Assiette

Bread and butter. Why did I take a photo? It was there. That's about it, really. Oh yes it was good bread, the crust giving the requisite crunch, my plate a mess of crumbs, and all the rest. Right, let's move on then.

Friday set lunch menu : $35

Prix fixe - there should be more of it, really. Two of us chose this option, but in the meantime, there was the amuse bouche, an not-always-expected but pleasant surprise for lunch.

Amuse bouche : pumpkin soup

An ideal sort of an amuse bouche for a light lunch and for a soup lover. Light of taste, comforting, and boding well for the courses to come.

Hublot’s new LE Manchester United King Power - Old Trafford included

The relationship between Hublot and Man United goes back to 2008, when they became the club's official timekeeper, but also manifested through the issuing of various limited edition watches featuring the club’s insignia. On Saturday 7 May 2011 Sir Alex Ferguson and Jean-Claude Biver launched the new limited edition King Power Red Devil, the latest (third) horological incarnation of the association between the two.

The attention-grabber in this watch is the use of blades of grass from Old Trafford's turf to make the watch indexes. The grass was picked by the club's grounds keepers then stabilised and preserved by Hublot. The blades of grass were then freeze-dried and inserted into the indexes, where they were coated with a special transparent lacquer to secure them permanently.

The new King Power is equipped with a chronograph movement via two centre hands. The first indicates the seconds and the other hand, specially developed for football, indicates the time elapsed out of the 45 mins in each half. The movement is the HUB4245 skeletonised automatic chronograph.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Size : 48mm

Case : Limited edition of 400 (micro blasted black matte ceramic); limited edition of 250 (18k “King Gold”, a new type of gold alloy)

Pushers : chronograph pushers have a “security bar”

Crystal : sapphire

Movement : Hublot HUB 4245 automatic chronograph

Dial : includes Man Utd “Red Devil” logo, indexes containing grass from Old Trafford

Strap : black rubber with red highlight

Each watch will come with by a certificate guaranteeing its authenticity, signed by Sir Alex Ferguson. As a child I actually followed Man Utd for a few years, but reading about this watch also made me think about Wimbledon’s famed turf (of which yes, I did pinch a few blades of grass from Centre Court many moons ago), Twickenham, Lords, and how important “hallowed sporting ground” can be to many sporting fans. 

Will the use of grass from Old Trafford in the watch mean desirability? To my mind, even when disregarding the turf, the black matte version is much more attractive generally than the previous Red Devil models, largely because of the skeletonisation, but yes, I can see the novelty of the indexes appealing to some diehard fans who also happen to be watch folk.

[AP]

Blancpain 50 Fathoms Concept 2000

ChrisL was due for a new watch.

In the toss up between two very different watches and brands, an unbelievable deal proved too good to resist and so off it was to J.Farren-Price to pick up his new wrist toy.

The removal of one and a half links later, Chris' new "whoosy" was locked onto his wrist.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Reference : 2200-6530-66
Model : Fifty Fathoms Men's Stainless Steel and Rubber Diver's watch
Features : Time, date window between 4 and 5 o'clock, red tipped seconds hand
Dial : Black. Hands and indices with luminous material

Case and Bracelet : Stainless Steel and Rubber
Case Size : 40.5mm, thickness 13mm
Movement : Blancpain Caliber 115
Jewels : 29
Frequency : 21,600
Power Reserve : 100hrs

This is a surprisingly lightweight sports watch that sits comfortably on the wrist. At 40.5mm, it is not too large and quite nicely sized, by contemporary standards. It also sits quite discreetly on the wrist.

Other models that were released at the same time were the 50 Fathoms GMT 24 Two Time Zones and the Air Command Chronograph. Perhaps ChrisL will collect all three?

Congratulations ChrisL on the latest member of your Blancpain family.

Sweet Basil Thai Cuisine

Sweet Basil Thai Cuisine
Shop C/D
6/F Lee Theatre Plaza
99 Percival St
Causeway Bay
Hong Kong
Ph : +852 28901993

I had an unexpected yearning for Thai food one night, and somehow ended up at Sweet Basil Thai. Proximity to my hotel and slightly frustrated attempts at finding a good Thai restaurant in the area (namely through Open Rice) were major contributors to this.

Situated on one of the restaurant oriented floors of the Lee Theatre Plaza, Sweet Basil is not only quite large but has the appearance of having exploded beyond its original premises into the surrounding public space. I was curious about this, as surely it indicated that they must be popular?  As it turned out the 'outside' tables, of which there were easily two dozen in number, were mostly empty that evening. The interior could not be seen from where I was sitting, so I'm not sure how much business they did that night.

Mini combination platter (HKD88)

Sheer lack of imagination combined with the novelty value of ordering a "combination" anything was the reasoning behind this choice. If this is the "mini" version, the mind boggles at the larger one, as  despite appearances in this photo, this was actually a reasonably sized starter. Each of the components were quite filling.

Spring roll

These robustly sized spring rolls contained a good mix of some half a dozen types of meat and vegetables. Although not the best spring roll I ate during this trip (that was the one at Sportful Garden), these were hot, crunchy, and pleasant enough.

