat Your Words, a fun event in which the diners (all 125 of them – yikes!) get their chance to critique the critics. The aim of this little exercise is to prove that when we writers put pen to paper (OK, fingers to keyboards) to insult or praise food, we do in fact know the labour and love that goes into creating each dish. We can write about food, but can we cook it?!

The event will be held on Monday 24th June, 7pm at The Salted Pig.

Here is the line up for the night:

Alicia Walker (Foodie) with James Black (The Salted Pig)
Janice Jann (Time Out) with Arturo Melendez (Chicha)
Janice Leung Hayes (E-ting) with Anthony Fletcher (The Pawn)
Adele Wong (HK Magazine) with Jason Black (Shore)
Ale Wilkinson (The Dim Sum Diaries) with Gregoire Michaud (Bread Elements)

There is of course an element of competition involved, as each team competes against each other to receive the highest rating from the diners. We’ve obviously saved the best for last, so make sure you save room for dessert…

As this is a charity event, there will also be an auction on the night with some really great prizes ranging from a two-night stay in a boutique hotel, to a meat cooking class from Jason Black. I have somehow agreed to put myself up for auction – bid for me and you could win a date with me at Chicha! Please bid high boys; I am expensive and it’s all for a great cause!

Tickets for this unique 5-course dinner (with drinks pairing) go on sale TODAY, Monday 3rd June for $888 per person, and a portion of all proceeds go to Foodlink, to help alleviate hunger in Hong Kong. Head down to The Salted Pig today to get yours!

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Winners for Jason Black’s Cookbook Competition Announced

22 Mar

cow pig chicken jason black hong kong

Jason Black’s recipe tester competition for his exciting upcoming cookbook cow pig chicken has now closed. We had an overwhelming number of responses, most of which were truly excellent. This made it almost impossible to select the top five entries, but, after very careful consideration, we have managed to narrow it down to five lucky winners.

We were surprised at the very generous offers to help from some fantastic chefs, some of which are even working at some of our favourite venues too! Testing the recipes is really about ensuring that they can work under most conditions, not just for able chefs but also for amateur home cooks. We were therefore unable to select the professional chefs, and the almost professionals, even though we would have loved to work with them. Practised cooks, who would most likely be able to cook a gourmet feast with their eyes closed, would have instinctively tweaked the recipes as they went along, or at least skim read the instructions, knowing what was coming next. The real challenge is following the recipes to the letter, in order to make sure that each step is logical, accurate and successful. We have no doubt that every single applicant could have done a superb job, but of course, with it being a competition, not everyone can be a winner.

And so, without further ado, the five lucky recipe testers are:

Sally Collier

jason black cookbook cow pig chicken

Sally is a keen cook, having grown up in her mother’s home catering kitchen. Originally from Trinidad, she has lived in Australia, the US and the UK and now finds herself enjoying her fifth decade in HK. Her favourite meal is a good roast with all the trimmings, followed by a lavish dessert, all of course accompanied by a great bottle of wine.

Karen Herrero

jason black cookbook hong kong cow pig chicken

Karen is a 32 year old Spanish citizen who grew up in Canada. In the past 10 years, her job has moved her from Canada to Belgium to France and 2 years ago to Hong Kong. She enjoys the chaotic lifestyle in Asia and is thankful to have a full kitchen to support her unique form of mediation… baking! She loves cooking and hosting brunches and dinners with a focus on European and Middle Eastern flavours.

Veronica Mihno

jason black cookbook hong kong cow pig chicken

Veronica, 45, is from Sydney, Australia. Her mum says she started eating solid foods at 5 months old … and frankly she hasn’t stopped since! She has travelled to 33 different countries and makes it her mission to sample whatever culinary delights she finds. She no longer buys traditional souvenirs; she buys kitchen utensils. She has been living in Hong Kong for 13 years and is still delighted with a new find at the wet markets, and you will most certainly find her puttering about the foreign food isles at supermarkets. She is an all round cook, but the best compliments from her friends and guests are for her roasts, pastries and cakes. “Yumm-o!”

