Raising The Bar!

Forget about the rather common chakna and the plebian peanuts as bar snacks, and get ready to nosh on a whole new spectrum of quirky and oh, so interesting bar eats being served up at the Mumbai’s hottest ‘wateringholes’

By Raul Dias

Gosht and Sandalwood Mulayam Seekh Kebab
Served up in a dish that’s fashioned on the lines of an old coal clothes’ iron, the quirkiness of these kebabs is further enhanced when you bite into them and discover their canny little secret. Sandalwood! Yes, the silken soft lamb seekh kebabs are flavoured with rose petals, sandalwood, ginger, green chilli and smoked with stone flower and accompanied by dry fruit bakarkhani with a spritz of fresh coriander jalapeno chutney
At Razzberry Rhinoceros, Juhu Hotel, Airport Area, Juhu
Call 7400402604/05
Cost Rs 625

Baked ‘Vegetarian’ Chicken Puff
Do pardon the rather oxymoronic name of this bar bite and just take a bite of this delectable Cantonese snack. It is prepared with a base of flour and oil along with a filling of deep fried mock chicken, sesame seeds, black pepper powder, vegetables, egg yolk, oyster sauce and chopped onions along with the seasoning of salt and spices.
At Yauatcha, Raheja Tower, BKC, Bandra East
Call 9222222800
Cost Rs 295

Dhokla Redefined
This one is made up of six pieces of sweet, authentic dhokla that have been seared with clarified butter, and served hot topped with guacamole and feta cheese. All this is then garnished with cilantro fronds.
At Radio Bar, Hotel New Castle, Linking Road, Bandra West
Call 26499900
Cost Rs 290

Amritsari Fish Popcorn
Bar Bar—the Kurla drinking bar, has garnered quite a reputation of going pop with its food. Here, the chefs have taken some classics and then added a fun twist to them. The Amritsari fish popcorn is one such example. A seafood lovers go-to snack, this bar bite has chunks of fish cooked in spicy Amritsari masala and served with a side of mint-mango chutney.
At Bar Bar, Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg, Kamani, Kurla West
Call 33126020
Cost Rs 269

Yucca Chips
Yucca aka. cassava aka. manioc is a root vegetable native to Latin America and is known for its versatility. Made from this tuber, the hand cut chips at Lima are served at the bar either fried or baked. The chips are then dusted with a chipotle chilli rub and accompanied with a freshly made sriracha chilli mayonnaise.
At Lima, Maker Maxity, North Avenue 2, BKC, Bandra East
Call 30005040
Cost Rs 225

Smashed Avocado and Smoked Jalapeno Falafel
Here, South America meets the Middle East with this take on a humble falafel that’s jazzed up with a smashed avocado pulp, smoked jalapeno peppers and pumpkin and served with a side of quinoa cracklings.
At Estella, Nichani Kutir, Juhu Tara Road, Juhu
Call 7999998232/7999998212
Cost Rs 450

(An edited version of this article appeared in the 29th May 2017 issue of the evening edition of Mid-Day newspaper, India http://www.mid-day.com/articles/mumbai-food-quirky-food-city-hottest-bars-falafel-yucca-chips-seekh-kebab/18289196)

A-N-A-T-O-M-I-Z-E: Onion and Garlic Kheer with Truffle Oil

By Raul Dias

I’ve always been a wee bit sceptical of dishes with come to the table with a neat little memo denoting their very own ‘nutritional facts’ as it were. My mantra has always been— “I’ll ask no questions, so please don’t give me the answers!”. But this time, as the server dutifully placed the white bowl in front of me, there was no mental ‘tut-tutting’. “I have brought this upon myself”, I silently remined myself as I had my first tentative taste of the bowl’s contents.
I had, after all, checked myself in for a gruelling birthday weekend of detox, exercise and more…at the fecund Atmantan—an integrated wellness destination that sits by the tranquil Mulshi Lake, a short one hour drive away from Pune, in Maharashtra’s lush Sahyadri Mountain range. After a two day rigourous exercise and diet programme, I was looking forward to the ‘treat’ that Chef Ajit Singh of the resort’s pastry department (oxymoron, anyone?) had in store for the dairy lover in me.
Putting a slightly savoury spin on a traditional kheer, the chef makes this one from a thinly sliced white onion and chopped garlic—in lieu of rice—that are gently simmered in low fat milk for hours. This is then sweetened with stevia and finished off with a drizzle of truffle-infused extra virgin olive oil, with an edible flower delicately placed atop the concoction.
While I have, in the past, heard about savoury Indian desserts such as a halwa made with meat and a barfi made with black garlic, this delicious onion and garlic kheer was my very first tryst with treading that fine line between sweet and savoury. And what a treat that turned out to be.
The motivation behind the genesis of this dessert, the chef says, was to create something unfamiliar, using unused ingredients in desserts, and in keeping with the resort’s philosophy of promoting super foods.
Well, I for one am not complaining!

