Last night Lee and I went to Bo Innovation at their new location in Wan Chai. By some luck of chance or confusion we were seated at the Chef’s Table, so not only did we get to enjoy Bo’s amazing and unusual food, we were at the same time entertained throughout our meal, by Chef Alvin Leung, self-styled “Demon Chef” of Hong Kong.
The food at Bo is Hong Kong Asian Fusion, inspired (as I’ve since read) by the kaiseki “small bite” dinners in Japan. Chef Leung goes to Japan for research frequently as he told us during our meal.
His food is delicious, but different. Sometimes the descriptions, or the ingredients, don’t initially appeal to me. I’m not big on oysters, but his entry of a French oyster with green onion lime sauce was not only pretty, but tasted divine. His “molecular” entrée, a Shanghai Dumpling made with indescribably thin dough simply evaporated in one’s mouth, leaving only a memory of dumpling heaven. One of the entrees was a century egg, not my favorite food, but in his hand a pickled egg became something spectacular. I had pigeon; it was delicious. We had fried rice, but with saffron, and paired with a dessert wine that made me take a sip-eat a bite-take a sip, over and over, until sadly it was all gone.
In the picture above you can see one of the best courses of the evening – a smoked quail egg, toped with caviar and nestled in a crispy toro nest. As Chef Leung admonished us, it was the most expensive thing on the menu so we were ordered to use our fingers and pop it straight in our mouths, lest the use of chopsticks cause an egg to be dropped. It was so good that I was tempted to ask how much a second one would cost, but held my peace.
Chef Leung is a character. He was featured on Anthony Bourdain’s show No Reservations, cooking with a cigar in his mouth (before the smoking ban in Hong Kong!) and regaling his guests with stories about eating in Hong Kong and Asia. In the course of the evening he poured himself a glass of Laphroaig 15 year old scotch, and the chef’s table perked up with interest. One of the ladies at the table said she had taught her children at an early age to share their toys with others. Chef Alvin smiled wickedly at us, but poured us all some of his scotch at the end of the meal. Again, I’m not usually a hard liquor girl, but like everything else we ingested last night the scotch was awesome.
I was relieved that I didn’t have an adverse reaction to the alcohol last night. I was a bit tipsy but neither dizzy nor ill. Whatever happened at the Shangri-La seems to have been an oddity. Maybe Lee DID put something in my drink that night – ha.
Bo Innovations has been visited by the Michelin Star Gods sometime in the past couple of months. They will probably find out sometime this fall if they have been awarded a star. I know The Demon Chef wants one badly, and I don’t wish him any ill, but I sort of hope he doesn’t get his star, at least not before we leave Hong Kong. Once he has a star he will become the darling of the media and the rich and famous of Hong Kong, and then seats at his dinner table will be hard to acquire for simple folks like us.
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