Having a Russian ball at home

EAT your hearts out, Ted Marr, Nichole Garnaut, Diane Butler, Peter Edwards and all the other hedonists who have congregated at St Petersburg for the White Knights Ball. Some of us are enjoying the spoils of Mother Russia without having to go anywhere near Kai Tak.

This week we were invited to an alternative ''White Knights'' do at the seafront Pokfulam villa of Peter and Silvie Seidlitz, where their dinner table groaned with caviar, smoked salmon and other Russian zakuski (hors d'oeuvre to you) especially flown infrom Russia. And all washed down with large amounts of vodka.

''If we can't be there we might as well bring it over here,'' gleamed Peter, Far East correspondent for the German newspaper Handelsblatt, as he mounted yet more caviar on toast.

This culinary tour of Russia, for which some of the best chefs in town were among the guests, was thanks to Lebanese entrepreneur Nabil Turk. The owner of the Paris-based Le Gourmet Group had shipped into town more than 20 kilograms of caviar (which had us delightfully speculating that there was hardly any left back in St Petersburg for the Hongkong ball-goers).

Nabil, who has set up shop in Hongkong, told us he was also the supplier of gastronomic delights to the Saudi royal family.

''When I signed the deal with the royal household in Riyadh I was warned that if I did not deliver the best products, my head would be chopped off,'' he disarmingly remarked.