Mandarin Grill + Bar's Reviews

Mandarin Grill + Bar 文華扒房+ 酒吧
English Address : Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong, 5 Connaught Road Central Central
Chinese Address : 中環干諾道中5號香港文華東方酒店
Map : Display Map
Phone No. : 2825 4004 (Add to Contacts)
Categories : Western | Steak House | Western Restaurant | Hotel Restaurant | Romantic Dining | Fine Dining
Spending : Above $500
Overall Score : 4.3
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Other Information

Signature Dishes: Oyster s
Opening Hours: 星期一至六: 12:00-23:00
Other Opening Hours: 星期日及公眾假期休息
Payment Method: Visa、Master、AE、Cash、JCB
Alcoholic Drinks: Yes
May Bring Your Own Wine: 可以Corkage Fee:
$500
10% Service Charge: Yes
Phone Reservation: Yes
Parking: Yes

Gourmet Reviews

English only | English & Chinese

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Yeah, it was good.
2013-02-01
swiftslowly (4 Review(s))

The dining room has changed somewhat in appearance to the one in the photo. The chairs are now red velvet instead of white. I went there for a business lunch with colleagues.

1) Juice Cart

Mango juice with lime - fresh nice

2) Soup

Cream soup of some kind with iberico ham - Nice. The bits of ham were tiny tiny. Although the soup was good, it wasn't memorable.

3) Beef Wellington

Magnificent beef. Twist on old classic. Very tasty and impressive.

4) Oreo dessert

Twist on the oreo cookie. Was more visually interesting than actually tasty. Food humor is fine so long as its under HKD100. This cost more than that.

Verdict

Lunch at the mandarin grill is quality. The service is perfect. The food (especially the meat dishes) are good. The price is a bit steep. But I would definitely come here again.

Date of Visit: 2013-02-01
Table Wait Time: 0 Minutes
Spending per Head: HKD900 (Lunch)
Overall Rating : Taste4 Environment4 Service5 Hygiene5 Value for Money2

Decadent Dining
2012-12-29
NATNUT (14 Review(s))

I'm a huge fan of the Mandarin chain, from their accommodation to their dining- consistent standards and exemplary quality topped with detailed professional service that never fails to disappoint.
Mandarin Grill is one of my favourite restaurants for many reasons:
I find simple, unpretentious and elegant decor the most enjoyable (did I mention the amazing view as well). The food is always good and service is top notch. Prices are steep but not amongst the most extortionate, for the aforementioned reasons the price in my opinion is very well justified.

To start with we were served cheese dough balls and a pipping hot bread basket, as expected with Mandarin's pastry- up to standard

Starters:
Smoky Bay Oysters smile

Note the little pearl on the oyster! It's actually edible, filled with oyster juice, I thought that it was a very cute and thoughtful detail.
French Diver Caught Scallops With Lemon Sea Grass and Dashi mad

10/10
I'm a big fan of seafood and very picky with it. The scallops were cooked perfectly, it was evidently fresh and well paired with the seagrass and interestingly served on the hot stones. Highly Recommnded
Mains: US Grass Fed Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding lol

9/10
This was a brilliant dish, beef quality was excellent. The waiters initially came out with a trolley and carved our cut in front of us. The beef was full flavoured and juicy. The Gravy was done PERFECTLY and so was the yorkshire pudding. This is certainly something not to be missed!
Chateaux Briand a.k.a 'The Mandarin Cookbook'
the chateauxbriand is a distinctive thick cut from the tenderloin and when prepared properly it can be amongst the most tender and flavourful cuts. Although the sauce took the form of a savoury gravy instead of the traditional form of reduced sauce, it was still delectable. The meat quality was supreme and easily amongst the best chateauxbriands I have ever sampled in Hong Kong. I was very pleased with this indeed.
Desserts:
LIght Bulb Dessert 9.5/10
This was an enticing dish, I mean look at it lol It shockingly resembled a genuine lightbulb, even to the down right detail. It also cracked like one. If you're one to choke on food, I advise you to steer clear from this dish ;)
Chocolate Souffle 10/10
This was a perfect souffle. period.
In terms of asthetics, it may not exceed the precedent dessert but it outshone the lightbulb dessert in many ways.
Petite Fours:
Mandarin Grill and the Krug Room is known for its creativity, so do not expect any less from them!
If you wish to check out all the pictures in detail feel free to visit my blog smile

But for now here's the chocolate cigar petite four reserved for men. They take it seriously, they came out with a giant cigar box filled with cigars (that are completely edible) on a bed of 'tobacco' which was in effect chocolate pieces and came with an ashtray completely made out of chocolate too!
I made the effort to sample every single thing and every single component of the chocolate cigar and it tasted pretty good, the chocolate cigar is actually tobacco flavoured.
For you ladies, you'll be served with an elegant powder box (no, the powder box itself is not edible) but the powder that resembled somewhat of a highlighter and blush was strawberry and lychee-i think? flavoured powder. You are then served with a make up puff made of cotton candy to dip into your 'make up'. I thought it really lightened up all the diners mood and added entertainment value to the meal.

