We go out for a Valentine Dinner

The Mandarin Grill, with its lovely confy chairs, big separation, fabulous service.

Jing says I'm an old "stick in the mud" and she's right.  It's hard to drag me out of the house, let alone out of Discovery Bay.

But she shamed me into a trip to "the Island" (Hong Kong, that is; ours is Lantau...).  Click on "Read more" to see the rest of this riveting report....
I was in charge of booking the restaurant.  I found that most in the IFC building -- the closest to the DB Ferry, a factor which my laziness was taking into account -- were fully booked, so I booked one in Wanchai, Duetto, which serves either Italian or Indian (huh?).  We'd never been there, except for Comedy Club when it's turned into a stand-up venue, and so we didn't know what to expect.  More like a cafe-style, in fact, so we cut that one and went across the hall to another one, Italian too (but just Italian) and sat ourselves down.  Then Jing declared it rather too ordinary, so we cut that one too -- thus cutting two restaurants before even ordering, a first for us -- and decided to make our way to the ever-count-on-able Mandarin Grill.

The Grill was full, but the Maitre d' managed to squeeze us into one last table.  The menu was set, no a la carte for Valentines.  There was no price on the menu and we didn't ask.  "Prepare for a slug" I said to Jing.

It was fantastic!

Here it is: 12 courses including two desserts: each one an exquisitely presented dish, with very fine food presented thematically: "Forest" was on a small oblong glass platter over wood, with the "mushrooms" made of pate de fois, "leaves" of deep fried spinach.  The "Story Book" was a "book", with opening cover, made specially for the dinner, opening onto gorgeous truffle and japanese melting beef.
The "Champagne cork" was a small "bottle" of champagne made of iced strawberries, "bubbles" the cork made of frozen champagne.

oh... and it was a "slug", but we wont' talk of that.  One of the most memorable meals we'd had, so a successful Valentines....