This past October, I spent six days eating my way through Hong Kong while attending the 10th Annual HK Wine & Dine Festival, where guests nibbled and sipped at 450 booths over four days.
    While there I tasted a couple of dishes from locally born entrepreneur Vivian Shek. Her restaurant, The Drunken Pot, (left) opened last year in a chic, artsy space at 8 Observatory Road in Tsim Sha Tsui. Shek has re-imagined the traditional hot pot with unique broths, like drunken chicken, and unconventional dipping components like clams and chicken in sake-coconut broth.
      Hong Kong continues to be a magnet for global food enthusiasts and here are some restaurants I enjoyed.

JAMES SUCKLING WINE CENTRAL—Long known in the media for his expertise in fine wines and for hosting impressive tasting events, James Suckling recently opened Wine Central to share his passion with a broader audience. His new wine bar in Hong Kong’s Soho has about 500 bottles on his personally curated list, which is heavily Italian but with a global reach. There are 300 wines available by the glass and all scored above 90 points by his rating team.
   Suckling believes Asian food partners well with some of the world’s great wines. Chef Ho (left), formerly at London’s Jinjuu, demonstrates this with a limited modern Korean menu featuring refined spins on dishes like Korean fried chicken; scallops with leeks, jalapeño and lemon; grilled salmon with saffron, daenjaeng (fermented bean paste), seaweed and squid ink; and pork belly with braised kimchi, golden beets and apple. For dessert rice donuts were garnished with chocolate, raspberries and mascarpone. There are also several platters for sharing. The tastes are flavorful but subtle.
    Suckling’s partners are his Korean wife, Marie Kim-Suckling, a former wine merchant, and Italian-Korean restaurateur Francesco Lee. Beyond an expansive bar and casual lounge, there is a somewhat glitzy, 80-seat dining room. The restaurant is on the second floor of Staunton Suites on Staunton Street. 

James Suckling Wine Central 22 Staunton St, 2^nd floor, Central (Soho) +852 2539 7999

OLD BAILEY—This is a dazzling restaurant that opened last June in the Tai Kwun Centre. The complex’s name means “Big Station.” It refers to the restored and re-purposed former law enforcement compound that included the Central Police Station, Victoria Prison and the Central Magistracy. In 1995, it was designated an historic area. There are already five new restaurants there, with more slated to open soon, along with art and cultural areas.   
 Old Bailey is in a Herzog-de Meuron-designed building that artfully combines colonial architecture with a contemporary aesthetic. The menu similarly focuses on traditional and modern interpretations of food from Jiangnan province, known for clean, delicate flavors with a focus on healthful, seasonal eating.
    The menu’s unique dishes, crafted by chef Wong Gwan Man (left), begin with seductive plates of pickles brought to the table. His signature dishes include Mala Ibérico pork dumplings in rich soup (xiaolongbao); Hangzhou duck soup with handmade fish balls, ham, bamboo shoots and reeds; double boiled lion's head are hand-minced pork meatballs with hairy crab, and the Longjing green tea smoked pigeon is garnished with fried leaves and dramatically presented at the table under a birdcage. Village-style handkerchief pasta with seasonal greens was also delightful.

Old Bailey, Shop 20, 2/F, Tai Kwun, 10 Hollywood Road, Central. +852 2877 8711 

10 SHANGHAI–—This restaurant is located inside the Lee Garden Two shopping center in Causeway Bay. To enter, you pass through a striking, circular Chinese moon archway into an elegant art deco interior where live music from the ’30s is playing. It recalls Shanghai’s glamorous Golden Age of nightlife.     
     The retro setting provides a sophisticated venue to showcase executive chef David Chen’s Huaiyang cooking that emphasizes the natural flavors of ingredients. His dishes deliver purity of taste and are aesthetically stunning, often thanks to his expert knife skills. A seemingly simple sliced turnip disks in chicken soup was bursting with taste, the turnip disks artfully complemented with vibrant greens. His recent Great Northern Feast Menu included dishes like xiaolongbao, dumplings with thin, strong skins that hold a rich, aromatic soup and a delicious meatball inside. Other signature dishes included crispy Darjeeling smoked chicken with tea leaves, as well as Longjing tea-smoked soft-boiled eggs with black truffle pearls. Rice dumplings in sweet ginger soup were a fittingly light but flavorful finale to the meal.

10 Shanghai, Shop 101, Lee Garden Two, 28 Yun Ping Rd, Causeway Bay, +852 2338 5500.

 
  I also dined in the venerable, three Michelin-starred T’ANG COURT (left), in the Langham Hotel, Kowloon, where timeless Cantonese dishes were exquisitely created and presented in the luxurious setting.
    At the beautiful, contemporary one-starred ÉPURE, the menu is uncomplicated yet elegant. I had a six-course caviar-tasting menu (right)  that was well conceived and inventive. Finally, I also took a delightful foodie walking tour in Sham Shui Po, a lively blue-collar neighborhood. Loved the dumplings and rice noodles with hoisin, sweet chili sauce and sesame seeds.
   