Date of Visit: 2012-09-01
Table Wait Time: 0 Minutes
Spending per Head: HKD1000
Overall Rating : Taste5 Environment5 Service5 Hygiene5 Value for Money3

Great by high value added!
2012-11-20
floraxy (154 Review(s))

It's been a while since last time had fine dinning with mom. I chose Mandarin Grill to have dinner with her and hopefully we both could have enjoyable mother and daughter time. Yes, we did.

We ordered soups and main courses. I wanted order desserts as well, but the waiter suggested we might decide later. Thanks for the smart advice actually.

For starter, bread basket. There were several kinds of bread in figure size, salty and sweet, soft and semi-hard, even western and eastern style, many options including the sweet Japanese bread which is not common in Hong Kong's dinner table as a starter.

Lobster bisque for mom: Mom eats quite light usually. But I suggested her to try this lobster soup. Indeed, it's creamy, but still can taste the fresh chicken stock. There was lobster meat inside, not very little.

My mushroom soup was pure countryside style, both in presentation and in flavor. The small mushrooms in the bottom of bowl was lovely, looked like grass growing on land. Together with baked grains on the plate out of the bowl, like you were having dinner in a countryside house. The mushroom soup looked very light but smelled and tasted very rich, probably porcini soup. Poured the soup into the bowl, mixed with mushrooms and grains, very nice. The ingredients were raw, but healthy and full of flavor.
Speaking of main courses, mom got sirloin and mine was spring lamb.

The sirloin was perfectly grilled, pink inside. Under glass surface holding the beef, there were hot wood to keep both temperature and smell, very thoughtful. Mom's satisfied although she prefers fully cooked meat like most old generation in the eastern world. I tried two bites as well. The meat was very tender, seasoned well too. There were some mushrooms and sauce aside, you can add more flavor if you like.

The spring lamb was not grilled, like stewed. The waiter explained this to me when I was ordering. I love lamb, no matter how you cook it, so it doesn't matter at all. The lamb was like a 紅燒蹄膀, but it's lamb leg. I believe it had been stewed for a while. It was cooked with bone and the waiter got the bone out before serving.The meat was so soft and fat was melted into the meat. It's tender and juicy in the mouth, full of lamb flavor. Any lamb fan should be satisfied, like me. There were peas and potato (presented as cheese) as well. Honestly, the size of lamb was really big, not much space for dishes aside.

Lastly, we had tea and coffee to finish the meal. Nobody was waiting for your table . It's very relaxing to take some time to have a drink and chat, of course digusting the feast as well.

Mandarin always offers best service. The staff were nice and professional. Like before, they called me on the afternoon the confirm the reservation. They were very helpful by giving detailed introduction and suggestions during the dinner. Besides those good qualities, the high value added small dishes impressed me this time.

First, there were five or six different olive oil choices for bread dipping. Apart from popular products from Italy and Spain, there's one from Morocco as well. The waitress elaborated us the region, flavor and specialties of each one. Moreover, you can choose multiples to dip bread. Really good olive oil tasting opportunity.

Second, plenty high quality free appetizers. Before serving the soup we ordered, there were three appetizers for free.

Pear shape jelly with foie gras: the foie fras was so smooth in the mouth, could felt the melting. It's good to have it with deep toasted bread perfectly caramelized by honey or maple syrup.
A ball covered by Parmesan cheese: sorry I forgot what's stuffed inside the ball. Maybe I paid too much attention to the Parmesan cheese (sorry for my cheese mania) covering outside which looked like coconut shred. It's a very good creation of western food ingredients presented in a way of Chinese din sum. Even the typical Mandarin food box revealed the smells of orient. Appreciated by the idea and effort they put on.
One bite jelly olive: one bite olive flavor jelly. it's not common, at least for me. The taste was not too much strong, but still refreshed.
Finally, we didn't order dessert. The waiter was right, we were full already. But they offered chocolate, again for free. There are four chocolate balls, two with truffle and two regular. The chocolates were rich and creamy. You shouldn't doubt the quality of Mandarin's dessert. The truffle chocolate got intense truffle flavor, tasted really good. I like it even I'm not a chocolate fan. Not only four chocolate balls, but the cello was eatable as well, a very big one actually. I doubt who can eat it up after having the main course. Anyways, Mandarin is so generous. But I got a concern here. Since few of customer can finish this big chocolate cello, but they probably touch it. How to deal with the leftover? Throw them away? Sort of eco-unfriendliness. Reprocessing? Is that hygienic?