(This column first appeared in the 28th May 2017 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 8 http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/onion-and-garlic-kheer-with-truffle-oil/article18584555.ece)

Foodprint in Lisbon: Colonial Cousins

From the ubiquitous vindaloo to the not-so-well-chronicled scrumptiousness of bolinho de peixe, Goan cuisine abounds in Lisbon and thus finds a firm footing for itself as Portugal’s most loved colonial ‘return gift’

By Raul Dias

The moment seems way too epiphanic to be real as I sit at the tiny, rough-hewn wooden table that’s covered with rice sack cloth with a bowl of steaming caril de peixe plonked atop it. Next to it, jostling for space is a small salver bearing a two-by-three matrix of small, freshly-baked paos, whose concave tops glisten in the light of the wall sconces, that also highlight a colourful mural of Lord Ganesha. I’ve just had my first morsel, mopping up the marigold orange-hued curry—laden with the tender, almost quivering white flesh of the pampo (pomfret) fish—with a scoop fashioned out of the bread that gives us Goans our de facto moniker—paowalla!
Suddenly, an apparition in white enters my peripheral vision. Jesus is standing beside the table, arms akimbo. “How’s it going?”, he asks with a beatific smile. “It’s just like mum’s fish curry back home,” I hear my filial reflexes taking over, as I go in for a second bite. And then it happens. For the second time in my life, I feel tears well up in my eyes while eating (or at the very least, attempting to eat!) a meal. The first time was at a nondescript hole-in-the-wall in Sydney’s Chinatown called BBQ King, where I literally sobbed while tucking into a plastic tub of sublime char siu pork, roast goose and sesame oil-spritzed, blanched gai lan that was hitherto the best meal of my life. But that sunny June afternoon, Jesus Lee, the Goa-born chef and owner of Lisbon’s Jesus é Goês (Rua São José 23, 1150-352 Lisbon)—which is perhaps, in my opinion, the best Goan restaurant this side of the Zuari—had had me for a goner.
But then, with Goan food currying (do excuse the pun) fond favour with Lisbon’s food cognoscenti over the last couple of years, Jesus has little option but to stay true to the culinary antecedents of this very complex chimera of a cuisine that places the triumvirate of spicy, tangy, pork-y dishes on its highest altar, something he learned by observing his mother Paulina cook back home in Goa. So, while his stash of malt vinegar is flown in every other month from Goa, his annual trips back home to India help replenish his spice stockpile—something he uses deftly in everything from a far-from-ersatz take on shark ambot-tik to a transcendent camarão (prawn) reichado.
“There’s absolutely no room for faking Goan food. They’ll be caught out in a second. By now, we all know our xacuti from our xec xec,” laughs my friend, fellow food writer and proud Lisbonite, Xavier Colaco, who sees the burgeoning number of Goan restaurants in Lisbon as a great way to pay homage to both Portuguese and Indian cuisines, the fruit of whose coupling is Goan food. “But this has not always been the case. Though we’ve had Goan restaurants ever since the 1961 liberation of Goa from Portugal—that saw nostalgic Portuguese returnees from Goa yearn for a taste of their ‘other home’—the hip quotient of ‘going for Goan’ is a recent phenomenon, brought on by the younger crowd.” 

