地震後の影響は？

先日行われた中国国内の日本人向けフリーペーパー「ウェネバー広東」による取材が7月号の記事として紹介されました。

今年三月の日本、東北地方での大地震、原子力発電所の爆発、それに伴う放射漏れ。。。
その影響は隣の中国、そして世界各国にも広く及んでおります。
今回の記事は、現在の広東省における日本食事情を詳しくつづったものです。

自分も海外日本食事業に携わる者の一人として現状の報告と一個人としての意見を述べさせていただきました。

日本国外にいてたいした手助けもできませんが、被災地の方々、そして各方面で影響を受けている日本国民にいち早く安らかな日々が戻ることを心より願っております。。。

がんばれニッポン!!

Special dish for a VIP guest

Tonight, our VIP hotel room guest came to "Shizuku" Japanese restaurant for dinner with friends.

He asked me to make one dish which is not on the menu for him. And he told me he liked "Sanma" -pacific saury-.

It was very busy night but how could I say "No".
When someone come challenge me, my answer always is  "Yes, no problem". I just told him "please give me a little time"...
Then, I started think what I could do with "Sanma" to give them "WOW" while running back to the kitchen.

Thanks to my previous boss who is a great chef and specialized in tempura. So, I came up with the idea of deep frying it then mix with sweet and sour sauce. He taught me a lot....



Clean the fish and fillet it into 2 pcs and one piece of middle bones. Put a bit of salt over both filleted meat and middle bones. Leave them for a while then rinse them with water and dry them with kitchen paper. 
Cut the meat into 2-3cm wide pieces, put corn starch around it and deep fry them.

This time, I also deep fried the middle bones and julienne sweet potato (with lower temperature) and cut green asparagus.
Heat up the sweet and sour sauce (mixture of soy sauce, mirin, sake, sugar, rice vinegar, chopped onion, ginger juice) in a pan, add cut small tomatoes, deep fried "Sanma" meat and green asparagus, then mix them well.

Put them in a orange cup then julienne spring onion and deep fried sweet potato on top.
Pour little bit of the sauce with small tomatoes around the cup. Put deep fried bone on the side.
Garnish the dish with some spring onion, then "Voila!" done!!!

I succeeded to give them "WOW" and they left the restaurant with smile :)

Hotels in Macau, マカオホテル事情

It only takes one hour by boat trip from Shenzhen to Macau.

It has been handed over back to China from Portugal on Dec. 1999 but under the policy of "one country, two systems", its unique European atmosphere still remains the same and keep attract millions of tourists every year.  And the numbers of those tourists keep growing due to Chinese economy growth -over 50% of the visitors are from mainland China and 30% are from Hong Kong-.

Of course, the main reason which attracts those tourists is the casinos.
In 2006, Macau's gambling business has made 6.95 billion US dollars revenue, surpassed Las Vegas and made it the world's top casino market.

One of the oldest casino & hotel is the Lisboa -one of Macau's icon, the hotel with 1071 rooms- in the middle of the downtown Macau peninsula. It's opened in 1970 and the new hotel "Grand Lisboa" design as lotus flower with 431 rooms 52F, just opened next to it in 2008.

Newly opened Grand Lisboa, original hotel Lisboa and the casino. 

Some other hotels opened in Peninsula side within a past 5years are;
MGM grand with 600 rooms 35F opened in 2007, Sofitel with 408 rooms 20F opened in 2008, Mandarin Oriental with 213 rooms -without casino- opened in 2010.

Across the bridge to islands of Taipa and Coloane.
In between those two islands are now connected by landfill forming the Cotai Strip.
This area is booming now!

Four Seasons Hotel and the Venetian

Macau's new icon the Venetian is opened with 2,874 rooms (!) in 2007 and Four Seasons just right next to it opened in 2008 with 360 rooms. Grand Hyatt across the street opened in 2009 with 791 rooms. New casino complex Galaxy is just open this year, 2011, in May which includes hotels from Japan -Hotel Okura-, Thailand -Banyan Tree- and its own Galaxy hotel with 1,500 rooms.

GALAXY MACAU

And soon, another complex is going to be opened just across from the Venetian and Four Seasons.
Scheduled to open early in next year, 2012. It includes hotels by Starwood group -Sheraton and St.Regis- and others (it was planed to be Shangri-La and Traders but the agreement between the hotels and casino complex was terminated for some reasons in March. -see the news on "Macau Daily Times").

New complex is under construction.
The building in the left was supposed to be Shangri-La's and you can still see it's logo on top.

Those luxury hotels are opening with casinos after Macau's new law.
In 2002, the Macau government ended the monopoly system and opened it to other companies from outside. Since then, casino complexes' opening rush is continuously going though it was slowed down for a period of time after American economy corrupted by "Lehman Shock" in 2008.

We will see all new Macau within a couple of years....