Brrrrrrrrunch.

I've mixed feelings about the word "brunch". It sounds at first like some insidious yuppie portmanteau, but you can have some Tony the Tiger-style fun with it by rolling the "r". Brrrrrrunch. There we go, thats much more fun. Dylan Thomas would have enjoyed Brrrrrrunch.

Enough nonsense. The Sunday champagne buffet brunch at the Intercontinental in Kowloon is a must for vistors to Hong Kong and hungry expats alike. The champagne keeps flowing until your ears go warm and you can no longer differentiate between toes. You have to get up to help yourself to the food though, which avoids any potential Mr Creosote-style exploding. Eeets only waffer theeen....

The restaurant has a fabulous panoramic view across the harbour to Hong Kong proper. I took a photo but it didn't turn out very well due to the champagne. Trust me its lovely, almost as good as the view of the buffet.

I know, I know. Its a hotel buffet. No big deal right? Wrong. A well as the unlimited champagne you get a whole lobster (limited to one each), wagyu beef roast, foie gras, and the kind of cheeses that you want to rub all over your face. Mrs Jiffler saw the dessert station of the buffet and had to be given a sedative.

We took photos. Powers of recall are inversely proportional to quantities of unlimited champagne consumed. Note the absence of anything resembling carbohydrate. You've got to be strategic :Stick to the protein, don't fill up on the carbs. Trust me, I'm a professional.

Fancy things with prawns and crabs, and a bit of foie gras pate...


Scallop (marinated in something or other) had the sweet flavour of the sea. Slices of belly pork that I could have eaten like crisps, fall off the bone chicken, peking duck pancakes, lonely steamed dim sum.

Lobster:

Roast wagyu beef (good) with yorkshire pudding (bad):

Mini-burger, with an assortment of things made from wagyu beef:

Some carbs allowed by the time we got to the cheese. The mimolette was excellent, and the brie was unctuous and chocolatey as you could hope for.

Check out the dessert station. Can you see why Mrs Jiffler had to be restrained? we nearly ended up with a 'face-down-in-the-chocolate-cake' scenario, which isn't good form in these fancy hotels. Out of shot is the ice cream lady, and a selection of wine gums, m&ms, chocolate buttons, hundreds and thousands, and jelly beans for your sprinkling pleasure.

A car-crash of desserts:

This time next week: Hong Kong-Hanoi-Hong Kong, supping beers on a junk in Hong Kong harbour.
Mood: Stuffed
Soundtrack: The hum of the harbour.
Current grip on reality: Monty Python-esque.