Overall, it's always delightful experience in MO. The food, the service and the atmosphere were all great. The high value added dishes made the dinner even better. I did have a great time with mom that night. Thanks!

Recommended Dish(es): Spring Lamb
Date of Visit: 2012-11-08
Spending per Head: HKD1000 (Dinner)
Overall Rating : Taste4 Environment5 Service5 Hygiene4 Value for Money4

Birthday dinner at Mandarin Grill + Bar~
2012-09-19
LL99 (73 Review(s))

For my birthday this year I chose to have dinner at the Mandarin Grill + Bar. I must admit that I had quite a difficult time deciding where to celebrate since there are so many fine dining options out there, but I have always been intrigued by the artful presentation of the dishes served at the Grill + Bar hence it ended as my place of choice.

I was originally celebrating with my dad, but due to some pressing issues he was unable to attend, so I had the pleasure of being accompanied by Mr. C as that night's dining companion.

Upon entering the restaurant, I was quite surprised by the decor as I was expecting it to portray more of a steakhouse vibe, rather than a proper dining room with modern finishes. The atmosphere was also not as stiff as I was expecting it to be, and the ambience was actually quite pleasant and comfortable.

We chose to go a la carte rather than picking from the set menus so we could share and try more things, but before that we were served my beloved bread basket and a couple of amuse bouches. The bread basket was served warm which I expected no less from a one Michelin starred restaurant and from the few that I tried, I was most impressed with their quality. I especially liked their olive bread as well as the black sesame roll which was quite unusual, with a slightly firm yet chewy crust where the flavour of the sesame filled the senses in a pleasant way. We were also able to choose an olive oil to accompany our bread, I picked an Italian one (with the gold ribbon) which was so smooth on the tongue, and since Mr. C let me pick his, I chose a peppery one which was made from baby olives. Out of the two I actually preferred the peppery one as the olive taste was much sharper on the tongue.
Continuing with the olive trend, our first amuse bouche was a small green liquid sphere of oliveness. No doubt there was gastronomy involved in making this, where a semi-hard gelatin casing enveloped a centre of liquid olive essence. I did not really like this, as I was not very fond of the texture of the exterior and the taste was only so so for me. Accompanying this were a pair of herbed savoury biscuits topped with finely shaved parmesean. I would have never thought I would enjoy biscuits that were salty, but they were surprisingly good, quite buttery with the herb flavour coming through strongly.

We were also presented with a pair of cheese gourgeres. So delicate looking, with the choux pastry hiding a warm gooey cheese centre. I loved it~

We started with some French oysters. I am not especially partial to oysters, but I do enjoy them once in a while. The ones we had were Fines de Claire and these were very creamy and quite sweet from their natural juices.
For entree, we started with 'Garden'. A plate of beautifully arranged organic vegetables which were held together by a mixture of blended argula and coconut milk. The waiter then proceeded to 'water' our arrangement with the dressing inside a small watering can. Very cute~ Presentation wise it get full marks, but in terms of taste, the vegetables were of course very fresh, but the dressing was too bland for me. Also I did not like the flavor of the argula 'soil', as it was quite strong.
For soup we had the lobster bisque. This was heart warmingly good. The flavour of the lobster was very intense, and the addition of cream gave a wonderful smoothness and thickness to the texture.

