Asia Tatling Dining

Every year, Asia Tatler Dining not only works hard all year to bring our readers the latest in restaurant reviews, features and interviews on our website, but behind the scenes, we are also beavering away on our annual Hong Kong and Macau’s Best Restaurants guide. Priced at HK$150 and in all major bookstores today (or December 13 for the Chinese version), we are proud to announce a number of changes and additions.

First, in the 2011 edition, we had for the first time included a Responsible Seafood Guide to enable our readers to make responsible and sustainable choices when dining out. It was a success and we were even told that a restaurant had cut it out and placed it in the kitchen in order to ensure they were only serving sustainable seafood. This year, in addition to implementing a complete ban on shark's fin and bluefin tuna (our reviewers were not allowed to sample such delicacies, nor were the restaurants allowed to list them as their signature dishes), we also decided to narrow our focus a little, concentrating on sushi instead.

Japanese cuisine is one of the most beloved cuisines in Hong Kong, but also one of the most detrimental to the state of our oceans, thanks to the Japanese love for bluefin tuna. However, while the dire state of the tuna is well-known, other overfished species often seen in sushi restaurant are also not doing well, including monkfish (ankimo), river eel (unagi) and sea eel (anago). In this new section, we give alternatives to these endangered fish, as well as alert our readers to fish that are mostly farmed, as mariculture is another area of danger to our seas that are often overlooked.

Another brand new section we have this year is our cafés section: while we have always focused extensively on fine dining restaurants and happening bars, we had neglected more casual cafés and coffee shops which offer all-day dining, live station cooking and extensive buffets, another much-loved type of dining experience in this region. So this year, we round up 25 of the best cafés in Hong Kong and Macau and hope to further expand this section in 2013.

Finally, while the Hong Kong and Macau’s Best Restaurants guides have always focused on dining out, there is no denying that foodies the world over have also taken to recreating their favourite fine dining dishes at home. In order to give our readers a helping hand, we asked some of the executive chefs from the best restaurants in Hong Kong and Macau to give us some of their recipes. Chef Richard Ekkebus gave us his recipe for the foie gras lollipops that are served as an amuse bouche at Amber (long a favourite of most Amber-goers that is pictured below); Lung King Heen at the Four Seasons gave us their recipe for the Chinese traditional dessert almond tea; and for the truly advanced, we challenge you to give the Chocolate Sensation recipe from L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon a whirl.

All in all, we are pretty proud of our guide this year and believe that it will make an excellent Christmas stocking stuffer, as well as a useful companion for anyone who loves fine dining in Hong Kong and Macau. Sold in all major bookstores such as Dymock’s, Page One and gourmet stores including CitySuper and Great, the Hong Kong and Macau’s Best Restaurants 2012 is priced at HK$150. However, for one month only starting on December 5, readers of Asia Tatler Dining will be offered a special price of HK$99 by visiting our subscription centre here. Enjoy the Hong Kong and Macau’s Best Restaurants 2012 and we look forward to hearing your feedback on Facebook, Twitter or Weibo!