No need to feel left out when you're the only vegetarian in a group heading for a convivial night out in LKF! Go to the newly re-vamped Post 97. A pioneering venue with a great reputation, it's been here since the whole area flowered into the trendiest place in Asia some years ago -- I remember it well!

Recently Post 97 had a timely face lift resulting in a trendy cocktail bar/restaurant/gastro with tasty, innovative vegetarian creations as well as regular menus.

Subdued lighting lends an atmosphere of bygone days - think Victorian gaslight in London turn-of-the-century (19th). Giant mirrors and polished wood surfaces on the bars and some tables add to the ambience of "Victoriana meets the 21st century'"

Individual tables, padded chairs and stretched couches hug the perimeters of the "back" restaurant, which also houses a loooong, high-standing table - ideal for convivial repartee, it is a boon for after-work crowds. The front area focuses more on tables for two or four that are ideal for business meetings and one-on-one discussions, however, long couches keep the number of seats flexible.

Outstanding dishes from the Cool as a Cucumber vegetarian menu include the longtime UK favorite staple of Bubble and Squeak with Free-range Egg at HK$78. In case you're unfamiliar with this dish, it is a simply cooked and tasty combination of green cabbages, onions and mashed potatoes - ask for it to be made with oil if you don't want to eat lard fat or butter.

Then there's a aromatic dish of Roasted Sweet Potato that comes with fresh soft cheese and a zippy yuzu dressing for HK$92. Yuzu fruits are an Asian speciality citrus fruit that has notes of grapefruit flavours with overtones of mandarin orange. Distinctive in taste it can turn a simple dressing or vinegar into something ambrosial.

The Grilled Eggplant dish is combined with Persian feta and sprinkled with toasted pinenuts. It is a filling dish with plenty of flavour that is fully enhanced by the addition of pinenuts, HK$118.

Pinenuts are the fruit of the pine cone and expensive to grow and harvest - it can take 18 months to three years for them to mature, and harvesting is done by hand. In general, pinenuts are often associated with Italian pesto, and they show the Mediterranean influence in many of the dishes at Post 97.

But, perhaps best of all for me, is the dish of Baby Beets, Goat's Curd, Capers and Cantabrian Anchovies at HK$146. Harvested off the coast of Basque country in northern Spain, Cantabrian anchovies are said to be the best in the world. And I wouldn't disagree! Tiny fish of no more than 20 cm long at their biggest, anchovies react to curing and preserving in a magical way that other fish do not. In Asia, anchovies are dried and pounded down to form the basis of fish sauce. Around the Mediterranean they are salted, preserved in oil and added to numerous dishes to add zest and piquancy.

The list of bar concoctions has expanded also at Post 97, now there's a number of innovative plant and fruit-based cocktails that are geared to match culinary delights. They give us lots of 'food for thought'!

(China Daily 05/22/2015 page6)