Payal Patel

jason black cookbook hong kong cow pig chicken

Payal is a relative HK ‘newbie’ having moved here from the UK about 5 months ago. She would be lieing if she said she ‘lurves it’ just yet, but she’s definitely finding her way and making the most of what HK has to offer – which as you well know is plenty and some! She is pleased that she has not limited her experience thus far to merely bar hopping; she has been to some wonderful restaurants, been on numerous hikes and thrown in some travelling too.

There’s nothing fancy about the stuff Payal likes to cook–large portions of unpretentious comfort food.

Megan Smith

jason black cookbook hong kong cow pig chicken

Though often referred to as ‘that girl who likes cake’, which, by the way, she takes to be a positive rather than negative reference, her real name is Megan Smith. Having graduated in the UK just last June, Megan hopped on a plane to HK as fast as she could to begin a new chapter of her life here. Currently “22-years-old going on 62″, she enjoys eating, food, cooking, food, baking, food, running (usually towards the prospect of food), rowing (often followed by food) and reading (about food). “Greedy? Me? Never!”

These recipe testers were selected on the basis of their excellent responses to the question “what makes you think you have what it takes to be one of Jason’s elite recipe testers?”

We are all very excited about cow pig chicken and can’t wait to get started on the recipe testing! Updates will follow, so watch this space to see how the book is coming along and when it will be on the shelves for you to buy.

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Jason Black’s Cookbook Competition - Do You Have What It Takes?

27 Feb

I think you are all aware of how much I truly love food. If I wasn’t eating out all the time visiting as many restaurants as possible to try to give you, my readers, a comprehensive guide to Hong Kong dining, I would be found in the kitchen, putting my love of food to good use and cooking up a feast. Now it is time to see how much you truly love food, and in particular how much you truly love cooking.

jason black cow pig chicken

The wonderful Jason Black, chef behind Shore and my favourite, The Salted Pig, is writing a magnificent cookbook entitled ‘Cow, Pig, Chicken’. It will contain recipes from his two already well-established eateries, as well as an exciting new concept, which will be coming soon.

I am honoured to be working as Jason’s editor on this project and, having seen the recipes, I know this is going to be a pretty phenomenal cookbook.

cow pig chicken jason black hong kong

We need you!

In the final stages of putting the book together, Jason now needs your help! In order to make sure that his recipes are spot on and will work in a home kitchen as opposed to a just a restaurant, Jason needs some able cooks to volunteer as recipe testers.

cow pig chicken jason black hong kong

The prize

The five lucky winners will be provided with the following:

  • Ingredients to test a selection of the recipes in their home kitchen
  • Inclusion in the credits of the book
  • Photos in the book of them testing the recipes (either in their own kitchen or in Jason’s test kitchen)
  • A free copy of the book, with their name on the front cover

How to enter:

All you have to do to enter and stand a chance of being included in Cow, Pig, Chicken is answer the following question:

What makes you think you have what it takes to be one of Jason’s elite recipe testers?

Please send an email with the subject heading ‘Cow, Pig, Chicken’ with your answer to [email protected] before Friday 15th March.

Jason and I will handpick the five lucky winners based on the five best answers and contact these winners at the end of March.

Recipe testing will commence after Easter.

Good luck and happy cooking!

This competition is now closed. Thank you for all your excellent responses.

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The Salted Pig

21 Sep

the salted pig hong kong

The pig has always been one of my favourite animals, mainly when it’s served on a plate in any of its delicious forms. I wouldn’t say I disliked se sa me, but when I heard it had closed and would be replaced by a restaurant specialising in PIG, do you think I was upset? Most definitely not. In fact, quite the opposite: when I heard about The Salted Pig’s imminent opening, I was like a child (or myself) on Christmas Eve, excitedly calculating just how much pig I could physically eat.

The Salted Pig is brought to us by the team behind highly successful Shore Restaurant and Bar, complete with its wonderful chef Jason Black; so he’s not only a specialist in cow, but pig too…it makes me wonder how exciting he could make chicken…

the salted pig hong kong

The space is entirely transformed from its se sa me days; it is a casual, down to earth eatery with bare wooden tables, simple wooden chairs and creative hanging lights. Above a row of tables in the centre of the room, all sorts of knick-knacks, pots and pans hang precariously.

