Tartine - very fancy toasted sandwiches

http://thetartine.com/

There are so many new restaurants opening in Hong Kong that it's hard to keep up.  Sure, I have my regular sources of information to keep abreast of the changes, but it's nearly impossible to track them all.  I didn't have any such problems with recently opened Tartine, I'd been keeping a close eye on it's development each night on my walk home.  I love watching restaurants go from empty spaces to fully fledged establishments, mainly because I know that soon enough I'll be trying them out for myself!

That I was going to check out Tartine was a foregone conclusion, not just because it looked quite different from everything else around SoHo, but because of the involvement of Michelin-starrred Philippe Orrico, the man behind On Dining (see post here) and Upper Modern Bistro (see post here). Orrico is noted as consulting chef, which I assume is just helping with the menu and attributing his name to help the restaurant along, never the less, it got my attention.

Just in case you didn't know, a tartine is a fancy French toasted sandwich and Tartine has combined the humble toasty and spruced them up with high quality ingredients and a farm-to-table philosophy.

We'd planned to hit up Tartine on the way home from work one night and figured that as a brand new restaurant, we'd not need to make a booking.  It was a solid plan, especially since we'd walked by a few times since opening and not seen a soul inside so far.  It was also flawed, unbeknownst to our morning plans, Tartine had gone on an advertising blitz with an article in just about every food publication available in Hong Kong!

Iceworks - the changing face of Paddington dining

http://www.iceworks.com.au/

I love being surprised.  It's a pretty awesome feeling when you take a punt on a restaurant and it pays off handsomely.  Very early on in my blogging adventure, I started to look outside my normal comfort zone for dining spots, which led me to check out Iceworks in Paddington.  It wasn't just any old night either, we'd decided to take a punt on Iceworks on New Years Eve (see post here).  It was a bit of a departure from our usual NYE dinner celebrations, which are normally at more established restaurants.  Like I said, taking a punt can have a big payoff and in this case, it was a meal that was quite unexpected and one to remember.

As is often the case, things change and we were invited along to check out the changes at Iceworks, which included a new team looking after the restaurant, a new chef and a brand new menu.  Nowadays, it pretty common for restaurants to invite along bloggers and regular diners to check out new menus and provide feedback.  Its a great way to engage and reward regular diners and an excellent way to promote the business, but getting bloggers in can be a double edged sword!  There is a bit of pressure on to get it right and if it goes wrong, there is a potential for it to be very public!

We are quite familiar with Iceworks, we've not only dined there before, but we used to live just up the road and had walked past the location many times before.  For residents and those with great memories, you might even remember when the location actually housed real Ice Works, I'm pretty sure it was called the Ithica Iceworks and did a great job of supplying ice to Brisbane residents. We'd arranged to arrive around 6:30pm, so didn't really have time to walk, which with the warmer wether would have been lovely - but not to be.  Forgetting that there was plenty of parking underneath the restaurant, we parked around the corner and ended up walking a bit anyway!