Solo dining at Lobster Central

http://lobstercentralgroup.com/

I love that you can be wandering around a part of town that you thought you knew well, but realised that you didn't.  I had this feeling when walking down Stanley Street in Central a couple of weeks ago, where I noticed a new little 'hole-in-the-wall' restaurant that was right up my alley.

I'd developed a real taste for lobster rolls when visiting New York a few years back (see post here) and have been lowly tracking down all of the dining spots that have lobster rolls on their menus.  You can imagine my surprise and delight when I stumbled across a spot that specialised in lobster rolls!

Deciding that I'd check it out for lunch one day, I made a beeline for Lobster Central and discovered that the little hole-in-the-wall spot was a lot bigger than I'd first noticed.  There was room for about twenty or so diners to sit down and enjoy the simple joy of a lobster roll.

The menu at Lobster Central is pretty short and to the point, which is really what the team are trying to achieve, with a view to stripping down the roll to it's 'most naked form'.  What does that mean you might ask?  Well, it means that the lobster rolls at Lobster Central are stripped down and dressed minimally - there is a brioche bread roll, lobster and a light coating of a house made lemon butter with a secret spice mix.  No fancy salad and a generous amount of lobster.

Lobster and Mussels by Paul's Kitchen - the best lobster rolls outside of New York

http://www.pauls-kitchen.com/

I'm forever being surprised by the sights and sounds of Hong Kong, around every corner is something new or different, even areas you think you know well.  It's amazing how many times we'd walked down Aberdeen Street to visit Sheung Wan, never detouring down the many side streets to see what other exciting adventures we might enjoy.  Little did we realise that perhaps one of the coolest streets in Hong Kong was right at our finger tips, all we had to do was veer left.

Gough Street is right at the end of Aberdeen Street and walking past in a hurry, you'd never guess that the street was home to a veritable hive of little shops full of knickknacks and funky dining spots.  It was only leading up to Christmas and some promised Christmas markets that ensured we did veer left, a direction that opened up a world of funky shops and would ultimately lead us to Lobster and Mussels by Paul's Kitchen.  

Formerly just plain old Paul's Kitchen, the tiny 'hole in the wall' dining spot would be easy to miss if you were not paying attention.  Paul's Kitchen had been around for eight years before a move necessitated opening up a few doors down from it's original location.  The move also led to a change of concept and name, hence Lobster and Mussels by Paul's Kitchen was born.

Lupa by Mario Batali - bringing a bit of the Big Apple to Hong Kong

http://www.luparestaurant.com/hongkong/home.cfm

Wandering around Central one evening we heard some pumping beats coming from somewhere overhead.  A closer inspection skywards revealed a small yellow sign above Theatre Lane, announcing the location of Lupa by Mario Batali.  As soon as FMUS saw the sign he knew we had to try it out.  We had previously dined at Eataly, one of Batali's many NYC establishments while on our Manhattan odyssey (see post here), and were keen to try out another of his ventures.  

Everyone knows the myth surrounding the foundation of Rome - Romulus and Remus, originally left for dead but suckled by a she-wolf on the banks of the Tiber, rose to form the new city of Rome.  Remus was killed by Romulus over a dispute about whether to build on the Palantine Hill or Aventine Hill, but the iconic image of the twins suckling on the lupa (Latin for she-wolf) has remained as steadfast as the great city herself.  It was only fitting that an Italian restaurant should take the name of the she-wolf, as a symbol of simple Roman style dining.  It helps that the restauranteur in question, Mario Batali, is one of the biggest names on the US and now international dining scene....

Tate Dining Room and Bar - a standout in a city with standouts

http://www.tate.com.hk/about

There is a mind boggling number of restaurants in Hong Kong, in fact, it's pretty hard to get your head around how many there really are.  Practically everywhere you go, every building, has a dining room of some kind.  To put that in context, there are over seven million people and around 6,000 skyscrapers in the greater Hong Kong area.  Open Rice, Hong Kong's main online restaurant guide, lists around 79,000 restaurants, so finding a restaurant is not a problem.  Finding a great restaurant is the challenge.

Walking around, I see lots of restaurants that I'd like to get back to and visit, but with so many around, I often forget which ones I want to get back to.  We were walking up Elgin on Saturday night, just looking around, when we walked past a stylish little dining room that looked the goods.  It helped that there was a cute little horse head that held up a quaint little sign that stated the restaurant open.  Triggering a memory, I checked my list of Michelin Starred restaurants I wanted to visit and sure enough, the little restaurant was on my list!