Lisbon-based Goan food historian Anna Philomena Dias é Lobo, whom I meet up with for high tea at Lisbon’s Time Out Market spends half her year in Goa, trawling though ancient recipe books and manuscripts of crusty old Goan matriarchs in order to distill the very essence of the cuisine that she feels is influenced by a number of Portugal’s other colonies. “Take for instance these pastéis de bacalhau,” Anna says, pointing to the three differently spiced zeppelin-like fried orbs of flaked dried cod fish that is reconstituted with milk and then mashed with boiled potatoes—a play on the typically Portuguese-Goan bolinho de peixe or fish croquettes that eschews bacalhau in favour of local Indian fish like ghol or ravas. “While one is made with fresh coriander—a throwback to Goa, the other has in it piri-piri chillies from Mozambique and the third gets its reddish tint from Brazilian annatto seeds! Speaking of Mozambique, did you know that the famous Goan chicken cafreal owes its genesis to the west African nation?” she says of the fiery hot, dry greenish-blackish roast chicken, that she lets me know was prepared by Mozambican slaves who were brought to Goa by the Portuguese colonists to work in the palm groves and who were called ‘cafirs’—from where the dish actually gets its name.
Dinner at the Resturante Cantinho da Paz (Rua da Paz, 4, São Bento, Lisbon) in Lisbon’s historic quarter of São Bento teaches me a lesson to never judge a restaurant by its shabby doorway. A rather loquacious server had me know that the restaurant is owned by a man of Goan origin who came to Portugal in 1964 and worked his way up from plongeur to owner eventually. This casual dining Goan restaurant serves modestly-priced, home-style comfort food like chouriço de Goa (spicy Goa sausages), pork sorpotel and an absolutely divine, if a tad commonplace beef vindaloo that one can find these days on restaurant menus around the world from Vienna to Vladivostok!
But this ubiquity should in no way take away from this highly complex dish that has gone back and forth a fair bit from Portugal to Goa and now back to Portugal, before it eventually evolved into what the Portuguese know and love as vindaloo today. Apparently, it was seafaring Portuguese explorers who carried with them on their voyages a simple dish of pork marinated with wine and garlic called the carne de vinha d’alhos, with the red wine helping to preserve the meat and with the pungency of the garlic masking odours, if any. They would then stew this over low heat and eat it with dried loaves of chewy bread.
But with the conquest of Goa coming into the picture, this well-travelling dish underwent a sea change with palm vinegar standing in for the wine and with more spices like Kashmiri chillies and toasted cumin seeds adding to the fray. The Portuguese version today, is, to use an oft-flogged Thai idiom “same-same, but different’, in that, it is a lot less spicy and a wee bit less vinegar-y than its Goan Sibling. 
But, as I was to soon discover on an emergency grocery supplies run to Lisbon’s Lapa neighbourhood branch of Pingo Doce—Portugal’s largest supermarket chain, Goan delicacies have even found a firm footing for themselves in the country’s mass produced, FMCG sector. So, while I noshed on an impulse purchase of a two-pack of the spicy-prawn-in-white-sauce-enrobed-in-breaded-pastry risole de camarão, that were exact doppelgängers of the ones we Goans eat as hors d’oeuvres at ‘house parties’, the also-spotted-and-gourmandized right away seven-layered bebinca though less sweet, was almost the real deal!   
The ‘real deal’ being a calorific, egg yolk-butter-sugar-coconut milk-redolent diet-buster, that we have a group of canny 16^th century Franciscan nuns in Goa to thank, or so my grand aunt Tia Antoinette would have me know. With no apparent need for the leftover yolks once the egg whites were used to stiffen their wimples, the resourceful Mother Abbess conjured up this recipe that the nuns then baked with seven successive layers representing the seven hillocks that they had to ascend and descend every day in order to reach the church from their hilltop convent in Old Goa.
Imbued with legends and stories, the veracity of which are at best a moot point, the mélange of the Portuguese-Goan cuisines has resulted in something so tangible and real, that it exists not just in the yellowed, dog-eared pages of old recipe books, but celebrated as a living, edible bite of history that’s so very hard to resist, be it in Loutolim or far Lisbon. I’m sure Jesus would agree!    

The Brazilian Feijoada Trail in Lisbon…
Just like cafreal, another edible colonial vestige with deep-rooted slave underpinnings is the hearty Brazilian black bean, chouriço and pork off cut stew called feijoada. Served with a posse of accompaniments like boiled white rice, deep-fried collard greens and a dry farofa sprinkling made from toasted cassava flour sautéed in a bacon-onion mirepoix, and jazzed up with orange wedges for an acidic hit, this antipodean iteration in Lisbon, is more often than not preferred over the indigenous Portuguese version that is plated up sans the collard greens and farofa, and with red kidney beans standing in for the feijao negra or black beans that lend the dish its rather onomatopoeic name. 

