Page 33 - Hong_Kong_&_Macau's_Best_Restaurants_English_edition

luorescent lighting flashes across
the square dining space, with
thumping tunes courtesy of a live
DJ as the resident bartender juggles
F bottles, at each corner of the bar
turning out Chinese-inspired cocktails. Such
is the raucous setting at Happy Paradise’s
inaugural supper event, titled Friends
Forever – an event dedicated to late supper,
where chefs gather after service over good
food, drinks and killer ambience. Leading
the kitchen brigade for this special night
are Happy Paradise’s own May Chow and
resident frontman John Javier, together
with a guest appearance by Taku Sekine,
visiting from Paris. Together, the three have
designed a wicked one-night-only menu.
At midnight sharp, they begin to enter:
Bao La, Jowett Yu and Daniel Calvert, the
head chefs at Le Garçon Saigon, Ho Lee
Fook and Belon, respectively. The trio are
regulars at this Soho hotspot; between
handshakes and hugs, they’ve made
themselves at home. Soon, more chefs sit
themselves down around the trio of chefs
as the drinks start flowing amid showers
of appetisers and small bites. “We really
do enjoy going out after work,” says Bao,
between several mouthfuls of noodles. “By
the time we finish service, we’re normally
quite famished. And when we go out, eating
always comes first. It comes way before we
start drinking for real.”
For Bao, who started working at Le
Garçon Saigon about two years ago, it
was all about keeping the party small and
personal. The young chef has a particular
schedule when it comes to partying after
work. “I’m mostly a private homebody after
work—some people call me a loner, but I
call it being rather private outside of work,”
he explains. “I think it’s safe to say that I
don’t go out every night after work, which
usually means heading home, having one or
two beers and chilling, sometimes watching
a movie or two. It’s not as exciting as what
most people think we do after work.”
With a heavy workload at Le Garçon
Saigon, as well as the recently opened Le
Petit Saigon, the restaurant’s sandwich
outlet next door, the Vietnamese native still
finds time to go out and hang out with his
kitchen brothers and sisters. “We all have

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