This Week The Mice Have Mostly Been...

And breathe, it's Friiiiiiiday!

This week in Miceland HK Mouse finally returned to the 852 just in time for a quick round of catch ups with the London Mice before Mini Mouse packed her case to zip off to Portugal for the THIRD time this year... What a spoilt little holiday child she is! But who can blame her for grabbing the last few rays of summer when winter appears to have well and truly set in over in the UK?! 

But while it's Uggs and winter coats all round in London, in Hong Kong it's still pretty toasty. Just as well really given that this weekend is a long weekend for Hong Kongers and HK Mouse's three days off have 'beach' written all over them... 

And, when we haven't been making plans to escape to the seaside, this week the Mice have mostly been...

Coveting a skirt made from recycled plastic bottles. 

Nope, you didn't read that wrong, this week it was love at first sight when we spied a little tartan wrap skirt at the A Boy Named Sue pop-up AW'13 party. Hosted at HK's awesome new beauty bar, the Nail Library, we were greeted with Elderflower Belvedere cocktails, Happy Cow dairy free ice-cream and the most INSANELY delicious pumpkin whoopee pies we have ever tasted. 

Sipping and nibbling we battled through the crowds of beautiful people to ooh and ahh over stacks of gorgeous 9th Muse jewels and stunning Hayden Blest pressed flower art.

And then there were the clothes. We've been huge fans of eco-chic A Boy Named Sue since the very start, and we think that the new AW '13 stock may just be the best yet... The absolute highlight for us being the Svilu tartan skirt which we were stunned to discover is made from a mix of wool and recycled plastic. Eco credentials aside, it's just exactly the skirt we've been looking for to fill the tartan shaped hole in our winter wardrobes. Roll on pay day, this baby will be ours...

Svilu Plaid Kilt
£159

Here's a sneak peek of the object of our lust in the AW Lookbook along with oodles of other gorgeous pieces. Oh and ps. the site offers free global shipping - happy shopping!

Horsing Around at the Hong Kong leg of Crazy Horse's Forever Crazy world tour. We love a bit of burlesque, so when we heard that the Parisian masters of the art were in town, we booked our tickets quicker than you can say 'nipple tassle'! We shimmied on down to the Lyric Theatre on Tuesday evening to watch the Louboutin'd troupe of scantily clad girls doing their thing. 

Sadly it wasn't quite all that we'd hoped. The production and choreography were pretty amazing and a couple of numbers (the mirror one in particular) were great but in the whole the dancers weren't fantastic and it was just a bit more sleaze than tease. Having said that the huge number of lone men in the audience did appear to be thoroughly enjoying the whole thing...

Getting Incredibly Organised for a change and snapping up next year's calendar even though it's still only September. But, who can blame us when the calendar in question is chef extraordinaire, Jason Black's, fab new project - The Icons HK Calendar. The perfect decoration for any desk, this also has to be the only calendar with the danger of making you pile on the pounds... With a different Hong Kong chef for every month of the year each contributing three mouthwatering recipes from haute cuisine to comfort food, this is a truly delicious slice of organisation and at HK$328 is pretty bargainous to boot! Snap yours up on the online store now and guarantee yourself a very well-fed 2014!

And that's it! 

Right, we're off to the beach...

Have a great one!

x

The Mice

Swoonworthy Sustainable Shopping: A Boy Named Sue

If I told you I was into eco fashion you'd probably think of sludgy brown, shapeless sacks; itchy, scratchy hemp pieces; cheap looking, plasticky shoes and maybe a bit of tie dye...

Sustainable fashion gets a very bad rap, which is a shame given that almost 10,000 items of clothing go to landfill every five minutes (that's about 1 billion items of clothing every year). And then there's the huge volumes of pesticides used to grow non-organic cotton and the enormous carbon footprint of the many millions of items of clothing flown halfway around the world to fill our wardrobes... Don't get me wrong, I'm as guilty of binging on disposable fashion as anyone else. I love a little H&M fix and there's nowhere that churns out budget friendly, catwalk inspired must-haves better than Zara and Topshop. 

