Here finally is my last report on our high-end dining adventures in Seoul in February and March. It’s not my last Seoul report from the trip—I have one more report on some far more informal eating to come—but it’s my last high-end report. And it’s of the last of those high-end meals. You may recall that our first was lunch at Mingles in late February. In early March we had lunch with a friend at Soul Dining. In mid-March, just a few days before we left Seoul, the missus and I had lunch at Kwonsooksoo. We’d come close to cancelling the reservation—the end of the program I was leading had left me rather drained and I wasn’t sure I was up for another long meal. In the end we decided to stick with our plan and I’m very glad we did: this was one of our very best meals, not just in Seoul but anywhere so far this year. Here are some details. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Michelin
Soul Dining (Seoul, March 2024)
You’ll never believe it but I have a restaurant report from Seoul today. I’ve been promising the imminent conclusion of my reports from our five-week trip to the city in February and March for a couple of months, and here I am in mid-July with two more reports still to come after this one. This lunch at Soul Dining was eaten in early March. This was the second of three high-end/Michelin-starred restaurants we ate at on the trip. I’ve previously reported on the first of those meals—at Mingles. At the end of that report—back in April—I’d said I’d have the other two done in the coming weeks. Of course, I meant months. Anyway, here finally is a look at what was an exquisite lunch at Soul Dining. We had lunch there on a weekday in the company of a friend who was in Seoul for a week as part of my program. Continue reading
Mingles (Seoul, February 2024)
The vast majority of our meals out in Seoul—and all the meals I’ve so far reported on—were eaten at more or less casual restaurants and at markets. We did, however, also eat three fancier meals; at places with Michelin stars, no less. Our interest was to see what contemporary high-end Korean cooking looks like, especially in the home country, where diners are intimately familiar with the cuisine in its traditional guises. The first of these three meals was eaten at Mingles, located in Gangnam-gu and currently the holder of two Michelin stars. We ate lunch there on a weekday in late February. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Lung King Heen, Executive Set Lunch (Hong Kong, December 2018)
Other than Crystal Jade at the airport, Lung King Heen was the only restaurant I ate at on this trip to Hong Kong that I’d eaten at before. That was during our short family sojourn in the city in early 2016. We’d gone there with every intention of eating their Executive Set Lunch but on arrival got seduced by their a la carte menu. That was a very expensive lunch but also a very delicious one. I did nonetheless harbour a bit of a sense of unfinished business re their Executive Lunch; and so when I had a meeting on this trip at the IFC, I couldn’t resist walking over to the Four Seasons and inquiring about the possibility of a lunch seating later in the week. Once again, I managed to get a table with only a few days notice; once again it was in a corner of their dining room, far away from their fabled view of Victoria Harbour. But I was not complaining. Continue reading
Lung King Heen (Hong Kong, Jan 2016)
Well, it’s been over two months since we got back to Minnesota from Hong Kong and here finally is my last meal report. This was our last restaurant meal there and in terms of reputation this was the biggest one of them all: under head chef Chan Yan-Tak, Lung King Heen at the Four Seasons holds three Michelin stars, the only Chinese restaurant in the world with that distinction, and is on most people’s short list of the best Cantonese restaurants in the world.
We’d not originally planned to eat there—I had Fook Lam Moon on my radar instead for high-end Cantonese—but as a result of our fabulous dim sum meal at Lei Garden (also in the International Finance Center where the Four Seasons is located) we ended up there for weekday lunch. Let me explain. Continue reading
Qi – House of Sichuan (Hong Kong, Jan 2016)
Eating Sichuan food in Hong Kong is probably a bit like eating Mexican food in New York but we couldn’t resist. All the Cantonese food we’d eaten so far on the trip had been so superior to their analogues in the US that it didn’t seem unlikely that the Sichuan food would be too. Then there was the fact that stray dishes with Sichuan flavours that we’d eaten at early meals at Crystal Jade and Lei Garden had been very good indeed. And so we swapped out our original plan of eating a Shanghainese dinner with a reservation at Qi – House of Sichuan, a very well-reviewed restaurant that recently picked up a Michelin star. Even if it wasn’t likely to be as good as eating Sichuan food in Sichuan, we figured it would give our favourites in the San Gabriel Valley a run for their money. Well, it didn’t quite work out that way. Continue reading
Lei Garden, Dim Sum (Hong Kong, Jan 2016)
My friends and enemies alike in Minnesota are sick of hearing how much better dim sum in the San Gabriel Valley is than dim sum in the Twin Cities. Well, I can now report that the better dim sum in Hong Kong is to a place like Sea Harbour in the SGV as Sea Harbour is to anything in Minnesota: several levels beyond. The basis for this claim is a mindbogglingly good meal we had a few Saturdays ago at Lei Garden in the International Finance Center in Hong Kong. We’d wanted to eat at least one fancy dim sum meal and Lei Garden, with its Michelin star, was our pick. Continue reading