Here’s a pick of three of the best places in Lisbon to sample this notorious Brazilian siesta-inducer!

* Babete Gastrobar
Channeling typical Brazilian ‘botecos’—that are informal neighbourhood restaurants dishing out hearty, simple fare—this bright and cheery four-year-old eatery in the Calçada do Duque area brings the infectious Rio Carnival vibe straight to your table with its pulsating samba piped music and steaming hot plates of feijoada with all the trimmings! (tel. +351-21-1513339)

* Páteo Restaurante
Located on a leafy street along the tony Avenida Joao, this rather modern-looking restaurant belies the rustic Portuguese and Brazilian fare served within, that has earned it a legion of fans, who think nothing of queuing up for hours on end—all for a pool-sized bowl of its sublime, five-hours simmered Brazilian-style feijoada. So, line up and drool… (www.pateorestaurante.pt; tel. +351-21-8687208)

* Comida De Santo
As one of the oldest Brazilian restaurants in Lisbon, this Príncipe Real neighbourhood icon has woven itself a permanent place in the Brazilian food tapestry of the Portuguese capital. For those with a yen for the two lynchpins of Brazilian cuisine i.e. feijoada and caipirinhas, this is the go-to place that pays special homage to the food of northeastern Brazil, which paradoxically, is itself a confluence of Portuguese and African styles of cooking. (www.comidadesanto.pt; tel. +351-21-3963339)

(A shorter, edited version of this article appeared in the 20th May 2017 issue of the Mint Lounge newspaper, India http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/8msOyB4lu3IFHgDAkXbJCK/A-Goa-state-of-mind-in-Lisbon.html)

Food Diva Face/Off

With a cook book out for one and a web-based food show for the other—and with their lives almost mirroring each other over the years—we decided to put BFFs and newly minted foodies, Maria Goretti and Mini Mathur in the ring for a friendly bout where they match each other punch for punch! 

By Raul Dias

MARIA GORETTI, 45 ·         Model and dancer turned MTV VJ with shows like Hip Shakers and Chillout in the ‘90s ·         BFF Mini Mathur ·         Married to actor Arshad Warsi of the Munnabhai movie franchise fame ·         Has an older son named Zeke and a younger daughter named Zene Zoe ·         Started her innings in the world of food with food shows like Do It Sweet on NDTV Good Times and I Love Cooking on Living Foodz. Her most recent oeuvre being as cookery book author with her book From My Kitchen To Yours: Food, Love And Other Ingredients which has recently won the National Award by Gourmand Awards Jury and which has also been nominated for the Gourmand International Awards 2017

MINI MATHUR, 41 ·         Model and actress turned MTV VJ with shows like Big Picture and MTV 123 in the ‘90s ·         BFF Maria Goretti ·         Married to director Kabir Khan of Bajrangi Bhaijaan fame ·         Has an older son named Vivaan and a younger daughter named Sanya ·         Started her innings in the world of food with her new web show on India Food Network where she cooks with celebrities in a colourful, pimped-out food truck, hence the show’s rather punny name—The Mini Truck. Her show’s line up of guests already features a roster of A-listers like Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif!

Other former models recently turned food world personalities

·         Once the reigning queen of the catwalk, today former supermodel Joey Matthew scorches the small screen with her rather ‘saucy’ food show Love Bites With Joey on NDTV Good Times.

·         From the domestic goddess in the series of Whirlpool appliances’ TV commercials and print campaigns over a decade ago, to the host the popular Mummy Ka Magic food show on the Food Food Channel, the cherubic Amrita Raichand today dons the chef’s toque with élan.  

·         Former Miss India, model and tennis ace Mahesh Bhupathi’s ex-wife, Shvetha Jaishankar has now added author to her CV with her food book Gorgeous: Eat Well, Look Great which is a compilation of recipes, fitness mantras and anecdotes from the world of fashion and Bollywood.