However, I've been thinking for a while that I'd actually be much better off investing wisely in a few better quality, more classic pieces than buying bagfuls of cheap clothes that I get bored of about as fast as they fall apart. So with 2013 and New Year's Resolution time fast approaching, I'm thinking that next year I'll be making an effort to shop more consciously where I can. I'm sure they'll be some Zara impulse buys, but for the main part I want to be spending my hard earned cash on things that I won't be chucking in the bin before the year's out. 

Which brings us onto the next issue, where do we buy clothes that will have our little fashionista hearts fluttering just as fast as that sparkly sub-fifty pound Topshop trophy jacket? Step up brand new online boutique, A Boy Named Sue. 

The boutique's story begins with two Hong Kong fashion bloggers, Tania Reinert and Sam Wong, who decided on a whim to see whether there were any stylish eco-designers out there and who ended up finding a wealth of awesome sustainable fashion that they wanted to share with the world. The pair centre their designer selections around a self-created sustainability triangle seeking to ensure that each brand that they curate ticks at least one of three boxes - eco; social and local. 

So that's the eco-credentials sorted, but what about the aesthetic side? Another mega tick! I can confirm that each and every piece that the girls have selected is swoonworthy to levels far beyond any eco item I've ever encountered before. From super soft organic cotton tees to buttery leather jackets these are wardrobe essentials that you'd lust over irrespective of their sustainability.

I popped into the boutique's launch party a couple of weeks ago to check out all the lines that the online boutique carries while sipping on hot mulled cider and nibbling on carrot cake cookies. Despite having a minuscule timeframe to fit my browsing into, the super lovely Tania found the time to talk me through each of the designers and I even managed to snaffle myself a dove grey Groceries Apparel t-shirt (quite possibly the most flattering fit t-shirt I've ever owned). 

Image via: www.aboynamedsue.co

I've heard rumours of some very exciting A Boy Named Sue projects on the horizon including a Hong Kong/ China produced local line. In the meantime, hop double quick over to the website for a fab fashion fix that guarantees to leave you fuller for longer... All shopped out? Stick around to have a nose around the gorgeous website which is packed with interesting info on eco-fashion and a very cool 'Paperback' section which includes interviews with designers and city guides (the Paris one is forming the basis of our NYE trip itinerary...). The girls ship internationally for free so we can all get a slice of sustainable shopping, no matter which far flung corner of the world we call home. 

If you need any help whittling down your wish list, my current top A Boy Named Sue Crushes are...

Isabell de Hillerin Mosaic Jacket
£211

Isabell de Hillerin works with local craftswomen in Romania & Moldova supporting the dying art of handcrafted textiles. All garments are sourced and produced in Europe.

White Tent Peplum Dress
£87

White Tent is produced in a family-owned factory in Portugal which uses only organic and recycled yarns to produce each item.

Hien Le Cashmere Blend Shell Top
£150

Hien Le uses Vegan-friendly Alcantara (a suede substitute). All garments are produced in Berlin.

Isabell de Hillerin Tux Jumpsuit
£385

Images via: www.aboynamedsue.co

Eco Eating: Wild Grass

With chokingly high air pollution levels, a love of shark fin soup and recycling rates more akin to a developing country, Hong Kong isn't exactly known for it's eco efforts. Slowly but surely though, a few brand new start-ups with a much more green outlook on life, are restoring our faith in Hong Kongers.

First up, there's Secret Ingredient. The boys who brought us the super fab pre-prepped, ready to cook, meal delivery service have just overhauled their packaging to swap out plastic pots for ones made from a new renewable, corn-based material, PLA. And if that wasn't enough, they've also introduced a recycling scheme which means you'll be rewarded with wine for recycling the ice-packs that come with your order - that's our type of recycling...

Then there's Island East Markets, the protagonists in bringing farm-fresh, organic produce to Hong Kong's shoppers. After the runaway success of the market during their trial period last month, the market's back for its second stint from now until Christmas. Swap your weekly Wellcome shop for a Sunday jaunt to Quarry Bay to stock up on vegetables that haven't flown halfway around the world as well as freshly baked bread and pies and lots of other locally produced yummy things.

