THE opening of the week is Q, the 97 Group's first restaurant in Quarry Bay. The new venue, on the corner of Hoi Wan and Tong Chong Streets where motor shops and noodle stalls used to be, is typical 97. Nichole Garnaut's imprint is everywhere, beginning with some stunning black-and-white food and figure photography. The menu is bread-and-butter simple, with a little jam for the toast selection ($22) and whipped honey butter for the banana oat-flour pancakes ($45). That's for breakfast. The rest of the day is as well catered for. The snack menu, served from 3pm, includes thick potato and yam chips ($40), thick pork sausage with garlic mash, braised cabbage and gravy ($60) and spinach and ricotta ravioli ($60). Lunch and dinner are a little more meaty: fillet steak with grilled polenta, sauteed spinach and salsa verde ($140); and charred radiccio wrapped in pancetta with a pesto dressing and crumbled goat cheese ($75). That's about as complex as it gets until January, when the restaurant's production kitchen nearby will be completed. The opening is scheduled for Thursday. Morning orders This is the latest Sunday morning choice: la bed or La Bodega. If your bed is warm, La Bodega's new Sunday brunch is hot. Winter morning heaven has to be sipping hot chocolate and picking at chef Rosemary Lee's Spanish breakfast spread. There are various combinations of eggs and sausages, sandwiches, salads and interpretations of Spanish fare. In typical fashion, Lee is introducing Hong Kong to things it has neither seen nor tasted. The drink to try is horchata, made with hot milk and almonds. Liver spots Liver fans need to do Grissini's Business Lunch Number Three. The Italian restaurant at the Grand Hyatt serves a to-die-for veal liver with red radiccio as part of its business-lunch package. The problem is the chef rotates nine menus. This means you could get duck breast with honey and marsala sauce or swordfish escalope with oregano and olive oil. Indeed, these may be delicious, but they cannot be as good as the best liver dish going in Hong Kong at the moment. The thing to do is call ahead and pick your lunches carefully. The set lunch costs $225 and includes a turn at the antipasti table, a dessert, coffee or tea and the restaurant's trademark chocolate grissini. Green issues The French are Brit-beating over what they see as a pernicious influence from across the Channel. The new salad chic sweeping France is being blamed on the British vegetarian movement. But French vegetarians, according to L'Express magazine, 'are not hysterical like the Anglo-Saxons . . . young French vegetarians are more concerned with their health and appearance than animal rights'. Limp cabbage Higher living standards are to blame for the humble cabbage's downfall. Tomatoes, cucumber and celery have nudged aside the cabbage as China's traditional winter vegetable. According to Xinhua, Beijing cabbage sales in the past five years have plummeted. Sales this year will drop to 450 million kilograms from a 1989 high of 700 million kg.
