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Food for thought

The Hong Kong restaurant scene changes so quickly it's sometimes difficult to keep track of everything that's happening. Oscar's in the World Trade Centre in Causeway Bay closed last month - rumour has it due to a rent dispute. Some of the staff have gone to Apres, opened a couple of weeks ago by the same group behind Oscar's. Located at the junction of Wyndham Street and Pottinger Street in Central, Apres will serve food from 7.30am 'till late'. Oscar's ex-chef, Lee Kin-pong, is in charge of the kitchen. The menu includes cumin lamb loin with chilli, vegetables and tomato jam, homemade beef pie, snapper steamed with vegetables and saffron cream sauce, and crabmeat in rice paper with green mango and beansprout salad. Call 2524 7722.

Another new place is Indigo , which has taken the place of the Vietnamese restaurant, Cafe Au Lac, on Staunton Street. Indigo's menu is heavy on the luxury items - oysters, caviar and foie gras. The selection of oysters, priced from $26-$60 each, can be ordered raw, baked with a variety of toppings, grilled, or as soup. The caviar comes from Iran, and is served with the traditional blinis or in a pasta dish.

There are six foie gras dishes, including pan-fried with creamy celeriac puree and truffle sauce, poached in vegetable broth with thyme and white truffle, as foie gras 'sashimi' with arugula salad and raspberry and walnut dressing, and - the most luxurious way - a whole roast foie gras that will feed four to six persons ($660). The menu also includes six mushroom preparations, carpaccio of marinated anchovy on ripe tomatoes with pesto dressing and pine nuts, and premium smoked Scottish salmon with horseradish cream and oscietra caviar. Indigo is at G/F, 20 Staunton Street, Central, Tel: 2526 8850.

Keep a look out for an interesting new bilingual (Japanese and English) alternative food magazine. Eat, published by Cornucopia KK of Tokyo, was launched in October in Japan and the UK, and will be available at leading Hong Kong bookshops for $69. The bi-monthly 'food culture-based lifestyle magazine' looks great - funny, hip, professional, and sleek with an edgy twist - kind of like the Benetton magazine, Colors, and Wallpaper. Like Colors , each issue of Eat has a theme - the first is devoted to temptation, with articles on forbidden fruit, 'Canal Knowledge' (about Amsterdam), and a fully-illustrated piece on different foods that are slang names for various parts of the human anatomy. The second issue is on street foods; the third issue should be available soon. Information is on the Eat Web site (www.i-eatsite.com).

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