Where's the beef? Exploring Hong Kong supermarkets.

It's my third week in Hong Kong, and I'm obsessed with finding out where a girl can get a steak in this town. Now I'm not talking about steaks that come with a hefty price tag at a high end, hotel restaurant. I already know those options exist, and I'm pretty sure those restaurants can provide an experience equal to one in New York or London or Paris. Probably so equal, in fact, that you might forget that you are still in Hong Kong. No, the kind of steak I'm looking for is loved. It is fattened up in a pasture and caressed on a butcher block before being seasoned and seared on a hot grill by yours truly. So why the obsession with steak all of a sudden? I'm in a city full of noodles and dim sum. What's exactly happening here?

Restaurant Review: Goodman in Mayfair

London seems to go through food phases and now is definitely the time of the infantile.  It is burgers and pizzas.  And why not?  When done well they are some of the purest and best dishes one can eat.  But then, inevitably and like a spoiler comes the question; which is the best one?  Where can you get the best burger, the crispiest pizza?  It becomes infectious and a game of one up manship that unfortunately magazines like Time Out have become in thrall to.  Each issue is now Top Ten "blah" and in being so loses a certain depth and appreciation of the variety on offer.

Restaurant Review: Hawksmoor in Spitalfields - a corporate revisit

Hawksmoor is my couple of times a month punchy burger lunch place. Quite frankly I am no longer rich or thin enough to be able to eat there properly in the evenings and run the full gambit of steak and cocktails.

However... in my attempts to be sympathetic to Jen's January food challenge and out of empathy to her lunch of 2 old apples and some peanut butter I thought I would ensure that at least one of us gets a proper meal by me going to Hawksmoor. The thing was, I wasn't paying and that changes things.

Restaurant Review: Hawksmoor in Spitalfields

The real question when you review is do you try not to hurt people's feelings? Do you placate, ameliorate and well, ignore the truth? Should I, because I am a twitter buddy of the Hawksmoor guy(s), fudge the truth a bit? Should burnt become "with a nice edge of charcoal" or do you just go guns blazing, cheap shots hunting?

Thankfully Hawksmoor didn't put me in this position when I went there for lunch earlier this week. A friend and I knew exactly what we wanted. It was a menu irrelevant kind of meal. It was time for a big burger and chips. If it hadn't been a work lunch that would been paired with a good red.

As you will see from picture one a Hawksmoor burger is big but it accords with the revelation I had earlier this year at Shake Shack in New York. Now Shake Shack and Hawksmoor are very different creatures. Shake Shack is about injecting dirty dirty cheese into a portobello mushroom, ladling on some fat and as many little bits of artery clogging death as you can to your meal. Hawksmoor is about good beef, ground up. However, where they have same philosophy is on the bun. The bun is simply something to hold the meat and give it a bit of a crust. It isn't some quasi baguette you are going lacerate your mouth on. It isn't something you need to have a mouth extension to be able to get your teeth around. It's just perfect.