AROPA  

No wonder we didn't have to wait to be seated - no one wants to eat there. When we walked in the restaurant, there were only 3 tables occupied (this was right at dinner time). We travelled from Canada, and were recommended by our hotel to go to this restaurant. The conceirge had mentioned that this is a greek restaurant, and that this is just a family restaurant, not a fine dinning place. We were okay with that.

When we got there, and checked the menu, and found out that it's an Italian menu. We asked the manager, and he said that they switched from Greek to Italian some time ago. That's fine, we thought we would try. We wanted to order just regular water. The waitress said, "Oh, we don't have regular water, you can order bottled water, either still or sparkling water." We thought it was a way for the restaurant to make money, that's fine, we didn't argue, and ordered a bottle of water, and our food. While we were waiting for our food, I heard the customer at the next table asked for a cup of water, of course, the waitress said they had to order bottled water. The customer didn't want to, and insisted, "For God's sake, just give me a cup of hot water." And there the waitress gone and fetched her a cup of hot water. After a few minutes, the same table called the manager, and wanted to return some kind of meat (I believe it was Fillet Mignon) to the kitchen because it was very tough. I thought to myself that this was not a good sign because my boyfriend ordered beef tenderloin. When our food came, my boyfriend had to send back the beef tenderloin because it wasn't cooked to what he requested. When it was brought back to the table the 2nd time, my boyfriend had a few bites, and didn't want to eat. The meat didn't seem right.

We told the waitress about the meet, and asked for the bill thinking she would take the beef tenderloin off the bill without us asking (this is how a good restaurant would definitely offer). The bill came and we had to pay for the full meal, that's fine, we don't like to argue, we paid. But just wanted to warn people about this restaurant - FOOD IS NOT GOOD AT ALL in my opinion. I ordered a seafood pasta, I'll give a 1 out of 5.The taste was nothing special, clams were not done right, and the sauce didn't taste like any white wine sauce as they claimed.

We ordered 2 starters, 3 main courses and 2 desserts. Although the presentation of each dishes is fine but the taste was so bad. Especially the so-called "Today's Special" baked cheese Lobster. The size of the Lobster was not even bigger than the palm. Overall food were as bad as you cannot imagine and definitely over-priced.
Worst thing is the rude attitude of the manager while treating customers as well as yelling at other nice hard-working waitresses. They closed at 11pm but come to ask your last order at 10pm.
There are many other options with such pricing, at least much better service. We definitely won't come again and not recommend to anyone

Selected this restaurant by process of elimination upon arriving at K11.

Friend and I were restaurant-hopping. So we shared one set lunch between us. around $50 per head after the split.

Food:
1. Baby spinach salad with walnuts and parmesan shavings SURPRISINGLY good. completely exceeded my expectations. I was expecting a few soggy, wilted leaves and olive oil dressing. But no. The leaves were very fresh, had a strong spinachy flavour, and the dressing complemented it well. I'm not sure what dressing they used. A mayo-based dressing, but not exactly mayo. And the walnuts were good. Parmesan shavings topped it off with a strong savory aftertaste...yummy!

2. Cod fillet burger amazing yet again. The cod was well-cooked, fresh and flaky. A proper batter. I also loved the tartare sauce. Well - you can hardly get it wrong I guess? Coleslaw on the side. Fair.

Service:
Not memorable. But that could cut both ways. I just remember that the waitress was very eager to wave us in, ha-ha. She put pressure on us to try out the restaurant.

Environment:
like any other western restaurant, actually. But since there weren't a lot of people when i visited, it felt very spacious, particularly with the high ceiling, open bar and all. You could see the mall from inside because there were no walls separating the mall from the restaurant. Clever!

Conclusion
Will visit again.

The K11 centre still feels very new. Most of the lunch guests today were here for the first time. And the restaurant was quiet except for our table of 16. We were here invited by our French host for a meeting, so quiet was good for us. The restaurant is a Mediterranean style restaurant but they created a French menu for our group.

