Due Diligence Hong Kong - must see...

This is the more fun part of the Blog.

Please find underneath Bars, Restaurants and Shopping:

Lets start with the Food...


Restaurants:

AQUA SPIRIT
HONG KONG, CHINA
There are few entrances that can rival that of Hong Kong's sexy new cocktail bar, Aqua Spirit. As you step out of the lift you are transported into a white shimmy of a portal, walls hung with striptease silks that move with the slightest breath and floors grooved with tiny irrigation channels of running water. Then through a sliding door wham, bam - all of Hong Kong's island lies in front of you through a wall of soaring glass. Aqua Spirit floats above not one but two Aqua restaurants, Aqua Roma and Aqua Tokyo. We suggest going straight for Aqua Tokyo, with the city's first open robatayaki grill bar pushing out delicacies like earthy, smoked aubergine wrapped in tender, paper-thin grilled beef fillet between long finger-trays of supermodel sushi. £££CONTACT29th and 30th Floors, 1 Peking Road, Tsim Sha Tsui (00 852 3427 2288). About £90 for two with wine.

DRAGON-I
HONG KONG, CHINA
If you can't make up your mind between Japanese and Chinese food, then try the splendidly exclusive Dragon-I, the world's only private club and bar with a terrace featuring giant hanging songbird cages. The menu is dotted with Bruce Lee figures to denote the dishes that most kick ass. The playground bar is for members only, while the charming red-room restaurant opens to the hoi polloi for great dim sum and bento-box lunches. Dinners of Peking duck or Japanese tuna and foie gras salads are served until 10pm when the restaurant turns into a VIP room, ready to welcome patrons like Jackie Chan, Jean Claude Van Damme and Ronan Keating. ££ CONTACTThe Centrium, 60 Wyndham Street, Central (00 852 3110 1222). About £60 for two with wine.

Highly Recommended

HUTONG
HONG KONG, CHINA
Hutong is part of the new Northern Chinese flagship of the Aqua restaurant group, which is having the impact of a grade 10 typhoon on Hong Kong dining. The city's most raved-about new restaurant presents some of the most uncompromisingly robust Northern and regional Chinese flavours, presented in a post-modern, minimalist fashion. This includes a searingly colourful platter of Sichuan prawns with dried chilli and shallots, a homely, earthy mix of sautéed string beans with pork and salt fish and everybody's favourite new dish - a long wooden platter of lamb's ribs that have been slow-cooked, de-boned and re-formed in their own crisp skin in a clever play on tradition. Hutong's interiors are post-modern and minimalist, exemplifying contemporary Beijing Ming chic. ££££ CONTACT28th floor, 1 Peking Road, Tsim Sha Tsui (00 852 3428 8342). About £110 for two with wine.

ISOLA
HONG KONG, CHINA (PHOTO GALLERY)

Isola consists of a vast, white-on-white, textured space set into the waterfront cliff face of the cloud-bothering new International Finance Centre building. Refreshingly, for Hong Kong, it is open to everybody - if you can get a table that is. Here chefs scuttle around open copper kitchens while their elegant patrons lounge at terrace tables, barely glancing at the stunning harbour views through their designer shades. Head chef Gianni Caprioli used to work for the Agnelli family, and so is accustomed to catering to the tastes of the painfully rich. Here, his menu features stone-baked whole sea bass in a potato crust, baked mozzarella in walnut bread with sweet cherry tomatoes and thin-crusted pizza layered with Stracchino cheese and finely shaved black truffle. CONTACTLevels 3&4, IFC Mall, Central (00 852 2383 8765). About £100 for two with wine.

KEE
HONG KONG, CHINA
Situated above the 70-year-old Yung Kee goose restaurant in Central, is this part Martini lounge, part club and part dining room. Kee caters to the more sophisticated of Hong Kong's Jimmy Choo'd and Gucci'd party beasts, with a wine-lined bar, Venetian-looking restaurant and some very louche, sepulchral and outrageously decorated private rooms and salons, complete with original Picassos. By day, Kee serves one of the island's finest dim-sum lunches, while by night its home to the boundary-pushing cooking of Ginalu Bonelli, a keen disciple of Barcelona-based innovator Ferran Adrìa. This is rich food for rich tastes, from sea-sweet lobster carpaccio with seawater jelly to a lush crème brûlée gussied up with fresh goose liver. CONTACT6th floor, 32 Wellington Street, Central (00 852 2810 9000). About £120 for two with wine

Bars... the most interesting and important bit of Hongkong!!!

One-Fifth
Sophisticated high-ceiling lounge bar for Hong Kong's Beautiful People, located conveniently on the hottest dining block…

Gecko Lounge and Wine Bar
This cosy watering hole is a little hard to find - tucked away as it is down a tiny, dark side-street, under an escalator…

Drop
A plush and trendy late night venue always high in demand. There's a heavy attitude on the door but some of HK's best DJs…

Bocas Tapas and Wine Bar
Ultra-hip Soho spot, recently-opened and serving up a storm both culinary and cocktail…

and last but not least...

Dragon-I (Website)
The Centrium 60 Wyndham StreetHong Kong Telephone:+ 852 3110 1222

The latest see-and-be-seen spot for Hong Kong hip society, among them models, movers and a few celebs. It's divided into a dining area-come-VIP space known as Red Room, and a dance floor and bar space with New York-style booth seating called Playground. Food in the Red Room is mostly Chinese-Japanese fusion which goes down well with the strong cocktails (including sake) and we like the moody glow given off by the red lanterns. Playground is an even better bet though: sink into one of the booths, order a pricey but powerful mojito and check out the boys and babes boogie on the dance floor. There's a long bar to sit at, the beige and bronze décor adds a sexy golden glow and a birdcage at the entrance to an outside terrace area reminds you not to take things too seriously. Of course something this chic is hard to get into but flirt with the doorman and we reckon he'll let you Enter the Dragon.

Shopping

Will follow, when we will have time...

Have fun in Hongkong