LIFE
BO INNOVATION by Kee Hua Chee
EXTREME CUISINE
HONG KONG’S CROWDED DINING SCENE HAS RARELY PRESENTED SURPRISES — UNTIL NOW
IN A CONGESTED, COUTURE-CONSCIOUS AND COSTLY CITY LIKE HONG KONG, cosseted chefs abound. But there is only one who plasters the exterior wall of his restaurant with a larger-than-life photograph of himself. One chef clad perennially in black with a penchant to chat with diners while chomping on a cigar. A chef with colour-streaked hair who looks like he belongs behind a guitar rather than in a kitchen, if not for a tattoo on his right arm that screams ‘Demon Chef’ in Chinese characters. Even that could be a Canto punk rock band’s name.
To purists, the Demon Chef is not even one; he trained as an engineer and never attended Cordon Bleu or any such learned institution. His concoctions are his own devious, albeit delicious, machinations. Yet he continues cooking up a storm at his restaurant, Bo Innovation, with creations like nitrogen-laced dishes or foie gras marinated for two days in a Chinese mixture of soya sauce, spices, ginger and rosé wine. The six-seater chef’s table is the best stage for the Demon Chef’s audacity, his deconstruction of revered Chinese dishes. The 16-course chef’s table menu presents unlikely marriages of flavours, textures, scents and colours, as well as a mélange of classic Western and Eastern ingredients. Think caviar with smoked quail egg and crispy taro — a dish so delicate that it has to be eaten with the hands. And who else would add an ingredient as expensive as black truffle to a street snack like the Hong Kong egg waffle?
This is extreme Chinese cuisine, according to the Demon Chef, whose real name is Alvin Leung Jr. Even his choice of a restaurant name reflects this. “‘Bo Innovation’ seems so generic it could describe a computer store, fertiliser brand or perfume supplier. [But] in Chinese, ‘bo’ means ‘treasure’ and to me, the treasure is the essence of traditional Chinese cuisine, innovated to result in new dishes that push the boundaries of expectations,” he says.
A Bo Innovation branch will open in London this summer. How apt, considering Leung was born there.
108 JETGALA
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