One of the world’s top chefs has warned that environmental degradation and an explosion in fine dining worldwide is set to have a drastic effect on the food trade. Habitats are being destroyed, killing off wild fish stocks and making some vegetables and fruits so scarce that a number of dishes will have to be dropped and restaurants will be forced to close, warns Pierre Gagnaire
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/ 25 October 2006
With a whir and a flash of lights, a robot whizzes to the restaurant table and takes a customer’s order, while a second races to another table to deliver plates of steaming food. This isn’t a scene from a science-fiction novel. Rather, it’s the daily routine at a new diner in a suburban Hong Kong shopping centre.
By any standards, this year’s most-talked-about movie in Hong Kong is short, poorly filmed and grainy. However, what it lacks in production values, the 10-minute home-made clip — candidly shot of an elderly man berating a youngster on a bus — makes up for in drama, dialogue and humour.
The powerful earthquake that hit Indonesia was just the latest display of violent seismic activity on the archipelago, which stretches across one of the most unstable parts of the Earth’s surface. The country’s position on the planet’s crust means it will continue to experience such catastrophes, just as it has done for the past 50-million years or so.
With the click of a switch, brightly polished restaurant tables lift almost magically into the ceiling and from sliding panels in the floor ice buckets emerge in time for the waiter who arrives with the champagne. As the drinks are served the back wall lifts slowly to reveal a huge aquarium dominated by a hammerhead shark.
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/ 16 January 2006
He’s among an elite coterie of chefs who command the sort of respect usually accorded royalty, but when Thierry Marx comes to Hong Kong there’s only one place you’ll find him searching for a meal. "I hit the street as soon as I come here," says an excited Marx. "There is nothing like street food, especially in Asia.
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/ 16 December 2005
Coffee grower Denis Cruz sniffs a handful of yellow-green beans produced from his Honduran farm and sighs. ”They would be worth more if I could sell them through Fair Trade,” he says, ”and the land would be healthier — there wouldn’t be the same pressure on it.”
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/ 12 December 2005
Developed countries have to bite the bullet and dig deeper to make this week’s World Trade Organisation (WTO) trade talks a success and bring an end to world poverty, the head of the 53-nation Commonwealth said on Monday, on the eve of six days of trade talks in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong’s high-end hotel sector just got more luxurious with a spate of new openings and refurbishments designed to cash in on the Chinese city’s newfound position as a top travel destination. Spurred by a strong economic recovery from almost seven years of decline the city got its first new hotels in 15 years this autumn.
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/ 19 September 2005
From private cabins with designer fabrics and en suite bathrooms in first class to on-screen virtual air attendants taking orders in economy, the future of air travel is going high-tech and high-style. Modern technology has made it possible for airline interior designers to fit jets with more gadgets in the expensive seats and still add vital centimetres to leg room in the cheaper rows.