Kyo Hachi - Hong Kong

On our second night in Hong Kong we headed up to The Peak. And were turned away at the tram station at the bottom by the two-hour wait just to buy a ticket. Curse the appeal of twinkly lights. So the next day we set forth again.This time it was only about a 15 minute wait before we were on a tram and ratcheting up the steep incline.

We had a coffee (despite the proliferation of Starbucks - or perhaps because of it - drinkable coffee is a bit hard to come by in Hong Kong but there is a pretty decent coffee shop on The Peak), admired the view, bought some tourist tat (beaded cotton velvet slippers for £2) and took loads of photos.

And then it was time for lunch.

Kyo Hachi, a Japanese restaurant, had a nice looking menu and was certainly more appealing than the wildly popular Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Given that London also isn't too strong on Japanese food, I didn't feel too bad about eating something that wasn't Chinese. We sat in a booth by the window and gazed out at the view.

My sore throat had developed into a feeling of full-blown cruddiness, and I thought the grilled pork sounded light and tempting. And although it turned out to be a huge meal of delicious tender slivers of meat, chilled tofu in a tangy sesame dressing, seafood chawan mushi (steamed, savoury egg custard), rice and miso soup, it really was tempting. I managed to give everything a good go.

I don't think Paul had quite realised that his "mixed sushi with rice" was going to be chirashizushi - all of the usual fillings and toppings scattered over a bowl of vinegared rice. It didn't take him long to recover from the shock and dive in. The chirashizushi looked so pretty with all of the bright cubes of fish and omelette interspersed with pearls of salmon roe, slivers of nori and scattered snipped chives.

For inexplicable reasons, Paul is not much of a custard fan, so he only had a polite spoonful of that. He did, however, hoover up the crunchy crab salad garnished with tobiko, and the miso soup.

It wasn't a cheap lunch, but for an infinitely civilised respite from noise, crowds and tinny piped Christmas music, it was just the thing. Definitely worth a visit.