THE SCENE Dining for a Cause
Restaurateurs celebrate International Women’s Day
To mark International Women’s Day on March 8, chef Vicky Lau of Tate Dining Room collaborated with seven female figures in the food industry for a onenight-only dinner featuring dishes inspired by each of their childhood memories.
The dishes were created by Yenn Wong, founder of Jia Group; Margaret Chung, founder of local charitable organisation Beyond Children’s Special Needs Foundation; Sarah Heller, Master of Wine; Gigi Ng, owner of historic restaurant Ser Wong Fun; food writer Jolli
Lo; Colleen Yu, founder of EXR Consulting; and Charmaine Mok, editorial director of dining. Each worked with Lau to transform the dishes and flavours of their youth into haute cuisine.
Proceeds from the evening went to Chung’s Beyond Children’s Special Needs Foundation, which supports Hong Kong children with special needs and their families. During the dinner, Chung shared stories of Hongkongers who moved her with their resilience, including her daughter Isabella, whose diagnosis with the rare Wolf-hirschhorn syndrome when she was young motivated Chung to start the organisation.
Family as inspiration was the running theme of the night, with dishes such as Wong’s fermented red bean curd braised pork belly with black fungus, Ng’s abalone with consommé, crispy sticky rice and lemongrass foam, and Lo’s crustacean egg tart with salted egg yolk and sakura ebi (shrimp) all linked to memories of their grandparents and the recipes they learned from them. With every plate cleaned, the only disappointment was that there’s no plan to serve the special dishes again— though perhaps Lau may be persuaded to add some of them to her next menu. 1. Vicky Lau 2. Seated: Yenn Wong and Janet Pau. Standing: Gigi Ng, Margaret Cheung, Vicky Lau, Jolli Lo and Charmaine Mok 3. Yenn Wong and Alan Lo