The Chinese Library

One of my favorite restaurants to take out-of-towners is The Chinese Library in Tai Kwun. Housed in an old colonial building that was the previous Central police station, the restaurant is luxurious and expensive. More importantly, the food is delicious and exquisite - some of the best dim sum I have had in Hong Kong. I have been there about 4 times now and each time, I find more dishes to enjoy on the menu.

One of the stand-out dishes is the Peking duck. Although many places in Hong Kong do a good version, The Chinese Library provides 6 different unique sauces to go with the duck. This includes a black truffle sauce and a ginger cream. The duck has to be ordered in advance so we usually only get this for large groups.

The dim sum is equally delicious. I like to get the black truffle shrimp dumpling (har gau) - with a skin gently perfumed with black truffle.

Black truffle shrimp dumpling

Other good dishes are the garoupa and scallion rice roll noodles. It's quite rare to use such an expensive fish in rice roll noodles (cheung fun) and it's a treat. Mushroom bao are shaped like shitake mushrooms on the outside and have a delicate filing of chopped mushrooms in the centre.

Mushroom bao

Fried beef puffs and spring rolls

Squid ink & pea dumplings in lobster broth

Fried eggplant chips

The steamed pork dumpling (siu mai) is elegantly presented - 2 with orange skins and 2 with green skins. What elevates this dish is the clove of black garlic in the middle.

Pork dumpling with black garlic

Aside from dim sum, The Chinese Library also offer a selection of a la carte dishes including stir-fried noodles and rice at the lunch service. The wagyu beef stone pot fried rice topped with bonito flakes is a favorite.

Wagyu beef stone pot rice

I haven't tried much on the dessert menu but we did wait for 20 minutes once for the baked mini egg tarts (baked to order). These were good but not astounding. Finally, since one of the visits to The Chinese Library was for Mum's birthday, the staff suggested a Longevity Bun to end the meal. The charge for "cake-cutting" was fairly hefty so I appreciated the suggestion - cost-effective and meaningful for Mum!

Le Timbre, Paris

This tiny little restaurant - named "The Stamp" due to its postage - stamp size - was a real find in the Montparnasse area. An English chef decides to open up a small restaurant cooking traditional French food in Paris! It has been getting rave reviews from NY times, Guardian etc. There are just two staff - the chef working out of his tiny open kitchen and one waitress who spoke excellent English and French. At most, the restaurant can only seat 20 and you sit side by side with other diners. Tables have to be moved in and out when you leave. Menu changes daily due to what is available. I started with escargots in a luscious tomato-based sauce and Paul went for the day's special, squid cooked with tiny cubes of pancetta which added punches of salty flavor. The squid was excellent - really fresh and cooked very well. For entree, the duck was a stand-out atop leeks (I can imagine Rachel salivating at the picture of pink duck with a good layer of fat). And the best dessert goes to the house Millefeuille - rich vanilla cold custard layered within three crunchy, flaky and sweet pastry. Very nice combination. All in all, this was our best meal in Paris. The portions were not huge but we felt comfortably full and satisfied after the 3 course prix fixe.

Le Petit Cler, Paris

Finally, we are in Paris! Armed with a fistful of Euros and numerous restaurant recommendations, we attempt to eat our way around Paris. On the way to Tour Eiffel, we walk down rue Dominique and find rue Cler. We are pretty famished and although there are some famous eateries in the area - were not up to finding them. We did find a fairly popular cafe that looked nice and a good number of customers enjoying some Parisian sun with a coffee and cigarettes. I'm so thankful that restaurants banned smoking but even walking along the sidewalks in Paris feels like a toxic respiratory attack. Le Petit Cler was a super little cafe with standard cafe menu. I had the croque monsieur on granary bread - the gruyere cheese was thick and luscious. Paul had the day's special, canard parmentier. We had no idea what it was except that it would have duck in it. Luckily, it turned out to be delicious, duck confit with carrot on a bed of mashed potato. Later, I find out parmentier is a French shepherd's pie - typically made with minced beef, not lamb as in the English version. I also only found out later that rue Cler has been championed by Rick Steve (an English chef/food writer) as a street with individual food stalls for everything - a cheese shop, bakery, butcher, fishmonger, greengrocer etc. etc. Now I wish I was paying more attention when I walked down the street!