(A shorter, differently edited version of this piece was first published in the 15th May, 2017 issue of India Today magazine)

A-N-A-T-O-M-I-Z-E: PBJ Freakshake

By Raul Dias

“Do I eat it with the spoon?” I wonder. “No! Perhaps, I should try having a go at it with the straw”, the more rational side of me chimes in. I’m sitting at Molly Bakes, a quaint, wee spot of a bakery along Kingsland Road in East London on a freezing October afternoon. Plonked in front of me is my first ever freakshake, with a mini brick of brownie perilously perched on the lip of the glass and threatening to topple over at any time.

For the uninitiated, a ‘freakshake’ is like the Godzilla of all milkshakes, overflowing with lashings of cream, chocolate and caramel sauces, and indulgent delicacies such as chunks of brownie, nuts, pretzels, biscuits and even whole slices of pie! Just like the cronut craze a couple of years ago, 2016 saw the freakshake achieve cult-like status after it debuted at an obscure little bakery and café called Pâtissez in Canberra, Australia. Yes, we have the land that gave us Vegemite and Crocodile Dundee to thank for this bottomless behemoth of a drink.

Taking the vegan route, The Sassy Spoon in Bandra, Mumbai prefers soy cream in lieu of the more de rigueur full fat cream for its iteration of the freakshake. This goes on to be blended with an American school lunch box classic combination of peanut butter and tart strawberry jam and flax seed for that added crunch.


Topped off with a cloud of whipped soy cream, more jam and a sprinkling of flax seeds, with shards of melba toast clinging to the seemingly overflowing rim of the glass, cemented with a shmear of peanut butter.

(This column first appeared in the 7th May 2017 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 8 http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/pbj-freakshake/article18399568.ece)

Tender Lovin’

This torrid summer, it’s all about the cooling tender coconut that finds itself in a host of innovative preparations—from a pad thai to even a ceviche—at restaurants across the city.

By RAUL DIAS

Tender Coconut Pad Thai
This truly unique interpretation of the Thai street food staple—pad thai—sees tender coconut strips replacing the de rigueur flat rice noodles. And when combined with crushed peanuts, bean sprouts, tofu and tangy tamarind sauce, this iteration is truly a taste bud treat!
CREATOR SPEAK: “When we started building 212 All Good, we made ourselves a promise – everything that goes onto the plate has to be good for you. The Tender Coconut Pad Thai is something that ticks all the boxes with tender coconut being a great source of iron and brilliant for fighting heart diseases.”
-Chef Paul Kinny, culinary director
At 212 All Good, High Street Phoenix, Lower Parel
Call 62216020
Cost Rs 585

Tender Coconut & Fennel Ceviche
This ‘ceviche’ uses young coconut as its base ingredient. It’s safe to say that the entire dish is focused on this hero prepared simply by soaking thin slivers of tender coconut in orange juice, pineapple juice and chilly. It is then dressed with fresh coriander fronds, mint leaves, lemon, coconut water, chopped red chilies, edible flowers and shaved fennel.
CREATOR SPEAK: “Coconut is available everywhere, but not used to its full potential. Hence, I came up with the idea of making use of coconut in this dish to beat the heat.”
-Chef Rohan D’Souza, lead chef
At Radio Bar, Linking Road, Khar
Call 39967491, 9769755542, 9769355503
Cost Rs 385

Kale Coco Punch
Though the whole hype around kale may be on the wane this year, it still shows up in this rather refreshing and healthy seasonal cooler, paired with summer’s ultimate coolant—tender coconut! In this Hawaiian Tiki-style mocktail, tender coconut bits and water are blended with kale and fresh pineapple chunks, with a hint of turmeric for that added healthy boost, sans any sugar.
CREATOR SPEAK: “While our food menu has plenty of healthy options without compromising on taste, we wanted the beverage menu as well to represent the same philosophy—create drinks that are healthy and taste great too.”
-Surjeet Singh, bar captain
At The Clearing House, Ballard Estate, Fort
Call 62232266
Cost Rs 225

Tender Coconut Thai Curry Risotto
This ultimate fusion risotto makes its way to us via the geographic antipodes of Thailand and Italy! Here, aromatic green Thai curry and the short grain Italian Arborio rice are melded together with chunks of tender coconut that are added not just for texture and taste, but also to balance out the dish. It finds itself once more, but as a garnish, where roasted strips of tender coconut​ finish off the risotto.
CREATOR SPEAK: “It’s like mixing the fashion of Milan with the white sandy beaches of Thailand. T​his recipe first came together as a side dish, but we’ve now made it a standalone summer dish.”
-Ajay Thakur, brand chef
At Hitchki, Kalaghoda, Fort
Call 46129999
Cost Rs 320

