Move over, SoHo. Get outta here, mixology. All the old fads are tired and totally overdone, which is why we’ve decided to share with you the best new stuff that you might not even know about yet. Go on, impress your friends. You can thank us later.

SoHo Brunch
Hotel Breakfast

The tables are tiny, you can’t get a booking, the coffees are $40, and that guy you don’t want to run into is tucking into his rubbery eggs Benedict a couple tables down. Why put yourself through this ordeal when you can wake up a little earlier and tuck into an epic holiday-style buffet breakfast at a hotel? The coffee and tea is unlimited, the food’s awesome, and the service is 10 times better. Breakfast at the Renaissance Harbourview’s Café Renaissance runs from 6:30am-10:30am and costs $198 per head.
M/F, Renaissance Harbour View Hotel Hong Kong, 1 Harbour Rd., Wan Chai, 2584-6970.

Vitamin Water
Coconut Water

Eurgh, we’re so over this violently-colored sugar water masquerading as a health drink. Enter delicious, refreshing coconut water. Packed with potassium and electrolytes, it makes a perfect post-sports rehydration drink (or hangover cure, for that matter). We also hear that it goes well with a slug of rum. Novel suggestion: instead of paying through the nose for a tetra pack of the stuff at your local yoga studio, simply frequent your local Thai restaurant for an actual coconut.

Bars With a View
Basement Boozing

Save the skyline for the tourists, and hit up the city’s grooviest basement bars instead. How else are you going to escape the grim crush of bodies that’s happening at street level?

Check out these places:

XXX. Though we still haven’t figured out how to pronounce it, XXX is the hottest indie club/gallery du jour. XXX, B/F, 212 Wing Lok St., Sheung Wan.
Salon de Ning. This lavishly decorated cocktail and jazz bar is a lesson in how to do Shanghainese boudoir chic. B/F, the Peninsula, Salisbury Rd., Tsim Sha Tsui, 2315-3355.
Yun Bar. Yes, it’s been around a while, but this cool stone dungeon is a welcome retreat from the wilds of Wyndham. B/F, 43-55 Wyndham St., Central, 2116-8855.

Hardcore Skin Treatments
Smart Anti-Aging

Forget chemical peels, lasers and harsh treatments, which leave your skin red, sore and photosensitive. Right now, anti-aging is all about skin-friendly spa experiences that relax wrinkles, nourish tired skin and calm redness.

Try: Aromatherapy Associates Forever Young Facial
A strong facial and scalp massage help to relax tension held in the face, while anti-inflammatory pomegranate and rosehip seed oils calm the skin. Larch extract helps to stimulate collagen and firm up the face and décolleté. $990 for 70 minutes or $1,300 for 90 minutes (includes back massage).
Available at Sense of Touch Lan Kwai Fong, 52 D’Aguilar St., Central, 2526-6918, www.senseoftouch.com.hk.

Gyms
Marathons

Fitness needs a goal these days. Instead of mindlessly pounding the treadmill, set a target to accomplish by the end of the year, be it your first 10k or an ultra-marathon. You’ll feel amazing.

The French
The Spanish

Yes, so the big French migration to Hong Kong has brought us crepes and classy cider, but we’re looking to Spain for our next Euro fix. The always-popular tapas digs have exploded in the past year, and with the Spanish people’s fondness for chorizo and our very own obsession with lap cheung, it seems like a match made in heaven.

Being a Banker
Setting Up Your Own Business
Being a Banker Again

After the first wave of post-Lehman layoffs in ’08, all the cool kids were pursuing their entrepreneurial dreams. Well, the dream is dead. After figuring out that running a business is hard, everyone’s back at the banks, cap in hand.

Sushi Buffet
Sustainable Seafood

Move aside, unscrupulous sushi-bingeing and all-you-can-eat buffets. Customers today are a savvy bunch and demand to know where their food comes from—and they better be from a responsible, eco-conscious source. Restaurants are doing their duty securing fresh catch from certified fisheries, and hotel groups like the Peninsula and Shangri-La have banned shark’s fin outright. Foie gras, you should be shivering in your pants.

Gourmet Hamburger
Neighborhood Pizza Shop

Why pay an arm and a leg for inferior-grade beef when you can get a hot-outta-the-oven slice-of-heaven just next door? Neighborhood pizza shops are a welcoming change of scenery in this recession-hit economy.

Besides Paisano’s the mac daddy of all neighborhood pizza parlors, here are a few places to check out:

Piccolo Pizzeria, 90 Tung Lo Wan Rd., Tai Hang, 2824-3001.

Pizza-Q, Shop 1 G/F 33 Main Street Ap Lei Chau, 2552-1000.

Pizzeria Jacomax, Shop C, 88 Comericial Building, 38-42 Wing Lok St., Sheung Wan, 2851-4688.