We picked two hot appetisers, the scallop and fois gras. Three very plump scallops were served in a small ceramic pot atop a combintation of sea grass and kelp. The scallops were perfectly cooked so they were very tender and retained the natural sweetness of its juices. What was interesting was the addition of a few roundish green leaves, which was described by the waiter as oyster leaves. The special thing about these leaves were that they were supposed to give off a slight oyster flavour since these plants are grown in the same area where oysters are bred. And surprisngly they did, a subtle oyster 'fishiness', which went very well with the rest of the dish.
The fois gras was beautifully plated, but was a very disappointing dish. The quality of the fois gras was not very good, as it was quite 'rough' in texture and not very smooth. It was also very gamey in flavour. Disappointing.
For mains, we were served the sea bass first. This was salt baked, and came to the table on a big slab of pink himalyan salt prior to being plated. The presentation was quite cute, where the starkness of the white of the fish contrasted sharply with the colourful pureed dots of artichoke, lemon, pepper and saffron. The sea bass was perfectly cooked, very tender, and the dots of sauces helped to enhace the natural flavour of the fish. My favourite combination was pairing it with the lemon.
The Beef 'Calotte' was our pick from the meat course. I was quite anticipating this dish, as there have been some very positive reviews about it. The beef itself comes from the US snake river farm and the 'calotte' is the ribeye cap where the meat is supposed to be the most tender and flavourful. This was presented inside the signature Mandarin Grill book, but when we opened it I was surprised to find everything to be black. The waiter then explained they had just changed the presentation of this dish that day and the theme was charcoal, so essentially everything was coated in charcoal, even the vegetables which unfortuately looked like lumps of coal. However to me, this dish was just about the beef. And yes it did deliver. Cooked to a perfect blushing medium rare, I knew it was going to be very tender from the way my knife slid through it quite easily. The beef was so flavourful, and there was a pleasant gaminess to the taste which melded well with the slight fattiness of the beef. Definitely recommended~
And finally to my favourite part of any meal. Desserts! We chose three to share between us, fruit, banana split and oreo. Since we asked for them to all come at the same time, we picked the lightest one to eat first. Fruit was a mix of seasonal fresh and freeze dried fruit with two types of sorbet, mandarin and pear. Although it was very pretty to look at, it was not very special. The fruit was fresh, but the freeze dried fruit was a little odd in texture and it kept sticking to my teeth. The sorbets were good though, refreshing with a clean and crisp flavour.
The banana split was presented very differently to what one would commonly associate with the name sake of three scoops of strawberry, vanilla and chocolate ice-cream with two halves of a banana and topped with fake whipped cream with maraschino cherries. Instead, three baby bananas were presented on a dish and then lashed with chocolate sauce. Mr. C was curious enough to ask how they remember which one was what flavour to which the waiter replied that the angle at which the bananas were placed represented each flavour. Each banana turned out to be a coating of white chocolate with a different filling of strawberry mousse, banana mousse and vanilla ice-cream. As cute as it looked, it was quite sweet overall and the texutre of the mousse was quite firm and not very smooth.
Our last dessert was oreo, which was a vanilla ice-cream with a crumble of chocolate biscuit crumbs and topped with chocolate espuma which is foam. The texture of the dessert was airy and light due to the main element being foam, but it was very chocolatey in flavour. However I did find that it became cloyingy sweet after a couple of mouthfuls and in the end I seemed to enjoy the honest flavour of the vanilla ice-cream most.
As a little surprise, since it was my birthday I also had my very own chocolate candle. Quite cute really, a dark chocolate coating with chocolate ganache inside where the red flame was made from firm icing.

And to end we were served our own his and hers petite fours. Mine was a sherbet powder compact with lemon and raspberry sherbet which came with my own white fairy floss puff, while Mr. C had a chocolate cigar in it's own cigar dish. I only had a slight taste of mine, because again it was just way too sweet for my liking, and I soon monopolized the chocolate cigars since the dark chocolate was just what I was seeking to end my meal. It was no surprise that the chocolate was so good since the Mandarin Oriental does excel in it. Smooth and rich, with the intense flavour of good quality dark chocolate. I wonder if they would serve it to the ladies upon request.

Although there were hits and misses where the dishes were concerned (dessert was unfortunately quite disappointing for me), I did have a fabulous evening. Thank you for celebrating with me, it was much appreciated smile

Date of Visit: 2012-09-09
Table Wait Time: 0 Minutes
Occasion: Birthday
Overall Rating : Taste4 Environment5 Service4 Hygiene5 Value for Money3

CRS REVIEW SERVICES
2012-08-30
CRS (11 Review(s))

CRS REVIEW SERVICES

FSAP Grade: 95/100 A*

Food: 49/50
The food was simply phenomenal. We all had lobster bisque and roast beef which came with complementary desserts. the beef was tender juicy and like ambrosia. lobster bisque had a brisk seafood taste.

Service: 20/20
Service was great. staff were friendly and kind, and flexible with orders in removing cream etc...

Ambience: 19/20

Ambience is perfect. We sat next to a window in a timeless setting looking out to hong kong city

Price: 7/10

You pay what you get for.

Recommended Dish(es): oreo,lobsterbisque,beef
Date of Visit: 2012-08-30
Table Wait Time: 0 Minutes
Occasion: Birthday
Spending per Head: HKD700
Overall Rating : Taste5 Environment5 Service5 Hygiene5 Value for Money4

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