Vinko’s Thoughts On…

Heard about this new restaruant on Ship Street, Wanchai, Hong Kong called, “Bo Innovation”, so I decided to go check it out tonight. Not sure if the chef/owner planned it that way, but the name “Bo innovation” sounds very much like “bold innovation”.

Unlike most recent new restaurants in Hong Kong; particularly the ones on Ship Street, this is not just an Asian fusion restaurant. It calls itself a “X-treme Chinese cuisine”, which you will find, after a visit, is a very appropriate description.

Before going in, I had not particular expectation, except restaurants on Ship Street had become trendy and chic. As a result I was expecting nothing less.

To my surprise, Bo Inovation situated above Brasserie Le Fauchon & Wine Bar, was nothing special. The deco was contemporary, with the traditional dark wood floors and light coloured canopy.

After I sat down for dinner I was a bit surprised by the simple menu and high price. There were two main choices: A Taste Menu or a Chef Menu. The Chef Menu is a HKD1080.00 per person 9 courses menu and requires the entire table to have the same things. The Taste Menu is a minimum HKD680.00 3 courses menu including appetizer, main dish and dessert.

The appetizer had 4 individual courses.

Bo Shushi

Trio Scallop

Peas with ham

The manager decided to give us a free appetizer to try. It is a rice noodle cooked in mushroom sauce with a small amount of white ginger sauce.

Rice noodles cooked in Mushroom sauce

The main course came fairly quickly like all other courses so far.

Lobster fried in salted egg yolk

Lobster bisque with dumpling

According to the waiter each meal always comse with rice at the end of the main course.

Rice cooked with crab seeds

The dessert came in three Chinese style desserts; at least in initial appearance, with western variations in each, making every bite a present surprises.

The dessert course concludes with a final pair of Chinese dessert concoction that looks like typical Chinese dim-sum but definitely taste different.

Sesame soup with soda

Apple dumpling

The service was very good during the early evening hours, which is why I arrived at the start of their dinner sitting, 19:00. Although, this tentative touch became very lacking as the dinner rush begins.

Even though the dessert is the best part at this restaurant, and the ingredients used are the best quality possible, it is not worth the price it is charging. Especially ridiculous is the French mineral water (750ml) that cost as much as a glass of house Champaign at HKD120.00 per bottle and  glass respectively.

Many of you know I owned an iPhone (1st generation) since June 2007 and had to unlock and jailbreak it so that I can use it here in Hong Kong.

In the past 12 months I had unlocked/restored my iPhone over 30+ times, and documented much of my experience and findings with fellow readers. Much of these repeated unlocking and restoring was because I was testing various “unauthorized” 3rd party applications (”hacks”) for the iPhone, and some of them were not that stable.

So when Apple released the iPhone firmware 2.0 on July 1, 2008, I was very excited about the functionalities that it will delivers and was eager to find available an unlock & jailbreak method that will allow me to upgrade my iPhone (1st generation) to the new firmware.

The wait was finally over this past Saturday night (July 19 HKT) when the iPhone Dev Team released their “Pwnage Tool 2.0″. Although, I was eager to try it, I did not want to jump too quickly into the process, due to my past experience over the year of the various methods used to unlock/jailbreak the iPhone.

I held myself back for 24 hours to give iPhone web sites: ModMyiFone, Hack the iPhone, MacGeekBlog, etc. time to refine the procedures and all the possible things that may go wrong during the process.

Now I am happy to say that I have now successfully unlocked my iPhone running firmware 2.0. The process went without a hitch.

I did not have to do anything to my already unlocked iPhone running firmware 1.1.4. All I did to prepare myself for the unlocking was the following:

1. Upgrade my iTunes to 7.7
2. Download the firmware 2.0 (5A347), placing this firmware (IPSW file) in ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates/ folder on your Mac.
3. Ensure there is an empty ~/Library/iTunes/Device Support/ folder on your Mac.

The rest is simple. You can choose one of the well written tutorials from either ModMyiFone or Hack the iPhone

Enjoy and do share you experience with rest of the readers here. Particularly iPhone users from Hong Kong.

My Rating:

This evening I saw the movie “The Dark Knight” at AMC Theatre, Pacific Place, Admiralty, Hong Kong.