Blindly Drinking Bordeaux
Local Wines

Old world wines, for the record, are so passé. Label-based drinking don’t fool nobody these days, and idiosyncratic French wine rhetoric are for those who try too hard and have too much time on their hands. There’s much more pride in supporting a homegrown vintage.
Newcomer Portrait Winery in SoHo makes its own wines and spirits.
Portrait Winery, 31 Staunton St., Central, 2526-8858, www.portraitwinery.com.

Wine Bars
Champagne Bars
Sake Bars

There used to be nothing Hongkongers liked better than a nice glass of bubbly, and all the better if it was jazzed up with liquor, fruit and other exotic ingredients. But there’s a new vice in town, and its name is sake. Sniff it; swirl it; learn about the brewing process (aka more than you ever wanted to know about rice husks); collect the rare, pricey varieties—seriously, it’s like the fine wine craze all over again. To try sake in its purest form as well as mixed up into inventive cocktails, you could patronize mainstays like Sakesan, Roka and Zuma. But there are also two new kids on the block making a splash in the sake scene.

Butler: Masayuki Uchida, the half-Cantonese, half-Japanese owner of this posh bar, allegedly stores some 2,000 cocktail recipes in what must be the alcohol-centric lobe of his brain. They’re not all on the menu, of course, so if nothing strikes your fancy be sure to ask the bow tie-sporting bartender to come up with an elaborate drink that suits your cravings that night. This nightspot is sleek and quiet, and it aims to filter the clientele by imposing a $30 cover charge and a $200 minimum spend. But by all accounts, this special bar is worth the price.
5/F, Mody House, 30 Mody Rd., Tsim Sha Tsui, 2724-3828.

Sake Bar Ginn: Recently arrived from New York, certified sake sommelier/instructor Ayuchi Momose has opened up an upper-floor bar in November that’s dedicated to premium sakes. In addition to serving 100 sakes and Japanese tapas-style dishes, she also imports several sakes by microbreweries that are not yet well-known outside of Japan.
Unit C, 4/F, Ho Lee Commercial Building, 38-44 D’Aguilar St., Central, 2536-4355.

Mega Concerts
Indie Shows

2011 was the year of the pop idol. From Taylor Swift to Justin Bieber (and let’s not forget Kylie), the city played host to more than its share of chart-topping performers. But 2012 looks like it’s going to be the year of the alternative artist. Clockenflap set the tone by importing American indie darlings The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and English band The Cribs, and the year ahead looks rockin’. After a closing scare and a last-minute bout of fundraising, Hidden Agenda has managed to relocate to a nearby venue in Kwun Tong. Bands and solo artists are also starting to crowd other, lesser-known live-music venues like The Hangout in Sai Wan Ho and Full Cup, a café in Mong Kok. In the coming weeks, the city will see an influx of UK artists—indie rock outfit The Vaccines are playing KITEC on Feb 11 only to be followed five nights later by The Horrors, plus songstress-guitarist Anna Calvi rocks Grappa’s Cellar on Feb 15.

SoHo Shopping
Tai Ping Shan Street Shopping

Forget the overpriced shops in SoHo. This quiet street lined with tong laus (tenement buildings) is chockablock with funky boutiques. When you’re done spending money, don’t forget to check out some of the cute cafés in the area, like Homei, Teakha and Knockbox Coffee Company.

Start From Zero: Street artists Start From Zero have a dark, sleek corner store selling framed graphic posters of their work as well as men’s fashion and accessories.

Teakha: This newly opened tea shop offers delicious scones and fragrant teas.

Haji Gallery: Part art gallery, part store, Haji Gallery is a place to either stop by and browse the works on display (currently a photography exhibition, with prints going for a very reasonable $500 a pop) or to pick up trinkets from local artists and designers, like postcards, bags and T-shirts.

Tallensia Floral Art: More than just a flower shop, Tallensia Floral Art holds what they call “flower jamming” sessions every Sunday from 2-5pm. They’ll provide a glass container, and you can pick from among any of the colorful blooms in the shop to put together your own flower arrangement. It’s $380, but at the end of the afternoon you can take home your sweet-smelling creation.

Chum5: This little shop sells over-the-top footwear imported from Taiwan, Italy and the US. Think colorful high heels for women as well as cloth lace-up and slip-on shoes for gents that tend toward the hipster end of the spectrum.

Ramen
Luxe Pho

People are getting tired of the Butao Kings, the Ippudos and all the other one-off, spin-off ramen specialty shops that are occupying the city like the plague. The poor man’s noodle (with the rich man’s price tag) has over-stayed its welcome. Enter luxe pho—slippery smooth strands soaking in rich and fragrant beef-bone broth, paired with hip, happenin’ ambience. Reinforcing the trend are LKF’s new Saigon-chic shops:

Moi Vietnam: G/F,16 Wing Wah Lane, Central, 2523-0886.

Chom Chom: 2/F, 12 Wellington St., Central, 2868-3302.

Mixology
Whisky

Whisky might’ve been a stuffy old man’s drink once upon a time, but tell that now to the sophisticated young connoisseurs frequenting trendy whisky bars and snatching bottles at duty-free like they were giving them away. And a bottle of Macallan always makes a better gift than a bottle of peach schnapps; just saying.

