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2014-02-26
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If you want the TL;DR version, it's that the food is OK at best, and the wait is terrible.Let me tell you about the wait. We showed up at 7:40pm on a Saturday. Terrible time to show up, I know BUT, in my defense, I regularly eat around 8:30. So a wait of an hour or an hour and a half is fine by me. At the door they have the nicest and most disingenuous man working. He told us that we had a 45 minute to an hour wait, and suggested we wait at their wine bar, behind Ham & Sherry, their sister resta
Let me tell you about the wait. We showed up at 7:40pm on a Saturday. Terrible time to show up, I know BUT, in my defense, I regularly eat around 8:30. So a wait of an hour or an hour and a half is fine by me. At the door they have the nicest and most disingenuous man working. He told us that we had a 45 minute to an hour wait, and suggested we wait at their wine bar, behind Ham & Sherry, their sister restaurant down the street.Good that we did not. Instead, we grabbed some pints at the Pawn and returned at 8:40, an hour after we put our names on the list. How long is the wait? Another 45 minutes to an hour we're told. My wife is set on going, and we have no back-up plan, so we wait. We grab some beers at the 7-11 and wait in the sitting-out area not far from 22 Ships. At 9:35, a full five minutes from a two hour wait, we get a call: your table is ready.
It takes us 2 minutes to get to the restaurant. It turns out, our table is not ready. There's no paricular table that's ours, but one table is "having dessert" and should be done any time now, we're told.
As a sop, we are given a free (!) tray of Iberico ham. Free is always nice, but remember that we had to eat this standing up, holding our paid (!) drinks, because the table they called and told us they had was non-existent. If they called us and told us "it's 30 more minutes, but you get free meat" I'd have been cool with that, and *maybe* I'd have taken the deal. But don't call me and tell me it's 0 more minutes for a table and then replace my table with a hand-held pile of meat I have to eat on the street. There were ravenous vultures-- er, humans-- who kept asking us if the meat was for everyone waiting in front of the restaurant. No! we got it because we waited two hours and were lied to! Stay away before I bite your hands off!Sorry, flashback. It was 30 more minutes before we'd be seated. That's 30 minutes AFTER we were told a table was ALREADY READY for us (apologies for cap-shouting). And it wasn't just 30 minutes of standing and waiting with an empty tray of meat. At one point, we were directed to a table, and then moved out of it when they realized they could turn it and an adjoining section into a 8-person table for another group. So we were once again snatched from the jaws of sitting, now to wait awkwardly *inside* the restaurant as the promised us that--yes, any moment now-- we would in fact have the table that 30 minutes ago they told us we did in fact have.
But that story, I'm sure, doesn't interest you. Maybe you'll be seated right away. How was the food, you ask? Well, OK, at best. The first thing we got was a grilled cheese sandwich with mushrooms. Yes, the mushrooms were truffles and the cheese was manchego and the eggs on top were from quails. But were you to make it at home with normal mushrooms and cheese and eggs, it'd be roughly the same. Great, but pretentious. A-
My beer came a while after I ordered it. The servers are at least attentive enough to notice such things: my guy saw that my beer wasn't there and then tracked it down. Service like that is rare in Hong Kong. Furthermore, the beer came in this awesome metal mug. Short story about Estrella: I was once in a bar in Granada (in Andalusia, the "home" of Tapas) and tried to order an Estrella-- the bartender looked at me like I was insane, A Coruna being about as far away from Granada as possible. I settled with an Alhombra, which is made by San Miguel fyi.
The second dish to arrive was the pimientos de padron, my favorite tapa. There were a number of things that made this dish sub-par. First, these are typically fried and here they are baked or broiled or whatever. There was significantly less char/ blackening on the peppers than any time I'd had them before-- in Spain or even in HK. Second, they were coated in lots of garlic. Garlic, I like, but in a recipe as simple as peppers, oil, salt, it's clear how it might be overwhelming and/or distracting. These were good in the absolute sense, but poor considering what could have been done with them. OK, C.
Again, I didn't dislike the scallop ceviche. I enjoyed the cucumbers and apples that came with it (the cucumbers had some Japanese name that I forget). But the scallops were a little "tough" (chewy?) and I'd had a much better scallop ceviche at Fofo by El Willy (as stupid as that name is). This was good, but not great, B-.
The pork belly burgers tasted mostly like barbequed pulled pork, and were of a similar texture. The bun was way too buttery, almost like cornbread in the US. I wasn't particularly impressed with the sweet pickles and avocado puree they came with-- overly sweet on the first hand and overly sour on the second. I can think of at least four places in HK that do a better pulled pork sandwich, and that in itself is impressive. C-
I can't rate desserts, being a savory-only individual since I was about 12. My wife thought the goat cheese ice cream was the best thing in the meal, so I'll give it an A, just above the grilled cheese sandwiches. It tasted like goat cheese, but had the temperature and texture of ice-cream: novel and enjoyable for those who like such things.When I started this review, I intended to argue that 22 Ships took ordinary dishes and produced mediocre versions with high-class ingredients (like truffles). While that's to some extent true, looking back I think I was wrong. Most of the dishes are relatively straightforward and they're mediocre all the same. I wouldn't be against eating at this place, but not for a 2 and a half hour wait, or even for a 30 minute one. No one was at Iberico and Co. last time I was there, and they have equally good or better food. I guess the fact that there's no line keeps the HK trendsetters out.
I will say that 22 Ships is comparably affordable. (Of course, I got a free plate of meat and a free dessert, so there you go.) If you want tapas in HK, you will pay the same or more. But I'd suggest any place with reservations. Literally any of them. Some places with much better tapas like Tapeo frequently can seat you with no reservations. Why go here and be lied to and get sub-par food? I know why: it's popular. But please, get over it. It's for your own good.
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