Sunday Spanish Brunch at Alibi, Cordis Hong Kong

Thank you for having our little family over for brunch, Alibi! We had a great time, which you can see from OB's chocolate smeared face.

It's a semi buffet brunch. The buffet serves a great variety of food. We like!

First, charcuterie and cheese.


Ahem, carbs.... which I can eat on weekends. Thank God.


Of course, OB had to do the lightsaber pose with the bread stick...

He enjoyed the charcuterie very much.

We had lotss of oysters.


So many things to choose from, we almost did not have space to try everything.




Seafood paella.


Cheesy toastie sandwiches. Yum!


Slow roasted suckling pig.


Crab claw!


And my favorite, crispy Spanish anchovies!


You can choose to have free flow make-your-own sangria and fruit punch.


Or choose to have free flow champagne.

Perrier-Jouet Grand Brut. I am not really a champagne person, but I do enjoy a bit from time to time ;)

We had a sweet OB & papa moment.

Cheers!

Nom nom nom.


OB munching on crispy anchovies.

We ordered 2 main courses. Grilled USDA rib eye served with salsa verde.

Nicely cooked, we like!

And roasted French spring chicken served with polenta fries (love!), broccolini, port and pepper jus.


After that. Cheesy time!


And then the sweets.


Dulce de leche cheesecake.


Crema Catalana.


Apple Frangipane tart.


And of course, churros!


And this was bound to happen.

Who wants chocolate hugs and kisses from OB? Hehehe

The brunch is available every Sunday from 11:30 am - 2:30 pm.
Prices:

-        $358 per adult with free-flowing sangria and fruit punch

-        $238 per child with free flowing fruit punch

-         Free-flowing Perrier-Jouët Champagne for an extra $200.

Plus 10% service charge.

Alibi

5/F Cordis Hong Kong at Langham Place.

555 Shanghai Street, Mong Kok.

(Mongkok MTR exit C)

旺角上海街555號香港康得思酒店5樓

For booking:

Tel: +852 3552 3028

Email: cdhkg.restaurants@cordishotels.com

Website.

SC's Birthday Brunch at Cafe Gray Deluxe, Upper House, Hong Kong

SC's birthday is normally our annual chance to seriously splurge on a meal and have a date night minus OB.

However, this year is a game changer. I asked SC if he wanted to bring OB and he said yes, he'd love to bring our naughty little monster. He felt that OB's so ready for fine dining.

He's of course - so wrong.

OB is not the type of boy who could sit still and eat course after course of meal (not sure if such a 4 year old exists?), he'd try to stand on the chair and drop utensils on the floor.. argghhh.
To him, meals are boring unless it comes with a toy, or is made of chocolate, or is fries with ketchup.
Luckily, our appetizer did come with some sort of "fries" and OB asked for a couple of servings of ketchup. Soon, he started to enjoy himself and we could all relax a bit and celebrate SC's birthday.

This was the bread.

Crunchy exterior, chewy interior. Tasty dipping. Love.

Wait.
Almost forgot to mention one very important thing.
This place has an AMAZING VIEW of Hong Kong, and we're happy to have been seated by the window.


Ok, back to food.
Beef tartare.



So yummy!

Came with extra potato gaufrettes. Life savior. This kept OB busy.


OB kept asking for more ketchup.


SC had the barramundi as his main. Absolutely delicious. I love how it has enough acidity in it.


I chose the duck "shepherd's pie"

I love the flavors, tasty savoury with lots of acidity, but the texture is a bit like creamy porridge.
We had this with the remaining of potato gaufrettes from the beef tartare and ordered extra bread (low-carb diet FAIL) for some crunch.

Cafe Gray Deluxe has a kids' menu for Sunday brunch, which is awesome.
It doesn't make any sense to order a full adult meal for OB, and to have him eat our food... we wouldn't have enough.
Oh, I so love child friendly places.
They also have high chairs, kids utensils, color pencils if needed.
And there were other noisy kids too (so I don't feel that I'm the only one with a naughty kid teehee!)

We wanted to choose burger and fries for OB, but these days he wants to make his own choices and he asked for pasta instead, so we ordered the linguini.
The linguini arrived rather late, almost after SC and I finished our mains (which we did within 5 minutes after serving). Our servers were very apologetic and they waived this dish from our bill. We appreciate the nice gesture.

Perfectly cooked pasta, tasty tomato sauce. We were worried about how it doesn't have any meat it in and OB may not like it, but we were wrong. The sauce's very flavourful with enough kick of acidity.

Did OB approve?

Yes, he likey!

Drinks.
I ordered espresso martini, but requested them to replace vodka with something else as I am allergic.

Yummy laaaaa. Cheers.

Birthday boy had this redhead... carrot juice X ginger ale.