Stuffed chicken in lotus leaf

Deboned chicken simply stuffed with what appeared to be cabbage, wrapped in skin and cooked in lotus leaf. This may sound odd, but I found this too substantial for me to eat comfortably. It wasn't about the taste, which was really niether here nor there, but all that white chicken meat just seemed to sit heavily on my stomach by the time I made it half way through the parcel. It was at that point that I realised that too much food had been ordered.

Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Compressor Diving Chronograph GMT Navy Seals

I recently had a chance to test drive the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Compressor Diving Chronograph GMT Navy Seals (yes that full name is quite a mouthful) for a day and this is by no means a small watch. I'm glad that it's made of titanium as after a day you really do feel its heft. I shudder to think how my arm would feel had it been made of steel. I'm sure it would be a very good muscle building exercise. 

There is no doubt that this is a big watch. You know how some watches might seem big on paper but wear smaller? With this one, what you see is what you get. Really. You feel every millimeter and it does sit quite high, I can see why this particular watch in the Navy Seals range has people divided in their opinions. It is definitely a watch you will not get away with wearing it with a suit. There is no way it'll fit under the shirt cuff. However, it goes great with jeans.

Now having only worn it for a day I can't comment on the time keeping aspect of the watch but I'm sure it's fine. It is very discreet in its branding and from a distance it could be any dives watch. Only those in the know will be able to recognize its telltale compression crown and pushers. 

I suppose one thing, if anything that Navy Seals need is for a watch to be able to tell the time, and sure enough the time is certainly highly legible, thanks to the great contrast between black and white. However, if you want a dial that's cleaner and less crowded you can do much worse than having a look at the dive alarm, or even the dive auto, which differs from its brethrens by being made of stainless steel. (This is also the one that Paul Walker wore in the movie Fast 5)

The articulated rubber bracelet I'm a big fan of. It's comfortable, and subdued. The only thing I wish they'd coated in rubber was the clasp. It is highly scratch prone, and as a desk diver, I find that the clasp begins to look very second hand quite quickly.

For someone who actually likes big watches, I hate to say that this watch is perhaps a little too big for my wrist. I mean, I do manage to pull off some 50mm monstrosities, but this one, even at a mere 46 point something, I felt it was too big. I think that the 44mm alarm is the pick of the bunch, and the various fora would seem to agree with this assessment. 

Affectionally referred to as the NSA, it has become a sort of a strap darling, much like Panerais where people have a strap collection to match the watch. And, just like a Panerai, the watch can pull off the different looks that various straps give it. I think the watch looks best with a good solid thick strap that you perhaps bought for the Panerai. Hey, they are both dive watches, built for the Navy!

[o] 

[Disclosure : [o] is an employee of JLC. All views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the views of JLC]

Katong Laksa

Katong Laksa
G/F, 8 Mercer St.
Sheung Wan
Hong Kong
Ph : +852 25434088

Another branch at :
Shop D1
G/F, Kam Sing Mansion
155 Jaffe Rd
Wanchai
Ph : +852 3168 2478

Sunday lunchtime in the depths of Sheung Wan. A quiet time, and in the corner of Sheung Wan in which I found myself on this day, a surprisingly few number of places open at lunch time. I was in the area to meet up with my father, and the search for lunch ended taking up 15 minutes of walking around with very little in sight apart from two rather dubious looking places, a shop selling live snakes for the grocery shopping crowd, and two Malaysian restaurants.

And so it was that I found myself at Katong. It was there, it was open, and the exterior was bedecked with copies of reviews assuring passers-by of its place amongst the top Malaysian eateries in Hong Kong.

Katong is a small place with an open kitchen (there was only one chef cooking on  the day of my visit) and it also does deliveries and takeaways. The menu consists of 29 main items, four "afternoon tea sets" that are popular amongst old style Hong Kong "Westernised" cafes (Cha Chaan Teng) in particular, plus various non-alcoholic drink options.

Hidetaka Fukaya and Gaziano & Girling - the next chapter

One of the biggest challenges of geting a bespoke garment or a pair of shoes is the time it takes for the completed product to arrive. It typically takes a shoemaker or a team of shoemakers between 50 to 60 hours to make a pair of hand welted shoes. However, fittings are required and this is best facilitated by easy access to the shoemaker, otherwise the process is slowed down to a snail's pace and dependent upon the shoemaker or your own travel schedules.

For better for or worst, I have reached the point in my bespoke shoe adventures where I have cultivated a pipeline, where one delivery can preoccupy me sufficiently between fittings and delivery. It has been six months or so since taking delivery of my first pair of bespoke shoes from Hidetaka Fukaya.

(Excuse the pants as they were new and a little too long. Rest assured that they have been fixed).

Hot on the heels (no pun intended) of the Hidetaka Fukaya was my order from Gaziano & Girling (or 'G&G' for short) and after a 12 month plus wait, one measurement and two fittings (one in Tokyo and another in Hong Kong) they have finally arrived.

A technically challenging and very rare seamless and stitchless (well only one visible stitch at the throat, slightly hidden) buffalo wholecuts.

Tony Gaziano applying the finishing touches.

So now that this pair has arrived, what else is in the pipeline?

A full brogue from Hidetaka Fukaya, with a second fitting thrown in to further perfect my pattern.

My first experience with a shoemaker who makes a trial shoe and subsequently rips it a part to better understand fit. For those in the know, you will be quick to recognise that this is a widely used technique by the French.

Stay tuned for more updates in the near or far future.

[Gaz]