Kobe with Fujifilm X-Pro 1

I took a day trip to Kobe during my trip to Osaka in March. Besides the famous Kobe beef, Kobe is actually a very nice city, full of character. I always try to visit Kobe whenever I go to Osaka.

All photos were shot with Fujifilm X-Pro 1 and the Fujinon XF 18mm f2 R in JPEG. The JPEG were processed with Capture One Pro and Photoshop CS5 before final output to the web.

Japanese Style Dan Dan Hotpot

Just some photos from dinner at home last night. Made a hotpot with Japanese style dan dan soup.

All photos were shot with Fujifilm X-Pro 1 and the Fujinon XF 35mm f1.4 R in JPEG. The JPEG were processed with Capture One Pro and Photoshop CS5 before final output to the web.

UNO DUO TRIO – Lana’s Rustic Home cooking Revisited

If you have read my previous post on UNO DUO TRIO – Lana’s Rustic Home cooking, you would know this is a restaurant that I highly recommend. I had a chance of visiting this restaurant. Since I have written about this restaurant previously, I will not write much and repeat what I have written already, other than to say I had another really nice dinner there. I will just post some photos.

All photos were shot with Fujifilm X-Pro 1 and the Fujinon XF 35mm f1.4 R in JPEG. The JPEG were processed with Capture One Pro and Photoshop CS5 before final output to the web. As previously, the restaurant ambient lighting was pretty low, so ISO 6400 was used for all the photos. I am very pleased with the image quality of the X-Pro 1 .

Gastronomique Restaurant HAJIME

Gastronomique Restaurant HAJIME is a French contemporary restaurant in Osaka city. It has the distinction of being the first restaurant in Osaka to have been awarded 3 Michelin stars when the first edition of Michelin Guide for Kyoto and Osaka came out 3 years ago. Although there are a few restaurants awarded with 3 Michelin stars in Osaka in the 2012 edition of Michelin Guide. In the first edition for Kyoto and Osaka, Hajime was the only 3 Michelin stars restaurant in Osaka.

Like many top restaurants in the world, it used to be almost impossible to book a table at Hajime. I went to Osaka twice in 2010, and both times I failed to book a table there. They only accepted phone reservation at that time, but you either could never get through the line, or no one would answer the phone and if you were lucky enough to have someone answer the phone, they would have politely informed you that all reservations were full. Luckily, this is 2012, and Hajime has joined the 21st century and now they have an online booking system. So I have been finally been able to book a table and went there for dinner last month when I went to Osaka.

As western fine dining restaurants go in Osaka, although not really huge in size, Hajime is actually a fairly big restaurants compared to other western fine dining restaurants in Osaka. Most of them are so small that they only have 5 to 6 small tables sitting 2 to 4 persons. The restaurant is fairly spacious and comfortable.

The most important aspect is of course the food and I was certainly not disappointed. The dishes are creative and delicious using both local and imported ingredients. Well worth the 3 Michelin stars rating.

All the shots were taken with Fujifilm X-Pro 1 and Fujinon XF 35mm f1.4 R. The files were processed with Capture One Pro and Photoshop CS5.

First amuse bouche dish.

Second amuse bouche.

Scallop with saffron foam.

This dish is called minéral. “Pay Homage to Nature, and represent Minerals. It is an amazing dish, a salad made up of 105 kinds of vegetables.

Sakaramasu. A rare fish from Nanao Ishikawa

It is combined with vinaigrette sauce made of citrus and puree of lemon.

With kumquat and fennel as an accent.

Foie gras au naturel. Represents foie gras as a tartine.

Panais, is a parsnip soup. The combination of a hot soup and truffle ice cream. The unique characteristic of this soup is its wide range of temperature.

Canard challandais. Duck of France Bragaud. Raisin chutney is added as an accent, with flavor of wasabi and black fig.

Fromage

Pétillant. Singing grapefruit. You really have to taste it to understand the name.

Croissant. This is extreme of luxury via the Queen of France, Catherine de Médici and Marie Antoinette. Ice cream with the falvor of croissant and cacao mousse.

Petit four.

