Ivy - Is it Italian or French? The French Riviera

http://ivyhongkong.com/

One of the things I still find a little strange, even after residing in Hong Kong for over twelve months, is the placement of restaurants in shopping centres. Throughout Australia, Europe and the Americas, shopping centres have designated areas for restaurants and food outlets. They're often quite fancy places with a range of restaurants from renowned chefs and up-and-coming dining establishments.  Harrods in London and KaDaWe in Berlin are great examples of major shopping outlets that have specific locations for restaurants.

Hong Kong is quite different, with restaurants dotted through out major shopping centres, often spread around shopping centres in unusual locations.  Ivy is the latest restaurant from the Gaia Group and is one of those restaurants that's tucked away on it's own in the IFC, so you stumble across it almost by accident!

It's a little known fact (well, I didn't really know!) that the French Riviera was a part of Italy until it was handed over to France in the 1800's. Which explains why the French restaurant has more in common with an Italian eatery than your traditional French bistro.

We'd initially hoped to get along to the annual Winter Carnival recently, but changed our mind pretty quickly once we'd seen the queue to gain entry, so had an evening free and no dinner plans.  We were feeling pretty lazy, so wanted to check out something close by, and the Ivy seemed like a pretty good option.  With no reservation made, we rocked up to to the restaurant and were relieved to find plenty of tables available.  

Zelo Spanish Restaurant and Tapas - it filled in some time

http://www.gaiagroup.com.hk/zelo

Normally when I'm heading out to eat, I have an interesting story about the choice of the restaurant or a little bit of background about the chef.  Not this time, we did have interesting plans for the evening, we were going to see Tomorrowland and were then cracking on with a visit to Wagyu Takumi (see post here).  What we need though was a quick and simple lunch before heading to the movies, one that wouldn't ruin out appetite for an expensive dinner.

Since we were at Pacific Place at Admiralty, there were a couple of options that included Thai, Italian, Chinese, Japanese and Spanish.  Being a fan of Spanish cuisine, in particular tapas, we decided that bite to eat at Zelo would satisfy our need for a quick and light meal before the movie.

The thing that stood out most about Zelo was the beautiful cast iron dome that decorates the casual dining area of the restaurant.  It's an impressive looking feature that dominates the space and is clearly visible from most spots in that end of the shopping centre.  The feature also played acoustic tricks on us, while we were seated at a table right at the edge of the dome, by placing an ear next to the structure, it seems you could clearly hear people talking on the other side....  Cool.

Lei Garden - Franchise. Chinese. Michelin

http://www.leigarden.hk

When thinking about Michelin Starred restaurants, I have a picture in my mind of unique little and sometimes large restaurants with a mad chef toiling in the kitchen striving for perfection. Sure, there are some exceptions, such as the global phenomenon Joel Robuchon and his chain of L'Atelier Joel Robuchon restaurants (see post here and here).  But those restaurants are spread across the globe, and until recently, I thought an exception.

Lei Garden is a bit of a local success story in Hong Kong, starting from humble beginnings in 1973 with a lone outlet in Sham Shui Po to a restaurant empire with twenty four branches across Hong Kong, Macau, China and Singapore.  Most impressively, in Hong Kong along, there are six outlets that have acquired coveted Michelin Stars. While that sounds impressive, the business hit its peak in 2012 when it held eight individual stars and even more impressively, a two star restaurant at Mong Kok.

We'd walked past a number of the Lei Gardens in our time exploring Hong Kong, with many of them being located in some of the larger shopping complexes.  It wasn't until one Sunday evening, wandering around ICF in Central that we'd decided to give the restaurant a try.  There is a fun game I play at times, trying to get into Michelin Starred restaurants without a booking, something that would be impossible in Europe, but quite achievable in HK.  As luck would have it, we managed to score a table....  With the proviso that we would be finished within an hour, so we didn't have too much time to waste.

Gogyo - Not just ramen specialists

https://www.facebook.com/gogyohk/info?tab=overview

One of the things I appreciate most about my move to Hong Kong is the shopping.  Well, not just the shopping, which is pretty amazing, but the extra time that shops are open in Hong Kong compared to my previous home in Australia.  I still marvel that I can be wandering around huge shopping centres at 10pm on a Sunday evening and almost every shop is still open and filled with Hong Kongers.  There are a lot of shopping centres too, practically everywhere, and where you find people in HK, you find restaurants!

The International Finance Centre is the second tallest building in the city and is pretty easy to spot and houses one of the many 'luxury' shopping centres in HK.  IFC is one of my 'go-to' centres and is conveniently located in Central HK, close enough to my work and apartment that I'm there quite often.  Apart from being a kick ass place to hang out, there are a heap of great restaurants spaced out through the ultra modern site, including a Tim Ho Wan and one of the many Michelin Starred Lei Gardens (post coming soon).

Big Fernand - the French take on a burger

http://www.bigfernand.com/fr/browse/home/index.php

http://www.ifc.com.hk/en/mall/detail.jsp?id=425

French Fries are great right?  I mean, they've been around for as long as I've been eating, apart for a very short period of time when the worldwide geopolitical situation dictated that some call them Freedom Fries.  However, I digress...  French Fries are great and I'm partial to eating them pretty much any time I grab a burger.

French Burgers, now there's something I'd never really thought about.. I mean, burgers are quintessentially American, but with the worldwide trend of burger domination, it's perhaps natural that the French would give burgers a crack.  

Big Fernand is a French burger chain that opened Paris in 2012 and has been dominating the European burger scene.  Listed by the Wall Street Journal as the best burger concept in France, it was only a matter of time before world wide domination beckoned.  With a base of six different burger types, one of the elements that sets Big Fernand apart is the liberal use of cheese in their burgers.

I'd sauntered over to IFC, where Hong Kong's first and so far only Big Fernand is housed, for a quick solo lunch.  It was fairly early still, and while there was a queue of people waiting to place their order, there were plenty of seats still available.  Joining the queue, one of the wait staff asked in a sexy French accent if it was my first time...  Such a personal question, but I got the gist and agreed that it was in fact my first time for a French burger.

Taking the cheaper option - Le Cafe de Joel Robuchon

http://www.robuchon.hk

This blog has taken a little longer to get to - not because the food was so bad that I didn't want to write about it but because so much has been going on since then that the time has just slipped away!  During the time that the Big Boy was in Hong Kong visiting us, I decided to take both he and FMUS across on the Star Ferry to Kowloon, for a small glimpse of some of the areas I had been exploring since arriving in Hong Kong in January.  It was a cold and windy day, so we limited ourselves to indoor activities - shopping centres!  Lunch was then of course an easy choice - Le Cafe de Joel Robuchon in the Harbour City Shopping Centre.

Regular readers of this blog will know that FMUS is a big fan of all things fine dining, and had the opportunity to attend L'Atelier de Joes Robuchon in Singapore on a work trip last year (see post here).  Not really having the time (or the inclination) to do the full Robuchon experience for lunch, Le Cafe presented a cheaper option, yet one where the food is still above average and certainly much better than your usual shopping centre fare.  The beautiful thing about Le Cafe by Joel Robuchon is that you can have a full meal, or just enjoy a cup of coffee or tea and some lovely cakes.