To start with was Salad Nicoise. The ingredients were fine and the new potatoes tasted quite sweet but there was no dressing. So by the time I got to the bottom with the large lettuce leaves, I was just eating lettuce with no other tastes

The potato soup was hot and rich and presented nicely, a good course.

I was too busy talking or listening, so forgot to take a photo of my Duck Confit. It was not so satisfying, the skin was not crispy and the sauce was not too correct. The duck meat was thick and a bit tasteless, so I couldn't finish it, all the better for my diet.

The dessert was a bit of a non entity and much like some end to a set meal. It was pastry with a bit of cake inside, I am not sure what it is supposed to be. Looked nicer than the taste.

Coffee however was good and the staff were attentive and helpful. They helped to serve the brought wine without charging corkage and were pleasant throughout.

The decoration was bright and friendly and it seems a nice place to stop for lunch if on a shopping trip.

Another birthday dinner, which this time was with a friend who hasn't been met for a year. Let's cut into the cheese, shall we?

We got there at 7:15 and only 3 or 4 tables were occupied. Both sides of the restaurant offer high-rise sofa seats and we were given a table for four. The atmosphere is a typical modern bistro style, which should fancy most people.

They offer a 4-course dinner set at a price of $218 excluding service staff. All 4 courses but the last dish offer you two options or more, and we order one dinner set and two additional dishes. The staff at there recommended us this approach as it would allow us to try on more dishes.

The dishes we tried include:
a) Pan fried foie gras with berry sauce
b) Mussels with chorizo in tomato sauce
c) Mediterranean salad
d) Onion and tomato soup
e) Grilled steak with black truffle
d) Dessert of the day

Our foie gras was cooked to medium well, which was tender but the flavour wasn't strong enough. It may due to the fact that the restaurant uses frozen foie gras. The sauce was a little bit too sweet to me. It could not be compared to what I had in Montreal or Paris but it was above average.

The mussels dish is the star of our night. We didn't taste any freezer smell. The chorizos really kicked the overall flavour of the dish a few notches up. It was LOVELY.

Mediterranean salad was served with vinaigrette, and the syrup/honey glazed walnut and feta cheese made a very good combination. These two ingredients distinguished the salad from other greens

I did not try the onion soup but it looked too viscous and not thick enough. There were not enough cheese in there either.

We ordered the steak in medium and they did a good job in controlling the cooking time. In terms of the steak quality, it tasted like those you could get from Jusco supermarket in $49.99 for three pieces. The side dishes, which included grilled vine tomatos and potato slices, were good. On the other hand, I would rather not have the truffle since the dry truffle tasted funny.

To be fair, you should NOT expect a high quality steak since they are charging you $200 something only.

The service is reasonable and they change plates and utensils quite frequently. However, they do not know what foie gras is, neither do they know the differences between French and English mustard. This is the area they could really focus on improving.

We passed by this new mall before it opened and found it quite interesting. We wanted to try one of the restaurants here and gave it a go to this one on New Year’s Eve. Lucky we made a reservation and we were placed at the table that is not to close to others. We ordered:

Green salad – okay
Parma ham with mixed fruits salad – not qualified as “mixed fruits” as there was only one type of fruit, honeydew, and they were sliced into very thin pieces; the rest ingredients were the same as the green salad
Onion soup – good
Minestrone soup - okay
Quail as main dish – quite disappointed that it wasn’t available
Seafood Paella – not available again
Risotto with goose liver – a failure… the risotto was not cooked thoroughly, the rice and the sauce didn’t mix together and the rice was quite hard
Spring chicken – okay
Soufflé with mango sauce – the soufflé would be just fine without the sauce

In summary, the price was not particularly expensive and it’s quite a comfy place if you manage to get a quiet table. However, the place is still very new in terms of operation. For example, the waiter didn’t know what the customer ordered and one of them thought we finished our meal after we only had the salad and took away our cutleries and butter. We had to ask for the bread when we had the soup. Also, a few specialties on the menu were not available which was a bit disappointing. The food quality wasn’t very stable, some dishes were good but others were not. Hopefully they can make some improvements to run the restaurant in a more sophisticated manner.