Osaka Night with Fujifilm X-Pro 1

As some of my regular readers would know, I took a trip to Osaka early last month. Ever since I started using Canon DSLR, this was the first trip that I have not taken any DSLR with me at all. I only took the new Fujifilm X-Pro 1 with me. I was testing out the X-Pro 1 night shooting one night. I used the Fujinon XF 60mm f2.4 Macro R for all the shots. I shot in aperture priority mode at ISO 6400 and f2.4 maximum aperture for all the shots. I am not really a street photographer, so I would not consider these as really good street photos, but it sure tested out the night shooting capability of the X-Pro 1 quite well.

I only did minimal processing for the photos. All have been cropped or re-sized with some sharpening done in Photoshop CS5.

Home Culinary Creation 7 with Fujifilm X-Pro 1

I have not posted any home cooking since the last post, which was awhile ago. I cooked another dinner last weekend and had a chance to try out the X-Pro 1 at home. Most of the dishes were new recipes except the spaghetti,  but refinement or variation of dishes I have done before.

My home lighting was not as low as in UNO DUO TRIO, so did not have to use as high ISO as in the last post. All photos were shot with Fujifilm X-Pro 1 and the Fujinon XF 35mm f1.4 R in JPEG. The JPEG were processed with Capture One Pro and Photoshop CS5 before final output to the web.

UNO DUO TRIO – Lana’s Rustic Home cooking with Fujifilm X-Pro1

UNO DUO TRIO – Lana’s Rustic Home cooking is an Italian Restaurant in Hong Kong. The chef/owner is the multi-talented Lana Oliveiro. Lana have done many things before becoming a chef. She was a Miss Hong Kong beauty pageant finalist, actress, PR manageress for a cosmetic company, feng shui master (or should it be mistress?), entrepreneur running a business selling Japanese milk powder before finally becoming a chef.

Like many talented chefs around the world these days, Lana has not received any official training in culinary art. She started out by cooking for her friends, and she became really good at it, and like many successful home chef, Lana decided to go pro and never looked back.

As the name of the restaurant suggests, Lana’s style of cooking is very traditional “homely” style Italian cuisine rather than the modern French/continental “fine dining” style of cooking. Lana is very adamant about her recipes being true to traditional Italian style and she is also very particular about the ingredients she uses, especially the fresh, rare and expensive vegetables she flown in from Italy everyday.

Lana is not just a pretty chef, she is also very open and friendly person. She welcomes any constructive criticism from her clients. How do I know? Let me just tell you an interesting side story…… Although Lana is kind of a “celebrity” chef, I do not know her personally previously. The first time I visited UNO DUO TRIO was last weekend and after the dinner, I wrote an email with some constructive criticism for Lana. She took it really well, not only was she not offended, she invited me and my wife to visit her restaurant again. Not only did she personally cooked many different dishes for us to try, she also chatted with us for a long time and asked about our honest opinion on her dishes. I can say her sincerity and dedication to her cooking is first rate. The thing I really admired about Lana is that she really cooks with her heart and is full of passion about everything she does.

There maybe a lot of good French and Continental restaurants in Hong Kong, but there are certainly very few good Italian restaurants in Hong Kong, and even fewer truly authentic, back to basic, Italian restaurants like UNO DUO TRIO.

Is is a perfect restaurant? Of course not, but then again, no restaurant is perfect. But if you want to savor good, honest hearty Italian cooking in Hong Kong, UNO DUO TRIO is highly recommended.

Incidentally, this is the first blog post on restaurants that I have used my new Fujifilm X-Pro 1 and the Fujinon XF 35mm f1.4 R to shot. Like many restaurants, the ambient light level was pretty low. Most shots were shot at ISO 5000. I would know use RAW shots, but since the X-Pro 1 RAW files are not supported in Capture Pro yet, I used the jpeg shots only. All the shots were processed with Photoshop CS 5 before final output to the web.

Gemme sull’Mare – carpaccio of precious seafood from the sea

Insalata di Caprese – Heirloom tomato, mozzarella & basil

Insalata di Caprese – Heirloom tomato, mozzarella & basil

Carpaccio di Polpo – carpaccio of octopus

Vitello Tonnato – veal with tuna mayonnaise

Cappellini con Polpa di Granchio – crabmeat cappellini

Risotto con tartufo e funghi

Spaghetti con Bottarga di Muggine – grey mullet roe spaghetti

Tagliatelle con Gamberi Rossi – Sicilian red prawns tagliatelle

Spaghetti con Vongole e cozze – spaghetti with mussels & clams

Pollo Arrosto – roast chicken

Osso Bucco alla Romana – veal’s knees with saffron risotto