Wildfire restaurant, which is backed by the Igor Group, opened in Murray House, Stanley, last weekend. Wildfire, the original of which is in Singapore, serves thin-crust pizzas cooked in a traditional, wood-fired, stone oven. The pizzas - none of them with Thousand Island dressing, thank goodness - include Oceana (fresh prawns, mussels, octopus, grilled peppers, spring onions, olives and tomatoes for $105), Cajun (marinated chicken, bacon, tomatoes, roasted peppers, artichoke puree and Jack cheese for $112) and Black Forest (gourmet mushrooms, roasted garlic, spinach, shaved parmesan and pine nuts for $105). Wildfire is at 2/F, Murray House, Stanley, tel: 2813 6161.
If you're looking for a simple, home-style Chinese cookbook and also want to contribute to a good cause, search out the prosaically titled, Do You Like Chinese Food?, edited by Rhona Baptiste, who teaches oral English and writing at the Guangdong Foreign Language Normal School in Guangzhou. The book emerged from an exercise to help Baptiste's students improve their spoken and written English. The dishes are easy, although it might be difficult to find some of the ingredients - who in Hong Kong has access to paddy fields for snails fit for stir-frying? But for the most part, the recipes are easy and homey: stir-fried beef with turnips; Chinese sausage with snow peas; scrambled eggs and tomatoes; bean curd and pork with chilli sauce. All proceeds from sales of the book go to financial aid for teachers-in-training in Guangdong. Do You Like Chinese Food? is available at branches of Bookazine.
El Taco Loco, the new Mexican restaurant on Staunton Street, Central, has an award-winning chef helping out in the kitchen. Adam Levin, who opened El Taco Loco with his wife, Tammy Greenspon, quit his position as chef of the Bostonian restaurant at the Great Eagle Hotel, where he had worked for 14 months. Levin says the couple had originally planned on a small taco shop serving 60 to 80 people a day, but such is the public's appetite for good, inexpensive Mexican food, they're now doing up to 200 covers daily. The chef, who won't be cooking full-time as he will be occupied developing new projects, doesn't seem to miss the pressures of working in a top kitchen, saying: 'I'm having so much fun it's unbelievable. Now I go to the market every morning to shop for the best produce and I feel like one of those old French chefs - it's fun.' The couple plan to open more El Taco Locos around Hong Kong and are close to signing the lease on another place. Levin says he's also working on a cookbook, which will include some of his award-winning recipes. El Taco Loco is at 7 Staunton Street, Central, tel: 2522 0907.
