Three Bad Mice: This Week The Mice Have Mostly Been...

Can we just say...

Are you now singing in your head "Now this is the story all about how, my life got twisted upside down..."

If you weren't, we bet you are now.

While you're doing that, let's take a moment to celebrate the fact that it's Friday and two (three if you're a HKer) blissful days of weekend await you...

This week has been a rather slow week in Mouseland. No crazy busy working, no social whirlwind, just pretty run of the mill but you need a few of those weeks here and there to recharge, reflect and get prepped for the big summer of awesomeness that we know is just around the corner.

When we haven't been dreaming of jugs of Pimms and suntanning, this week the Mice have mostly been...

Dining with Banksy. And Jeff Koons. And Kaws. And a whole heap of other delicious modern artists at brand new gastro-gallery, Bibo.

The hype about Bibo started months ago, and although we were super excited to go and check it out, there have definitely been plenty of furtive whispers since it opened three weeks ago, that it's not nearly as good as it thinks it is.

We'd have to disagree.

Bibo sits between Hollywood Road and Cat Street on the former site of a French Tramway company. The story goes, that when the Tramway company moved to bigger premises leaving this site abandoned, a bohemian set of squatters led by an artist called Bibo moved in and started covering every blank surface with their work. The restaurant takes the building's roots and runs with it, naming itself after the squatters' ringleader, filling the walls from floor to ceiling with modern art and peppering the dining experience with tramway references.

As you arrive at the entrance on Hollywood Road, you're swept past the brass tramway lettering on the mosaic-tiled wall and swished through a space-age gold sliding door to the lobby.

We arrived on Wednesday planning to just stop by for drinks as when we'd called they'd said that they well fully booked for dinner all week. Luckily, we thought to double check again with the door girls, and minutes later we were being shown to a table. So, top tip: Bibo hold a handful of tables each night for walk-ins (which it may have been helpful for them to let us know when we called to try to book...).

Reservation niggles aside, we were pretty happy to bag a last minute table, so off we trotted, down the stairs to the restaurant, ready to feast on French food and street art...

And what a feast. Saunter past the bar where a Banksy casually hangs then wander past the spraypainted bookshelves (more on those later) where a couple of Koons' balloon dogs nestle and Diptyque Feu de Bois candles flicker.

Exposed brass pipes and high ceilings give the space an industrial feel and each and every wall is crammed corner to corner with art.

Our table was slap bang opposite the huge wooden Kaws figure and parked just behind my chair was a King of Kowloon spraypainted moped.

We started off with a couple of cocktails (the Hippie Flip is scrumptious) and decided we may as well push out the boat and try the tasting menu (mainly because we wanted to try everything and could't choose between all the incredible sounding dishes on the menu).

The kitchen is helmed up by Chef Mutaro Balde formerly of Paris' Alain Ducasse and London's Joel Robuchon. Bibo's menu is fine french dining with a twist (isn't there always a twist...). The tasting menu is newly launched and made up of a collection of Bibo's bestsellers. It's a fairly punchy HK$1,300 a head, but its a procession of beautifully executed French classics starting with a foie gras Amuse Bouche, ending with petit four and coffee with plenty of scallops, wagyu beef and caviar in between.

The food is rich, indulgent and totally delicious but in Hong Kong it's not hard to find this sort of extravagant French dining. The really refreshing part about Bibo, is eating your foie gras with a side of drippy JonOne graffiti rather than in a morgue-like temple to beige filled with bored businessmen on expense accounts.

Service throughout our meal was efficient, friendly and helpful without being overbearing. No arrogant, intimidating waiters here, just staff who genuinely seem enthusiastic and knowlegeable about the food and the art. Case in point, post-meal, we were sitting in the library area chatting, when our waiter came over to top up our wine glasses. After he knowledgeably answered a few questions we asked him about the graffitied Metro Map on the wall opposite us, he took us on a little impromtu tour of the restaurant pointing out pieces we hadn't seen, telling interesting stories about others and generally totally making the evening for us.

Our favourite pieces at Bibo? Definitely the graffitied bookshelves by East End Street Artist, Pure Evil. We've been fans of Pure Evil since (bizarrely) we saw his work on the Apprentice a couple of years ago. Although he was originally commissioned to paint a wall mural, Pure Evil, who flew into Hong Kong with his spray cans especially ended up transforming the bookshelves into a Audrey Hepburn face merge triptyque. If you're as much of a fan as we are, you can buy prints of Pure Evil's work via his e-shop for a very affordable £200.

Whether you fancy a cocktail in a cool new bar, a blow out French feed, or just a modern art fix, Bibo guarantees to feed your body and your mind!

Bibo
163 Hollywood Road
Sheung Wan
Hong Kong
+852 2956 3188

Getting Lippy with our brand new make-up love, Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics' Lip Tar. We first heard about this lip wonder at the start of the year in India Knight's ever brilliant Sunday Times Beauty Column where she raved about Lip Tar's staying power and the array of "va va voom" colours that it comes in. Cut to February, and we're standing in Sephora in New York in front of a whole wall of Lip Tars desperately trying to choose which to pop in our basket! We're actually not generally big lipstick fans, usually plumping for a smoky eye over a statement lip but Lip Tar may just be set to change that.

Lip Tar goes on like a gloss but then dries down to a satiny, Matt lipstick-like look. You only need the tiniest blob of this super concentrated colour to get flawless lips which last all day no matter how much you eat, drink, chat or kiss... Each tube comes with a teeny weeny lip-brush all zipped up in its own little plastic bag (perfect for popping in your handbag). We dipped our toe in the Lip Tar water with the neutral blush toned, Hush, and the punchier juicy coral, Radiate.

We love, love, love them both and we're now just trying to pick out the next colours to snap up and add to our collection...

Boho-ing our homes with a little help from the brand new Mara Hoffman x Anthropologie home collection. When we heard whispers that the queen of boho-luxe prints, Mara Hoffman, was teaming up with American lifestyle emporium, Anthropologie, we were more than a little bit excited. And we're thrilled to discover that the end result is more incredible that we'd even hoped for. Here are our favourite pieces...

Mara Hoffman Nomad Pillow

US$98