HO LEE FOOK: Funky kitchen in the style of cha chaan tengs and old school NY Chinatown hangouts in the ’60s. Great dumplings, roast goose (left) and French toast served with peanut butter, maple syrup and condensed milk.
   FUKURO, an izakaya concept, is next door, both belonging  to the Black Sheep Restaurants group. I ran in briefly and had dessert of seaweed flavored Monaka (Japanese sweet azuki bean paste) ice cream sandwich with cherry compote.
    GRASSROOTS PANTRY (right) on Hollywood Rd. Uber chic destination for vegans and vegetarians in a rustic, plant-filled wooden space focused on plant-based food and sustainability.

    The neglect by the New York food media to review steakhouses, unless it’s to bash a buzzy place like Nusr-Et, run by a preening Turkish chef who tosses salt on your food from two feet away, is near total. And none of the critics ever returns to see if classic New York steakhouses like Peter Luger, Palm or the Old Homestead are living up to their reputations.
    The rationale among the critics is that so many steakhouses are so alike, which is as preposterous as to say that all the city’s French bistros or Italian trattorias are alike. The fact is, except for overlap on the menus, Smith & Wollensky is no more like Porter House than Abbott is like Costello.  In all restaurants that serve traditional dishes everything depends on the quality of the ingredients and the way they are cooked, which is the reason the New York media are constantly searching out yet another hamburger joint or pizzeria for some form of novelty.
    I, on the other hand, love going to steakhouses whose competition with all the rest means they must buy the best beef, seafood and vegetables they can find.  Too many these days claim to serve Prime beef dry-aged for outlandish periods of time, when anything over 28 days is actually counterproductive, despite the hype.  Some may use lump crabmeat in their crabcake, others jumbo or even colossal. Some may make their own desserts, others buy the always wonderful S&S Cheesecake.
    These considerations don’t even begin to address ambiance, design and service, which can vary from the fake macho of so many to the cheery hospitality of others. All these are factors I consider when going to a steakhouse, and returning to a classic New York place, albeit in Westchester County, like Flames, which I do with the expectation that it’s among the best in the region and considerably better than many in Manhattan or Brooklyn.
    Owner and executive chef Nikola Vulaj worked in many of them before opening his own back in 1992, in Chappaqua, N.Y., and now his new Flames in Elmsford. With a fine white marble bar, a main dining room and a lovely private room, Flames has the old-fashioned look of an American chophouse—stone  fireplace, soft overhead lighting, dark wainscoting, very comfortable chairs, tilted mirrors and white tablecloths. The service staff are veterans and work in teams to bring out all the courses and side dishes people order, though if there’s a party in full swing, service in the main room slows down.
     As soon as you sit down you’ll get a good loaf of bread with a generous slab of butter at the right temperature. At the bar fresh hot potato chips cooked in beef fat are offered.
    The crabmeat cocktail and crabcake are indeed made with big, sweet lumps of colossal size ($21.95), as are the shrimp. Fried calamari are always crispy and meaty, and I usually order the eggplant rollatini with prosciutto and melted fontina ($12.95), though on a recent visit it was too firm. 
    The menu description for spaghetti alla carbonara reads “done the right way,” that is, without cream, onions or parsley, and it is easily one of the best I’ve had this side of Rome.
       The veal chop with mushrooms ($48.95) weighs in at about 16 ounces, and the American rack of lamb comes as four well-fatted chops. The usual cuts of beef, from filet mignon ($48.95) to porterhouses sliced for two to four people ($98 to $188), are of the best quality available, impeccably seared and rosy-red inside when medium-rare. I applaud Vulaj for taking wagyu beef off the menu, because his American Prime is so much better than the American wagyu and most Japanese kobe out there.
    Some steakhouses have dropped whole lobsters from their menus, but not Flames, and they are all giants, from three to four pounds (MP), served with a big ramekin of clarified butter. (You  might ask for just melted butter, which has more flavor.)
    The creamed spinach is luxurious, with a touch of nutmeg, and both the French fries and mashed potatoes are excellent. Last visit the onion rings came to the table limp, but I suspect that was a momentary slip-up.
    Desserts are largely housemade and the longtime specialty is the zucchino ($10), with layers of English cream, white chocolate and mocha mousse and meringue.
    Vulaj has always been proud of his 250-label wine list and he prices it carefully. There are trophy wines galore but a lot of pretty good bargains among the lesser choices.
    If Flames were merely as good as any in Manhattan, it would be noteworthy enough. But with the quality of food it serves, it might even deserve a trip from the city by the same New York critics who ignore steakhouses in their hometown. 

Open daily for lunch and dinner.