The menu reflects the décor; there is not an air of fancy fine dining where you’re paying top dollar for a measly crumb that happens to be beautifully presented. Instead, the majority of the dishes are for sharing, family style, and are certainly hearty portions.

the salted pig hong kong

Our ‘oink-fest’, as Chef Jason likes to call it, began with a Pre-appetizer charcuterie platter, consisting of five kinds of cold cuts, pork terrine, pork rillettes, scotch eggs and piccalilli. I was particularly impressed by the quality of the cold cuts, the smoothness of the rillettes and the sheer perfection of the homemade scotch eggs.

the salted pig hong kong

To follow came a dish of gorgeous bacon-wrapped scallops with broad bean, pea and mint ‘mash’, with cider dressing. The scallops were only lightly seared, giving them the most perfect, firm yet never rubbery texture. Whilst I loved how the scallop and the bacon went together, my only suggestion is that the bacon could perhaps have been just a touch crispier, to add a deeper contrast in texture to the buttery scallop and creamy ‘mash’.

the salted pig hong kong

A green bean, broad bean and sweet pea salad with baby lettuce hearts, feta and warm bacon dressing came next. This was summer in a bowl. The sharp crunch of the lettuce and radicchio paired perfectly with the creamy feta, sweet veggies and salty bacon.

the salted pig hong kong

Moving on to the mains, we shared three between the four of us, as two are designed as sharing plates. The “Rub n Tickle” belly, having been cooked sous-vide, was packed full of flavour and incredibly juicy. Obviously it was a fatty piece of meat, but that’s what pork belly is all about, especially when the pork and fat are beautifully cooked so that they both melt into one. This came served with a lovely potato and egg salad, coleslaw, and amazingly crunchy crackling, alongside an adorable cute mini Le Creuset pot of special sauce.

the salted pig hong kong

From the accurately named ‘Porker Feast’ section of the menu, we shared The Rack, an incredible mouth-wateringly tasty and succulently tender slow cooked pork loin rack. Served alongside roasted carrots, onions and fennel, with a jug of creamy mustard sauce, this was indeed a feast on its own.

the salted pig hong kong

A sage and mustard-crusted pork loin steak with white mushroom and marsala cream sauce was incredible: faultlessly juicy with a lovely flavoursome crust. I particularly loved the fact that it was served with roasted Granny Smith apples, which added a tartness to complement the sweetness of the sauce and the saltiness of the pork.

the salted pig hong kong

Although we didn’t really need sides, we tried the classic mac ‘n cheese (the ultimate comfort food), the pancetta braised creamy Brussels sprouts (would definitely add magic to any Christmas meal), and, just to be healthy, the cherry tomato salad with basil (wonderfully refreshing and light).

the salted pig hong kong

After all this, we tried not one, not two, but all five desserts from the blackboard menu: Chocolate and citrus tart, Pistachio and white chocolate mousse, Raspberry marshmallow with rhubarb compote, Banana and fudge Eton mess, and Carrot cake. I would imagine it would be too much to ask to suggest you save space for all five, but I strongly recommend at least saving space for the latter three, and particularly the incredible carrot cake, made with olive oil and topped with a carrot crisp; I think it actually rivals my own carrot cake…

Prices for this ‘oink-fest’ will surprise you. In a good way. For an abundant three-course meal with wine (served by the carafe), you won’t be paying much more than $350-$400 a head. The Salted Pig is not only doing something completely different to anywhere else in Hong Kong, but it is doing it well, with excellent service, for very reasonable prices. I’m very excited about how close it is to my office…but it does make me slightly fear for my waistline!

The Salted Pig

2/F, The L Place
139 Queen’s Road Central
Hong Kong

Tel: +852 2870 2323

P.S. since writing the original review, I have already been back for lunch (can you tell I loved it?) and wowee what a lunch. Go for the ‘Porker Set Lunch’ and definitely get the shredded pork knuckle sandwich – it’s seriously worth the food coma it will send you into afterwards…

Do you know what makes The Salted Pig even better? They have kindly offered a 10% DISCOUNT to all my loyal readers – simply mention The Dim Sum Diaries when you ask for your bill and you’ll get 10% off until 31st October 2012. Enjoy your oink-fest, you porker!

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