S&P Kiosk - Soymilk, Chinese, Hong Kong

5-6 Hau Fook Street, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Nearest MTR: Tsim Sha Tsui - Cameron Road Exit
Tel: 852 2311 1498
Hours: Open 7am until late

Last Visited: November 2010

Food: 4 stars
Atmosphere: 2 to 3 stars
Service: 2 to 3 stars
Price: $

Hau Fook Street isn't a long street. It literally translates into mouth luck street. It's one of my favorite places to eat breakfast.

The location featured in this photo, S&P Kiosk, is a great spot for soy milk, both sweet and savory, and sticky rice. Sweet soy milk comes hot in a bowl or cold in a cup. Savory soy milk only comes hot. It's plain soy milk with pieces of fried Chinese donut, chopped preserved vegetables, dried shredded meat (Asian style jerky), baby shrimp, and chopped scallions. While savory soy milk may be an acquired taste to a foreign palate, one thing unique about it is that the ingredients coagulate the milk which is an indicator that it's good soy milk containing a lot of the soy still in it. Of course if you're less adventurous, you can also get milk tea and the like, but this establishment is especially known for soy milk.

Accompanying your soy milk, I would suggest getting a green onion pancake. This comes both regular or fried in egg. Both are good. Another option is the classic sticky rice snack.

I would suggest getting a green onion pancake. It's a circular piece of dough made with flour and glutinous rice flour. Combined with savory green onion, it's then pan fried (sometimes you'll find it deep fried) and is excellent alone or served with a little soy sauce and vinegar. There are also other options including pot stickers, but I prefer my pot stickers to have a thinner skin than what they provide here.

In the picture to the right, you'll see the woman preparing the snack by holding sticky rice in her hand, then filling it with the preserved vegetable and dried shredded meat mentioned above. It's a very filling dish, and it's so popular that people stand in line just to get it to go. This place opens around 7am - go later and you'll find that it's a madhouse. I typically order a hot sweet soy milk and sticky rice - it's still wrapped in its plastic bag in this photo.

Other breakfast specialties include their savory meat and vegetable stuffed pancake that is pan-fried as well as pan-fried potstickers. Northern dim sum is featured here.

While soymilk is one of their specialties, they offer a lot of options for lunch as well. You can see the photo shows rice noodles with snow vegetables and pork.

They also make soup dumplings - though these are a lot bigger than what I prefer. I find their dumpling wrapper to be thicker than what I like, although the filling is quite abundant. Think potsticker in soup and you'll get a sense for the size of these things. For lunch, I recommend ordering one of the noodle soup bowls.

There is another location in the Jordan district on Parkes Street that tends to be less crowded if you happen to be staying in that area. Ask for a set menu at the Jordan location and you can get a discount when you make this selection. If you don't ask for the set, they'll charge you separately. I don't think the set is available at their Hau Fook Street location.

risibisi - Italian, Petaluma

154 Petaluma Blvd North, Petaluma CA 94952
(707) 766-7600
Hours: Open daily except Sunday for lunch at 11:30am and daily for dinner at 5pm
Parking: limited street parking in front and rear
http://www.risibisirestaurant.com

Last Visited: February 28, 2010

Food: 2 to 3 stars
Atmosphere: 2 to 3 stars
Service: 3 stars
Price: $$$ to $$$$

It was Sonoma County Restaurant Week, and I nearly missed it since I wasn't aware of it until the last day. For $39, risibisi was serving up a four course menu (this made it stand out from the others as many were only serving three courses). A few people had told me to check out risibisi in the past, so this seemed like a great opportunity - my fridge was empty and it was dinner time.

risibisi serves rustic Italian-California cuisine including pastas, salads, and main dishes like saltimbocca. risibisi is committed to using local sustainable ingredients.

risibisi's prix fixe looked pretty interesting - I always appreciate a good minestrone. Like many restaurants along Petaluma Boulevard North, risibisi is housed in an old brick building and the environment is set up with a rustic flare. Chairs are hung from the ceiling which seems to give the place additional character. The bar is in the back, and if you walk into the hallway, you'll be able to look into their kitchen. Their front door has a drape hung around the immediate area to reduce the draft from outside. I wasn't all too sure that this was a safe practice, but it seemed to work. Upon arriving, we were given bread accompanied by some olive tapenade.

- Homemade Organic Sonoma Vegetables Minestrone - For the first course, we were given a bowl of minestrone. It had good flavor and was typical of what you might expect of a minestrone, but I was dissatisfied by the temperature. I wasn't sure if it was because it was a cold evening, but by the time the soup came to the table, it wasn't hot and that seems to always take away from the experience of eating good soup.

For the second course, we had a choice of an Organic Baby Spinach salad, steamed Bodega Bay Mussels, or a Baked Puff Pastry Organic Sonoma Vegetable Roll.

- Bodega Bay Mussels - These were cooked in white wine with garlic and tomatoes and served with toasted baguette slices. The portion and flavor were good and I liked the broth.

- Baked Puff Pastry Organic Sonoma Vegetable Roll - From the name, I expected an individual pastry, but it turned to be three slices of a larger roll. Also, after selecting it, I was told that it was going to be served at room temperature. I have to admit that just learning this had me disappointed, but I was willing to give it a try anyway, thinking that it would be an individual pastry. Instead, the roll came out served in a star pattern with a drizzle of watercress pesto, and although nicely presented, I was disappointed at how cold it was. Perhaps it had been in the refrigerator and brought back to temperature, but the pastry was no longer crispy, and the roll was limp and soft. Disappointing. In this case, I think listing on the menu that it is served cold would better prepare patrons for the upcoming experience. I wouldn't have selected it had I known.

For the entree, they offered a choice of Parppadelle, Organic Sonoma Farms Half Chicken "Al Mattone," Risotto, or Pan Roasted Fresh Pacific Salmon.

- Pan Roasted Fresh Pacific Salmon - The salmon was presented on a rectangular white plate with an organic watercress pesto. The grilled texture and flavor were great, although the pesto didn't have a lot of flavor. What I really liked about this dish was the side of vegetables. Carrot or yam (something orange) and possibly spinach (something green) was layered into a souffle-like mass shaped into a bowl. The texture was creamy and slightly sweet making it a very nice contrast to the texture of the fish. It was also unusual in its pretty presentation and the way it had been cooked. I would recommend this dish.

- Risotto with Fresh Organic Local Artichokes - The risotto was rich and creamy and the portion filled the entire large plate. I only managed to eat half of it, but the parmesan flavor was noticeable and I enjoyed the dish even more as a leftover.

The fourth course was a choice of Homemade Sicilian Canoli or Homemade Tiramisu.

- Sicilian Canoli - If you've had a canoli in Sicily or Italy, this doesn't compare. It tastes good with its creamy filling, but the canoli itself lacks lightness. One order gives you two canoli.

- Homemade Tiramisu - Given the choice, choose tiramisu. It's creamy and good and the ladyfingers are homemade. That's all you need to know.

Overall, food and service were okay. The soup and appetizer both needed to be served piping hot. The service seemed to lack a certain warmth to it, and though they were attentive, the wait staff was not as polished as the prices seemed to warrant. Whether it was bringing or removing knives, handling soup bowls, or something else, I expected more out of risibisi because of their atmosphere and reputation.