Tate Dining Room and Bar is the creation of Vicki Lau, a graduate of New York University in Graphic Communication.  With an obvious flare for the creative, Vicki commenced a recreational endeavour at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu, one of the worlds most prestigious hospitality education institutions.  It was a decision that would set the course of Vicki's life and out her as one of the Region's most creative and influential chefs.  Combining an appreciation of design with the culinary arts, Tate has won a coveted Michelin Star from 2013 through to 2015, culminating in being named Asia's best female chef.

New York Series - Cull and Pistol

http://cullandpistol.com/

There are two things you see a lot of in New York, oyster bars and lobster bars, so you can imagine my excitement when I discovered a combined lobster and oyster bar when wandering through the Chelsea Markets.  We had been looking to visit an oyster bar for most of the holiday, especially considering how cheap oysters were in New York.  I had been regaled of wondrous tales of oyster bars that had happy hours where the tasty molluscs were a dollar an oyster, but had yet to be in the right place at the right time.

We had been wandering around Manhattan's West Side for a while looking for something to eat for dinner and incredibly, not finding anything that we felt like eating.  The Chelsea Markets had become a bit of a default position during our two week stay in the area, so we decided to head back to the markets and see if we could get into the Lobster Place.  The Lobster Place is a bit of an institution in New York, a place where you can go and pick your own lobster (and most other seafood options) and get it cooked on the spot.  There's no formal dining area in the Lobster Place, it's just benches and standing room only.  Unfortunately, when we arrived the place was packed and doing our usual thing of not wanting to wait we left a little disappointed.

New York Series - Colicchio and Sons the Tap Room

http://www.craftrestaurantsinc.com/colicchio-and-sons/

It was getting towards the end of our holiday in New York and we had ticked off all of the restaurants that I had researched and wanted to visit.  Of course this didn't mean we had visited all of the  best restaurants, it just meant that we had to get back to the drawing board and get a new list of great dining spots to visit.  We were still in our apartment in Chelsea, which opened up most of the West Side districts to continue to explore.

It was SC who had the idea of visiting Colicchio and Sons one afternoon when we were a bit stumped for a restaurant to enjoy for a dinner.  Once she mentioned the Tom Colicchio restaurant, I got pretty excited.  We are big fans of Top Chef and Colicchio is the main judge on the show, so we felt as if we knew much about the Colicchio vision about food.  It was time to put the vision to the test, so we quickly made a booking for later on that night and proceeded to make our way to the restaurant.

Colicchio and Sons is located on 10th Avenue, just behind the Chelsea Markets and was a relatively short 20 minute walk away from our apartment on the corner of West 25th and 9th.  Amazingly, after such fantastic weather for our first three weeks in Manhattan that included a heat wave, the rain had settled in, so we had to huddle under an umbrella on the way to the restaurant.  When we eventually arrived at the restaurant, we were a little wet, but the staff didn't seem to mind and welcomed us in warmly.

New York Series - Ed's Lobster Bar

http://www.lobsterbarnyc.com/

One of the edgier parts of Manhattan is the border between Chinatown and Little Italy, and by edgier I mean a bit dodgier!  It also happened to be one of the four locations around Manhattan that we stayed during our month long adventure.  Our hotel was actually on the Bowery, which during the late eighties and nineties was one of the tougher parts of town, but for those brave enough, was also the cooler part of town with bars and nightclubs.  You could see the remnants of this even during our visit, but like most parts of Manhattan, the gentrification is happening.

We spent a bit of time wandering up and down the Bowery and parallel to that Lafayette Street, which eventually runs into 4th Avenue.  Around that neck of the woods is also Spring Street, which is perhaps one of the coolest streets in SOHO, so we had a great time exploring the neighborhood.  Like so many great places, we stumbled upon Ed's Lobster bar by accident when heading to SOHO down Lafayette Street and while we didn't go in at that time, I added it to my mental list of places to visit.

We eventually decided to go to Ed's on the worst possible night, it was raining and raining hard.  We were stuck walking between our hotel and SOHO when the heavens opened up and needed to get out of the rain, and quickly.  It just so happened that we were close to Ed's at the time and it seemed like the perfect place to see out the rain.  We ran laughing to Lafayette and fell through the front door to Ed's and were a little dismayed to see how busy it was, it was completely packed and there were people ahead of us in the queue to be seated.  Faced with going back out into the pouring rain or waiting, we took the sensible option and decided to wait.  It ended up being a good decision, the wait staff brought over the drinks menu and SC got stuck into a white.  It also ended up being a short wait and before too long we were seated at a table in the bustling restaurant.