38 Wyndham opened on Monday, replacing Wyndham Thai Restaurant and Bar, which moved into bigger premises down the street in The Centrium building. Owner Ivan Fernie of the Uncle Group, which has three other restaurants on Wyndham Street (Wyndham Thai Restaurant and Bar, the Noodle Box and Uncle Willie's Deli), describes 38 Wyndham as 'casual fine dining with reasonable prices'. The Mediterranean menu focuses on French, Spanish and Italian, with dishes such as pan-fried baby squid stuffed with Spanish chorizo ($59), French black mussels in roasted capsicum, tomato and garlic sauce ($85), roasted duck breast with balsamico vinegar on pumpkin risotto and asparagus ($139) and oxtail ravioli in fresh and sun-dried tomato sauce ($135). There's a separate menu of vegetarian dishes, and Fernie emphasises these are pure vegetarian - they're cooked without chicken broth or meat fat (as is frequently the case) and the ingredients are prepared on cutting boards and in pans that are never used for meat dishes. The wine list includes 10 champagnes and five sparkling wines.

A recent article in the New York Times focused on authentic regional Chinese cooking in Hong Kong. Writer Nina Simonds featured two of my favourite restaurants: the Xiao Nan Guo in Central, and Victoria City, which has two locations, in the Sun Hung Kai Centre in Wan Chai and Citic Tower in Central. Xiao Nan Guo, which is originally from Shanghai (where it has eight branches), is excellent but expensive. Try the rich, hairy crab with rice cakes, fried chicken with chillies, spring onion noodles, the tender, subtle freshwater shrimp and san cheen bao (juicy pan-fried dumplings with minced meat, which is one of the restaurant's specialities). Xiao Nan Guo is at Level 3, Man Yee Building, 68 Des Voeux Road, Central, tel: 2259 9393.

Victoria City is my favourite place for dim sum. Try the Shanghainese delicacies such as xiao long bao (soup dumplings, pictured) and san cheen bao (not quite as good as at Xiao Nan Guo, but they come close). I also love the cheung fun (rice flour rolls) with XO sauce, rice noodles in broth with fatty beef and, in season, fried dumplings filled with pea shoots and ham. I prefer the branch in the Sun Hung Kai Centre (tel: 2827 9938) to the one in the Citic Tower (tel: 2877 2211).