Choconut Panna Cotta (see recipe below)
No, that isn’t a typo you think you spot in the name of this dessert! For, it is the yummy sum of its brownie tidbits, white chocolate, and tender coconut parts, all set overnight in a coconut shell, and infused with flavours of another summer staple—alphonso mango. It’s then served chilled along with mango coulis, coconut coral and edible flowers.CREATOR SPEAK: “I wanted to give the traditional panna cotta a twist of taste by using fresh ingredients over synthetic ones and serving it in a coconut shell with a tender coconut coral net as a garnish.”
-Chef Manoj Kumar Bhagat, pastry chef
At Jeon at Hotel Sea Princess, Juhu Tara Road, Juhu
Call 26469500
Cost Rs 499

Choconut Panna Cotta

Ingredients:
3 gelatine leaves
180ml fresh coconut milk
100ml milk
280ml double cream
1 vanilla pod, split lengthways, seeds scraped out
40g sugar
50g white chocolate
Pieces of cubed brownie
Tender coconut bits
Macaroon flakes
Mango chunks
Edible flowers
1tsp mango coulis or sauce
One half coconut shell

Method:
* For the panna cotta, soak the gelatine leaves in a little cold water until soft.
* Place the coconut milk, milk, cream, vanilla pod and seeds and sugar into a pan and bring to a simmer. Remove the vanilla pod and discard.
* Squeeze the water out of the gelatine leaves, then add to the pan and take off the heat. Stir until the gelatine has dissolved. Mix melted white chocolate.
* Divide the mixture among four ramekins and leave to cool. Place into the fridge for at least an hour, until set.
* For plating: Break a coconut into half, grate the coconut and line it with the panna cotta. Top it with cubed brownie chunks, macaroon flakes, mango chunks and edible flowers. Line the plate with mango coulis and place a few cubes of mango, brownie dices and edible flowers around the shell. Garnish the panna cotta with tender coconut bits.

Recipe courtesy Chef Manoj Kumar Bhagat, pastry chef, Jeon at Hotel Sea Princess

(A shorter, edited version of this article appeared in the 6th May 2017 issue of the Mid-Day newspaper, India http://www.mid-day.com/articles/tender-coconut-innovative-preparations-across-menus-in-mumbai-chefs/18226177)

The Many Hong Kongs

The high-octane, multi-faceted island city of Hong Kong is the perfect destination for a quick and impromptu summer vacation, offering you a plethora of things to do, see and yes…eat!

By Raul Dias

Old, but still brand, sparkling new. Endearingly traditional, yet startlingly modern. Fast-paced, while still limping along with an unhurried dignity.
To most people, Hong Kong may seem as though it inhabits myriad parallel dimensions. A place where several worlds collide in synchronistic harmony. So, yes, it wouldn’t be too far from the truth to say, that if Hong Kong were to be a person, it’d be accused of having a split personality.
But it is this very dichotomous nature that makes it so very fascinating for visitors.
While it has been exactly 20 years since this autonomous, Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China was handed back by the British, Hong Kong has remained pretty much the same over the last two decades. Yes, it still is one of the world’s most densely populated places, ranking number four on the list. And yes, it still is the sparkling jewel of the Pearl River Delta in the South China Sea that has something for just about everybody…

ATTRACTIONS NEAR AND FAR
A true Hong Kong icon, The Peak or to use its proper name, Victoria Peak offers a stunning panoramic view across the city with its Sky Terrace 428 standing at 428 meters above sea level, making it a scenic spot you won’t want to leave out of your itinerary. Getting to the peak involves a 15 minutes’ ride by the Peak Tram which is one of the world’s oldest and most famous funicular railways, rising to about 1,300 feet.
A misnomer if there ever was one, the New Territories—an hour out of the main Hong Kong city limits—may not be new, but hold promise of a great number of attractions. Prime among these is the Che Kung Temple in the Sha Tin neighbourhood where people go to seek a year full of good luck and fortune. Trudge up the path to score some karmic goodwill at the Lam Tsuen Wishing Tree where locals and tourists alike aim at throwing joss paper as high up into the tree’s branches as they can, to get their wishes fulfilled.
Equally mystical and a must-do is a visit to Big Buddha at the Po Lin Monastery on nearby Lantau Island. A short ride in the revolving Ngong Ping 360 cable car deposits you at the foot of the 34-meter tall bronze statue of the Buddha. Once at the top, besides ogling at the view of Hong Kong harbor, you can indulge in nature walks or learn a little bit about Buddhism from the monks.      