I don't like the floating carrot bits in this... and I am not a big fan of carrots, so it's all SC's.

Desserts!
OB yelled "chocolate, chocolate, CHOCOLATE!" when we were choosing (I don't know this boy, really... whose naughty kid is that?)
So we had chocolate.
OB is not the boss of me, I wanted chocolate too #denial.

Grand marnier chocolate mousse.
Nicee.


Chocolate & key lime tart for the birthday boy.
The key lime tart was ace!

We were stuffed at that point, so we had our chocolates packed in a box to go.

Happy birthday again to SC!


Will we go back to Cafe Gray Deluxe?
Yes, definitely.

Should I mention again that the view is amazing?
Yes.
I hope to visit again in the evening.


How much?
About HK$366 per person for this meal.
(OB's linguini was waived tho)

Cafe Gray Deluxe
Level 49, the Upper House
Pacific Place, 88 Queensway
Hong Kong
(Admiralty MTR)

Tel: +85239681106
Email: info@cafegrayhk.com
(Yay! Email booking - I hate making phone calls)

Website:
http://www.cafegrayhk.com/

Yum Cha, A Classic Hong Kong Brunch

Drink the burning-your-tongue-boiling-HOT TEA, enjoy the vast array of mouth watering dim sums, be prepared to be shocked by the seemingly rude service, where the flatware & utensils are almost being thrown onto the table, take every pulse of the busy and lively atmosphere, experience Hong Kong’s classic, favorite brunch, yum cha

THE TEA
My favorite is Bo Lei (pu-erh in Mandarin). Don't get intimidated by its darkness, it is much less bitter than jasmine tea and much less agressive than Iron Buddha tea. It is earthy and healthy. It washes down all of the oily dimsums we had (oh yeah baby, the dimsums might be steamed, but they come with more oil than my shiny T-zone)


THE ENTERTAINMENT FACTOR
In Hong Kong, be prepared to share tables almost everywhere. I grew to love it. I am a nosy bitch and I LOVEEEE listening to other people's conversations (well, if they didn't want me to listen, they wouldn't speak as loudly as the firework explosions on New Year’s Eve, wud they?).

By the end of each meal, you'd generally learn what are these people's occupation, the fact that they hate their boss & most of their colleagues, their jealousy over their neighbours/relatives' success, their recent overseas trip, or their recent extravagant purchases, how much is their property worth, and how much they earned/lost in the stock market.

If you do not wish to disclose your personal matters to half of the restaurant, you can try conversing in an incomprehensible language (this is handy for me, every time my sister visits, we'd talk about everybody else in Javanese, only to discover that they too, are Javanese. OMG!) or bring something to read. My choice was the U-travel magazine, and the most popular choice in Hong Kong is the local newspaper, all the uncles drool at the porn section, and all the aunties bitch about whichever celebs on the entertainment gossip section.

THE DIM SUMs

The ever so popular har gaw (steamed prawn dumplings) succulent and enticing

I love these crispy, glutinous, meaty, sweet & salty ham sui gok

Apart from the tapping your fingers 3 times beside your cup when someone poured you hot tea to thank them and removing the lid of the tea pot to get it automatically refilled, I just learnt another yum cha science from my sous chef

In Hong Kong, the dimsums do not come in push-carts. You are given a piece of ordering paper, where you can tick the items you'd like to have. It is always tricky to figure out how much we should order. I always wanted to try everything, and always ended up with too much dimsums. Good thing I don't read Chinese, so the ordering responsibility is generally not my problem lol

It is good to start small and order more later. But this could result in awkward silence (if you are dining with the boss you fear/colleagues you hate/relatives or neighbors you always jealous of). Worry no more. Someone has figured it out.

My sous chef learnt from TV (oh, what a reliable source!), that the formula when ordering dimsums is: number of people x 2.2 = no of baskets of dimsums. We have tested this formula over numerous work lunch, and it is pretty accurate. Hmm maybe except when I was there, cos...I'm not proud of this, but I always exceeded my 2.2 quota *grin*

Oh, the gorgeous dimsum above is the super yummy Gai Jak (steamed chicken, fish maw, ham, and mushroom, wrapped in beancurd skin)

My next favorite dimsum is jan chu gai (pearl chicken = glutinous rice with meat, salted egg yolk & mushroom filling). Rich & super tasty. It's like unwrapping a precious gift on Christmas morning (but I generally do not bite them)

The next one's gotta be char siew cheong fun (BBQ Pork wrapped in rice sheets). I am a big carb fan, so I love this silky smooth, chewy, handmade rice sheets, paired with the rich & tasty BBQ pork

I just wish the tea could also wash away the fat from yesterday's huge BBQ pork dinner I had :p