Life Style

If you still haven’t recovered from the hectic flurry of activities that swept Hong Kong in March, the long Easter weekend is your chance. While traditional celebrations like painting eggs and eating hot cross buns are all well and good, Easter is also historically tied to a theme of revival.On Hong Kong’s ever-changing dining scene, new names continually pop up, bringing novel flavours and bold concepts. Exciting as each new restaurant or bar is, it’s hard not to feel a sense of nostalgia for those restaurants and bars that have left a mark on this city – places that brought something truly special and left behind unforgettable memories – but that have since disappeared.Because some stories are just too good to end, however, 100 Top Tables has tapped into the Easter spirit of revival and ...

The gleaming black-and-gold dining room at Coqodaq is rowdy, and it is not even open for dinner yet. A table of “rappers and podcast hosts” are lingering over a late US$4,000 caviar-and-champagne lunch, executive chef Seung-kyu Kim says.He does not mind – he wants his Manhattan restaurant, notorious for its caviar-topped chicken nuggets (US$28 per nugget), to be a place people visit to celebrate.As bird flu forces stores in the United States to ration US$10-a-dozen chicken eggs, salt-cured fish eggs have become inescapable at high-end restaurants.The slimy, briny spheres can now be found atop US$68 sour cream and onion dips in Nashville and US$73 egg salads in San Francisco.The interior of Coqodaq in New York. Photo: Instagram/coqodaqBut while customer perception of caviar as a luxury wort...

Hankering for a chiselled jawline, a male TikTok influencer strikes his face with a hammer – highlighting the rise of “looksmaxxing”, an online trend pushing unproven and sometimes dangerous techniques to boost sexual appeal.Looksmaxxing influencers – part of an online ecosystem dubbed the “manosphere” – have surged in popularity across social media, capitalising on the insecurities of young men eager to boost their physical attractiveness.In posts across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, they promote pseudoscientific methods to achieve everything from pouty lips to chin extensions and almond-shaped “hunter eyes”, often while monetising their popularity by endorsing a range of consumer products.In more extreme cases, these influencers advocate taking steroids, undergoing plastic surgery and e...

[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.]You know how it gets during peak summer in Hong Kong – sticky, sweaty and just plain hot. That kind of heat makes you dream of a refreshing swim. Sure, lots of housing complexes here have access to swimming pools and maybe a sauna hidden behind the gym, but let's be real – you’re really after those poolside cocktails, towel service, a comfy cabana for you and your friends to chill in, and maybe even a live DJ dropping beats by the water. It's that full-on summer vibe you'd usually find at a fancy resort.Great news: you don’t have to fly all the way to Bali or Phuket for those holiday vibes. Just hop over to Macau, where Galaxy Macau’s Grand Resort Deck is returning on April 18. It’s packed with sunny vibes, luxury t...

Boasting nine branches around the globe, from Hong Kong and Las Vegas to Dubai and Toronto, Mott 32 is one of Hong Kong’s most successful culinary exports, having first opened in Central in 2014. Recognised by the 100 Top Tables guide since 2017, the Iberico char siu with yellow mountain honey remains a must-try.An essential staple in Cantonese cuisine, char siu – or barbecue pork – is one of the most popular Chinese roast meats, and one that chef Lee Man-sing learned to make when he was just 14 years old.“I started cooking when I was very young. My mother’s eyesight wasn’t very good so I had to help my family by doing chores and would cook simple things like stir-fried vegetables and rice. Then when I was 14, I got a job working at a cha chaan teng delivering food,” says Lee. “The head ch...

Bodybuilders and weightlifters looking for gains have long leaned on creatine to help build muscle and hasten post-workout recovery.But according to scientists in Australia, Canada and the US, dosing up on the sport supplement makes next to no difference when it comes to getting big in the gym.In contrast to previous findings, the results of this study showed that creatine had no additive effect on lean body mass changes when combined with resistance training, the researchers said in a paper published in the journal Nutrients.The “confounding” effect, or lack thereof, suggests that bigger and potentially unsafe doses of creatine could be needed to show it having a discrete muscle-building impact.Creatine is a chemical found naturally in the body, as well as in meat, fish and protein-rich p...

3/5 starsA quartet of rookie robbers take on the elite yet corrupt members of the older generation in Smashing Frank.This stylish but lightweight crime drama, however, is considerably more effective as a portrait of disaffected youth than as a parable on the growing chasm between young and old, and wealthy and poor, in Hong Kong.The feature debut of writer-director Trevor Choi Hong-ying, a Hong Kong native who started his film-directing education upon returning to the city in 2018, Smashing Frank is notable for being part-financed with a crowdfunding campaign initiated by the YouTube Channel “16 by 9”, of which Choi is director.While the project’s early backers may feel disappointed with the subsequent changes of producer – originally Fruit Chan Gor – and all four of its lead actors, an ar...

It’s an exciting time to be in Hong Kong for enthusiastic imbibers like myself. A few weeks ago, it was announced that the World’s 50 Best Bars awards will be hosted in the city for the first time, on October 8.Having previously hosted two editions of Asia’s 50 Best Bars, in 2023 and 2024 (both at Rosewood Hong Kong), the city has been upgraded to welcome the world’s finest bartenders, following in the footsteps of London, Barcelona, Singapore and Madrid.Not bad for a place that, post-pandemic, had struggled to convince wary tourists that we had some serious “night vibes” going on.The image is helped by Hong Kong’s own Bar Leone in Sheung Wan being crowned Asia’s Best Bar in 2024, and runner-up in the world edition of the awards a few months later. It only seems fair to bring the party bac...

Long mocked, white socks are now firmly back in fashion. No longer are they seen as a hallmark of Germans abroad when paired with sandals.These days, white socks are often worn with shorts so that the brand logo can be clearly seen, whether that be Nike, Adidas or Puma.White socks are no longer seen as a fashion faux pas. Style influencers from Generation Z – those born between the mid-1990s and the early 2010s – from pop star Billie Eilish to actor Paul Mescal are wearing them.Meanwhile, short trainer socks, previously loved by millennials – born between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s – are staying stuck at the bottom of our sock drawers, especially ones that make it look as though you are not wearing any socks at all.“Instead of socks you can barely see, the trend now is for socks tha...

It is no exaggeration to say that Sakura Ando is one of the most important actresses of contemporary Japanese cinema. A winner of numerous accolades, including five Japan Academy Film Prize awards, the hugely popular performer has had an eclectic career since she started acting in 2006.Over those two decades, Ando has navigated deftly between indie hits from cult directors like Sion Sono and Takashi Miike, to award-winning dramas from celebrated auteurs such as Hirokazu Koreeda, to appearing in mainstream blockbusters like 2023’s Oscar-winning kaiju spectacular Godzilla Minus One.Right now, however, the 39-year-old is enjoying a much-deserved hiatus to concentrate on raising her young daughter.“Parenting and shooting together are really difficult for me. Especially in Japan, it’s really, r...