Angel’s Share: 2/F Amber Lodge, 23 Hollywood Rd., Central, 2805-8388.

Tokoro: 3/F, Langham Place Hotel, 555 Shanghai St., Mong Kok, 3552-3330.

Café
Food +

A cup of good coffee is no longer enough to get a customer to stay. Retailers on-the-ball are now fully endorsing the food+ concept—for shops that offer F&B and something more, like vintage tees or a bar of soap.

Edit, 67 Hollywood Rd., Central, 2549-4999, www.67edit.com.

Sidewalk, 4-6 Gough St., Central, 2850-7121, www.sidewalk.hk.

Café Loisl+Hammer Gallery, G/F, 8 Tai On Terrace, Sheung Wan, 9179-0209.

Café Maison, G/F, 12 Gough St., Central, 2581-3663

Knockbox, Shop B, 14 Tai Ping Shan St., Central

Glassless Glasses
Faceless Watches

Finally, we can bid goodbye to those obnoxious plastic spectacle-frames without any glass in them... but this new hipster trend isn’t much better. Now, instead of squinting at people’s faces trying to figure out if their headgear is actually functional, we can look forward to peering at other people’s watches to check the time, only to find that the watches have no hands on them. Or numbers. We can’t pretend to understand the reasoning behind this particular phenomenon, but if you’re into confusing people, you can pick up a new timeless timepiece from Monki. For a watch that actually displays the time while keeping you squarely on the cutting edge of fashion, try the Kisai on Air, the Diesel DZ9044 or a faceless LED watch designed by Hironao Tsuboi.

Big on Facebook
Big On Microblogs

Gone are the days where businesses are clamoring for customers’ attention through Facebook news feeds—now they’re also firing up microblogging sites like Twitter and Weibo with giveaways and news of sample sales and other special deals. You’ll also often find that a simple mention on Twitter will get you a quicker customer service response than an email or, heaven forbid, phoning up the company and sitting through a recorded message. Now, if only Twitter could get better about filtering out those pesky spammers…

China Pride
Hong Kong Pride

Remember the 2008 Beijijng Olympics, when everyone was celebrating the triumphs of the glorious motherland? Well, with the recent protests over Dolce and Gabbana and the flood of mainland mothers giving birth in Hong Kong, we can safely say that Hong Kongers won’t be celebrating their ties to the motherland anytime soon.

Remaking Old Movies
Watching Old Movies

The 2000s saw more Hollywood remakes than we ever would have thought possible (King Kong, True Grit, 3:10 to Yuma, Fright Night, Conan the Barbarian, the list goes on). But instead of lapping up Hollywood’s unoriginal productions, with the updates being the newest stars in the leading roles and some kinda-sleek special effects, why not soak up some real culture and watch some classic flicks from a bygone era. The Hong Kong International Film Festival (March 21 to April 5), will present a perfect opportunity; or you can pay the Hong Kong Film Archive a visit (50 Lei King Rd., Sai Wan Ho, 2739-2139, www.filmarchive.gov.hk) and catch their retrospectives and appreciate Hong Kong’s history of quality cinema.

Instagram
Hipstamatic

These two leading camera apps are in an epic battle of musical chairs. First, Hipstamatic excited hipsters everywhere and won the iPhone App of the Year award in 2010, but Instagram quickly followed and claimed the prize in 2011. As we can see on Facebook and Twitter in Hong Kong, users love sharing snapshots of their lives using Instagram. But now that Hipstamatic has introduced their new “Disposable Series” or D-Series (one person shares a “roll” of Hipstamatic film with others, everyone takes turns snapping away, and no one gets to see the results until the whole film gets used up and the pictures are “developed”), we are expecting a change of heart in the photo-sharing social media world.

iPhone
Android

Yes, Apple just opened their shiny new store with a killer view and the place is always full. Yes, the iPad is awesome and yes, we Hongkongers love—and want most, if not all of—their products. So how could the Android be hotter than the iPhone, you ask? Technically, it’s a better phone and real techie people swear by it, but in all honestly, it’s probably because it’s cheaper.

Trends That Suck

Sadly, it looks as though some of these lame things are here to stay.

Food Bloggers
Ugh, we’re so sick of reading the thoughts of these opinionated, high falutin’ blowhards who critique everything from the expression on the waiter’s face when you send back your second bottle of wine to the complimentary bread basket. Shaddup already!

Designer Tea
$260 for a tin of leaves?!??! We’re looking at you, TWG…

Ragging on Domestic Helpers
Betcha can’t give a reason why domestic helpers shouldn’t be allowed to apply for right of abode without coming off like a massive racist.

Club Seven-11
Bar prices ain’t going down, so inevitably, the popularity of buying beer from convenience stores is just going to keep going up.

Going Bananas For Cupcakes
They’re small cakes with too much frosting on them, not the second coming.

Designer Water
Did you know that bottled water has the highest markup of anything a restaurant sells? And don’t even get us started on water sommeliers.