Thursday, March 29, 2007

fine dining

I'm doing a quick post this morning because I was too tired to blog last night. And why was I too tired? Because I went out to a fancy dinner at the exclusive China Club. This restaurant was once owned by David Tang, Hong Kong's equivalent to Donald Trump (David Tang also used to be the owner of Shanghi Tang, the uber-expensive, extremely coveted chinoiserie store that all the celebs shop at). David Tang has moved on to other businesses since, but the China Club remains a swanky destination restaurant.

Which I was only lucky enough to go to because I gave a talk to the local SCBWI who took me out to dinner afterwards. At the talk, I met Roseanne Thong for the first time! I've been the illustrator for 3 of her books and her work in getting those books noticed in Hong Kong played a vital role in getting me this exotic gig. So I was very grateful to meet her and she is a super nice person to boot.





The China Club was very snazzy. Modeled after an English gentleman's club of the 1930's, it's a tasteful blend of the British and Chinese old and new world. It has many floors:


and many separate private dining rooms, including a library:



and original art by contemporary Asian artists adorn all the walls:



And the food is amazing! Here's a photo of some othe desserts we had. Mango pudding (that was luscious) and custard filled gelatinous fish. Can you tell they are fish? They were really neat looking in real life.


There was also a balcony with an upclose view of that I.M. Pei building, it's right across which means all the bad luck of the building is getting reflected onto the China Club. I wonder if David Tang sold the restaurant because he didn't want the bad feng shui.