Food

We woke up nice and early to have showers and headed to the transfer desk to pick up our boarding passes for our next 2 flights: Singapore to KL and then KL to Hong Kong. We then headed to the lounge and I found a room with a massage chair! Score! I spent the next half hour here before joining Ben for a light breakfast.

We made our way to the gate, which involved going through security at the gate, then heading downstairs to wait for the bus to take us to the plane. It was just a short bus trip, and as it was still only around 6.20 am it was pretty dark.

We found our seats on the plane and weren't expecting much for a 45min flight but we had drinks, hot towels and breakfast.

Arrived in Kuala Lumpur around 7.30am and our next flight was at 9.15am so we headed to the Lounge. We caught the Airtrain to the Lounge close to the gate, which was very quick - kind of like a slow rollercoaster.

We hung out in the lounge and used some free wifi, then made our way to the gate. Like in Singapore, it is different compared to back home in that the X-ray machine is at every gate, so we had to line up to get into the waiting area for our gate.

Once through we only had to wait 10-15min before the flight boarded. This flight was from Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong and was scheduled to take around 3.5hrs. The seats on this flight weren't the newest but they were pretty good in terms of space, and while more angle flat than lie flat, they were still comfy.

Brunch was a Spanish omlette as well as a tasty Danish and some fruit. I also had some special tea, Tek Tarik, which was very sweet but tasty.

We circled around Hong Kong airspace for a bit as there was a bit of a backlog on flights landing, so we ended up landing 20 mins late.

We made our way to our hotels desk and got the transfer to the hotel.

I chose The Mira hotel after a lot of research on hotels around Hong Kong. It stood out for a few reasons - I liked the location, the room came with a free smart phone with data and free calls, and a lot of the reviews on TripAdvisor were very positive.

I had also forgotten, but the room came with a neverending fridge so you could drink as much as you wanted - for free - and they replenish it the next day. In it was 2 Cokes, 2 Coke zeros, 2 sprites, 2 beers, 2 soda waters, 2 green teas.

We went for a bit of a walk down to the Harbour and it was a bit cloudy.

Originally we had planned on nothing for today other than checking into our hotel and then checking out the surrounding area, and maybe making a trip to Tim Ho Wan - a cheap Michelin starred dim sum place. However a few days ago I received an email from the restaurant we were going to on the Monday night - Bo Innovation - informing us that due to a private booking, there were no inside tables available. Considering the humidity, heat and chance of rain on Hong Kong, as well as the fact I made the booking 3 months ago, this did not go down well - but they did offer us a table on another night. With a bit of back and forth we moved our booking to tonight.

We tried to catch a taxi but no one wanted to take us across the bay, so we headed to the MTR. It was surprisingly quick and easy to get to Wan Chai, and only a few blocks to Bo Innovation.

We decided to go with the Chefs Tasting Menu with matching wines. We were asked if we were familiar with Hong Kong cuisine as the food is a twist on many traditional dishes - unfortunately we weren't, and it probably would have made the whole experience better if we had.

While this is the first time I have not had a handbag stool, I did get a handbag hanger instead.

To start we had egg waffles filled with spring onion - a twist on traditional Hong Kong food.

Caviar (smoked quail egg in a taro nest, with caviar on top) - it was crunchy and smokey flavoured, however I couldn't really taste the caviar.

Mulhoe (foie gras, spicy korean miso, pear, sea urchin, sea bladder, smoked squid, sea bream, jicana) - the sea urchin melted in my mouth - I had never had this before so it was a new taste. The dish was accompanied with a tube of spicy foie gras deliciousness. The jellyfish was suprisingly crunchy and sweet, and the cold pear soup complimented the dish very well.

Lap mei fan/baked alaska - To me it was like salted caramel icecream without the salty aftertaste

Umami (black truffle, toro, har mi oil, vermicelli rice noodle) - The noodles were cooked in shrimp paste oil, with shaved black truffle, but to me the highlight was the toro (fish) which was delicious.

Molecular/Deconstructed xiao long bao - this was a spheried version of a xiao long bao - the taste was there, but wasn't quite what xiao long bao tastes like.

Tomato (chinese vinegar, fermented chinese olive, marshmallow with green onion oil)

Right to left - cherry tomato (yum), yellow tomato covered in basil jelly and feremented olives (OK), basil infused marshmallow(delicious).

Red fish (Yunnan ham, dry mandarin peel, wild mushroom, jerusalem artichoke, pickled pearl onion) - this was subtle, with the pork cracker and the Mandarin peel both highlights.

Blue lobster (sichuan hollandaise, hot shaohsing broth, chinese leek dumpling, charred corn) - this dish was unexpectedly spicy and I was unexpectedly allergic (nothing major, but ended up with tounge bumps/swelling and some itchiness which has happened before when eating marron).

Mao tai - this was a take on a whiskey sour

Sweetbread (oyster sauce, mountain yam, spring onion, ginger) - first we ate the leaf which tasted just like and oyster. The accompanying sweetbreads were scrumptious and the seaweed was crispy.

Saga-gyu beef (striploin, chocolate ox tongue, truffled taro, spring onion) - the Ox tongue was weird and chewy, not what I am used to. Striploin absolutly delicious , truffle sauce a highlight.

Almond (genmai, okinawa black sugar, cinnamon) - tasty soupy and the globule was a strong almond taste.

Coconut (palm sugar, coconut water, chocolate, pina colada, cherry, pandan) - very tasty concoction with different textures and tastes.

To finish we had some petit fours - Eight Treasures - which included Dragon Eye (coconut jelly), osmanthus(steamed sponge cake), rose (macaron, lychee, butter cream), lotus seed (custard, sticky rice dumpling), mandarin peel (chocolate truffle), red date (marshmallow), wolfberry (tian ji pear, crystal bun), chrysanthemum (meringue). We split all of these in half so we got to taste everything.

During the dinner I saw this dude who I thought was the chef so I took a sneaky photo of him.

We got chatting to the French waitress, who had lived in Perth for a while and used to work at Printhall, but moved to Hong Kong when her working visa ran out, and now works in 3 starred Michelin restaurant - a slight step up.

On a side note - the restroom had toilet paper inside a leather tissue box which was fancy, but the second time I went to the bathroom the ladies was busy so the waiter ushered me into the mens, even though I was happy to wait. Was I in for a surprise - who knew that urinals come with ice?!

After an enjoyable dinner which marked our 30th Michelin star, we made our way back to the hotel on the MTR - it was a long day - but a very enjoyable one.