My name is Albert – I am not a chef; I am not a food critic; in fact I don’t even work in the catering/hospitality industry. I am just a normal hard-working person who enjoys good food. My motto is “Je mange, donc je suis” (I eat, therefore I am).

I’ve been lucky to be brought up with the Chinese culture, in which food plays an important part in daily life. There’s nothing that excites me more than a great dish with fresh ingredients that combines the three basic components in a harmonised way: colour, aroma and taste.

Apart from food, I love travelling: I am pretty open-minded when it comes to trying out food abroad. When I go on holiday, I don’t just research on what to see or what to do – I would also do my homework on what to eat and to track down the local cuisine. Food often provides a different dimension and great insight to the local culture, and I have found that rather fascinating.

As a bit of fun more than anything else, over the last 25 years, I have been keeping notes on some of the restaurants I have visited, both at home and abroad. At the beginning they were just brief notes for personal record and to share with a very limited number of close friends when they asked for my views on different restaurants. But slowly more friends and work colleagues have approached me for recommendation – apparently they know that they would get a straightforward and honest opinion (good or bad) from me.

With the popularity of the internet rising about 20 years ago, I decided to dabble with the various aspects of web technology and put some of the information on the web so that I can share my thoughts with friends more readily. Over time, this has turned into a searchable database on my personal website. One day a friend said jokingly “why don’t you call your guide Chow With Chau?” and from that point onwards the name was stuck amongst my circle of friends. The searchable database is no longer updated, and I’ll be gradually transferring the content over to this site, but in the meantime you can still access this database.

To make my life easier on updating everything I want to share about food, I have decided to create this website – enjoy!