OF DIM SUMS, SHOPPING AND MORE
One of the best, and in our opinion, the ONLY way to kick start your edible innings in Kong Kong is to fuel up just like the city’s denizens do—with a belly-busting dim sum lunch, simply called yum cha! Meaning to ‘touch the heart’ dim sum joints are ubiquitous and can be found around almost every street corner in this fascinating city.
But for a truly memorable experience chowing down on wonders like the delicate siu mai and the silken shrimp har gau, head to the Sun Tung Lok restaurant in the Tsim Sha Tsui neighbourhood of Kowloon. This nondescript eatery was the first non-hotel restaurant and the second Chinese place in Hong Kong to receive three Michelin stars out of which is currently retains two. Don’t forget to round off your dim sum feast with a tall glass of iced oolong tea with a squirt of lemon and honey.
Still in the Kowloon side of Hong Kong, indulge in some retail therapy. And there truly is no dearth of shopping hot spots to cruise here in Kowloon, particularly the three famous Mong Kok markets. Legendary for its silks and jewellery, Stanley Market is a close rival to the Ladies’ Market where you can bargain for some great buys in the clothing and cosmetics’ areas. For antiques bargain your way through Cat Street. But for a real up-market shopping experience, head to PMQ. This former, superbly restored police housing block is home to around 100 design and creative pop-up enterprises in a revitalised historical site in the Central area of the city.
Peckish after all that shopping? Well, then try some succulent roast goose at Tai Hing in Mongkok or perhaps some char siu-filled rice noodle rolls called cheung fun from one of the many cart vendors that line the Sham Shui Po neighbourhood. 
Wash it all down with the bizarre-sounding, but divine-tasting hot Coca-Cola with ginger and lemon, best had at one of the city’s many cha chaan tengs as the local tea shops are called here. Finish off your meal with a few unsung heroes of Cantonese cuisine—desserts! Take your pick from the elaborate glutinous rice-based deep-fried sweet called nian gao from Guangdong to the simpler, but startlingly good quivering almond jelly studded with fresh fruit cubes.    

SUNDOWNERS AND CURTAIN CALLS
Perfect for a sundowner, head to Club Feather Boa in trendy SoHo. This former antiques store is legendary for its bohemian vibe and eclectic crowd and is one of the best places on the island to knock back a well-made pre-dinner drink. For a fine dining Cantonese dinner experience, make sure you have your reservations on at the posh, Shanghai-style China Club in Central that is famous for serving the best braised abalone in town along with its retro chic décor and vibe.
It’s now time for some vertical action! Having opened in late 2014, the 60 metres-high Hong Kong Observation Wheel is the city’s most coveted ride. Located on the Central Harbourfront, the wheel is the perfect place to see the daily 8pm start of the Symphony of Lights sound and light show at the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront on the Avenue of Stars.
For another ‘up-in-the-clouds’ moment, head up to Sky100. This 360-degree indoor observation deck on the 100^th floor of the International Commerce Centre—that is also the tallest building in the city with 118 floors—in Kowloon is another new city attraction that promises to have you spellbound.
That is, if Hong Kong hasn’t done its number on you already!

Fancy a dan tat?
The perfectly scrumptious egg custard tart or dan tat as it is called in Hong Kong has had a very long and curious journey around the world before becoming one of the city’s most famous tea-time treats. While the current Hong Kong iteration is an adaptation of the pastel de nata, a popular snack in Macau, the latter is itself a colonial era derivative of the famous Portuguese pastéis de Belém of Belém, in Lisbon. These were created in the 17^th century by French Catholic monks, from the egg yolks that remained after the whites were used for starching the priests’ habits! 

(An edited version of this article first appeared in the May 2017 issue of Jetwings Domestic in-flight magazine of Jet Airwayshttp://www.jetairways.com/EN/IN/jetexperience/magazines.aspx)