Another great movie! That’s two in a row, two weeks ago was Hancock and two weeks before that was Wanted. This is the best Batman movie I have seen thus far.

There was enough continuation from the last Batman movie, Batman Begins. Just the appropriate amount of draw from the plot of the previous movie in the sequel. Definitely, the best looking Batman outfit of them all.

The one thing I did not like about the movie, was the directory or set decoration to hide the city where they filmed Gotham City. In the past Gotham City has always been this make believe or futuristic city where a super hero like Batman would appear.

One of the best part of the movie, like in Batman (1989), was the character The Joker. In the 1989 version of Batman, The Joker was played by the amazing Jack Nicholson, this time it was played by the late, Heath Ledger of Brokeback Mountain fame.

Another thing this Batman movie tries to do, is to explain the origin of Harvey Dent (aka. Two-Face), this time played by Aaron Eckhart, this character first appeared in the 1989 version of Batman, played by Billy Dee Williams then again in Batman Forever by Tommy Lee Jones. As a result it is a good sequel to Batman Begins.

All I need to do is collect these Batman movies since 1989 and put them back in chronological order, I will have a complete picture of how each of the villains came about.

If you are a Batman fan, this is definitely a must see. If you are not, still go see it, you will not be disappointed.

Rating Legend:
	Not to be missed
	Wait for the DVD
	Buy from iTunes Store
	Rent it on iTunes
	Waste your time elsewhere

Place holder to redirect to the actual article.

A new version of WordPress has been released. It contains one of the features that I had been waiting for a long time; ever since I started using WordPress to drive my own blog. That is the feature of comparing revisions and be able to bring back previous versions. Similar feature can be found on Wikipedia.org.

Instead of pointing you to the blog post about WordPress 2.6 new features, the folks at WordPress have made a short video to highlight these new enhancements.

If you’re going to attend one of the 2008 Olympic event venue (in Beijing, assuming this also applies to venues in Hong Kong and Qingdao), be sure you are familiar with all the regulations that Beijing Olympic Committee has issued to the public.

You can see these regulations below:

Restricted articles include hard-packed drink and food; fragile articles; musical instruments; carry-on bags, suitcases and handbags which are too big to carry to the seats; flags of countries and regions not participating either in the Beijing Olympic Games or Paralympic Games and other flags over two meters in length or over one meter in width; flag poles of over one meter in length; banners, leaflets, or posters; unauthorized professional videotaping equipments; knives, bats, long-handle umbrellas, long poles, sharp-ended stands for cameras and video cameras, and other objects that may cause harm and injury to people; animals (with the exception of guide dogs); vehicles (except for strollers and wheelchairs); unauthorized walky-talkies, loudspeakers, radios, laser devices or wireless devices that interfere with the electronic signals of the Olympic Games.

The rule deemed the following behavior as inappropriate: smoking at a non-smoking area; crossing over the guardrail; using umbrellas or standing up for a long period of time in the seating area, thus obstructing the field of vision of other spectators; and flash photography.

The rule banned weapons and equipment including guns, ammunition, crossbows, and daggers; fireworks, firecrackers and other flammable materials; corrosive chemicals and radioactive materials.

There was a report last night that the iPhone 3G sold by the carrier, Three, in Hong Kong is unlocked; meaning it is not tied to a specific carrier.

This news was a bit hard to believe as news from other countries like US, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, the iPhone 3G sold there are all locked to the respective mobile carriers.

Therefor, if you do not want to stick with Three’s service you now have a choice, but the cheapest choice is:

HKD4680.00 + HKD188 x 24 months + MTR Fee (HKD12 x 24) = HKD9480.00 - HKD1742 = HKD7738 (including the rebate you will receive over 2 years)

Now I have first hand confirmation from a friend who purchased one of these iPhone 3G at Three HK. He was able to put in a PCCW SIM card while having full access to all functionalities of the phone including EDGE and GPRS functions.

Is this really worth it. I say not, especially if you already have an iPhone (1st generation). Wait for the other carriers in Hong Kong; namely PCCW and/or Smartone-Vodafone receive the rights to sell the iPhone 3G.