Meanwhile, sustainable fashion e-boutique, A Boy Named Sue, launched last week coming to the rescue of all  fashionistas with a conscience. Bringing together a collection of eco-conscious designers, the new website finally brings us a great alternative to the cheap, disposable fashion pedalled by the high street giants that dominate the non-designer Hong Kong shopping scene. We're off to the launch later this week, so we'll keep you posted on all the details.

And last, but by no means least, Hong Kong's newest gastro-venture, Wild Grass, threw open its doors last week - a restaurant with a menu featuring organic, sustainable ingredients and a nose-to-tail cooking philosophy. Always willing to road test a newbie and particularly one with such fantastic eco credentials, I headed down for a little Saturday night sampling last weekend...



Taking the space formerly housing Box Thai on Arbuthnot Road, Wild Grass is barely recognisable in its new incarnation. Head up the brightly tiled staircase which transports you from the noise and bustle of the street below to a haven of modern yet homely peace and quiet. The airy, whitewashed dining space is perfectly lit (bad lighting is my bug bear) and kept cosy with plenty of warm wood and a chic but comfy mish mash of reclaimed, recycled furniture. Big communal tables provide the perfect base for a wine-fuelled supper with a group of your favourite people while smaller tables are nestled in quieter corners for more intimate tete-a-tetes.

After a hard day's shopping in Shenzhen, I decided I deserved a bit of a break from my Bikini Fit regime, and promptly began the meal with freshly baked bread slathered in goats cheese butter and several plump, juicy olives - complete adulterated heaven (if you're going to break a diet, do it well...).

Wild Grass' speciality is, as the name suggests, organic, grass-fed beef from wild cattle that roam the Australian outback. Beef features strongly on the menu in a variety of guises from oxtail dumplings to 5 hour stewed shin. If meat's not your thing though, there are plenty of alternatives, this is a menu to incite serious meal choice agony...

Blown away by the fantastic value of the three course menu (any three courses from the a la carte menu for a super wallet friendly HK$390), we began some hardcore deliberation and then ordered quickly before we could change our minds again.

We started with beef carpaccio and the Scottish ocean trout tartare. Both were beautifully presented, plate scrapingly tasty and hungrily devoured in record speed. 

Next up, the roasted halibut and fermented garlic and the slow grilled rump with basil peppercorn relish. The halibut was sublime - meaty, buttery fish perfectly complemented by a lemony jus and  the sweet, nutty garlic.

The steak was perhaps the only disappointment of the meal. Although juicy and flavourful it was a little chewy and gristly - a bit of a shame given that we thought that this would be the star of the show. Meat grumbles aside, the French fries that the meat was served with were perfection - crispy, skinny, salty deliciousness. We're hopeful that this was just a bad cut of meat and that our next Wild Grass steak will restore our faith in the restaurant's promises that this is the best beef in Hong Kong.

With a small corner of room left, we perused the dessert menu and the tough decisions started again. A selection of delectable options has all your nursery food favourites covered from rhubarb crumble to chocolate swiss roll - as a distinct autumnal chill sets in, this is currently just what I'm craving. We opted for the very British apple turnover with whipped cream and French classic, Creme Brulee. 

Some of the best desserts I've tried in Hong Kong for a very long time (and not just because I've been off the sugar), both were home-cooked perfection. Particular bonus points for the creme brulee which was served custard tart style in a crumbly, buttery pastry case with the most incredible caramel sauce.

The bill came in at just under HK$1,000 which, for the quality of food, I think is outstanding value.

Overall, a huge warm hug of a meal. Friendly service, relaxed, homey atmosphere and simple, honest cooking which on the whole was mouthwateringly good. There's nothing pretentious or unnecessary in Wild Grass' cooking - each dish is a perfectly executed classic making the very most of its fresh, great quality ingredients. 

All this and you can polish your little green halo as you scoff - win, win! Leave your lentil and hemp eco-preconceptions at the door, this is a restaurant that truly puts the delicious into sustainable, organic eating.

Wild Grass

1/F, 4-8 Arbuthnot Road,

Central,

Hong Kong

+852 2810 1189