Clipper Lounge     快船廊  

First Impression --- foods were not luxury yet tasty.

Seafood.Best: Legs of spider crab --- nice salty.

Oyster --- I personally don't like any kind of oyster, but this time I tried one anyway, and it surprised me ! The one I picked is really acceptable! I think those oyster lovers would fall in love with it!

Soup :

There were one Chinese-style soup and one cream "white soup"(a local wording). The cream soup was really creamy, but its taste was so-so. The Chinese one is a famous traditional soup known as "Western Lake Beef Soup" ( pronounce like Shi Wu Au Yuk Kan), it was great, even better than some "Yam Cha" places (the Chinese restaurants at which the waiter there will inquire you after your preference of kind of hot tea).And desserts --- after tired all of them, I can say 90% of them were delicious. I would suggest all you guys to try fresh-cook orange wine pancake there, its great!All in all. this buffet had given me a good holiday dining experience. I will put Clipper in my possible returning list.

Before I came I found there was an online menu on what they had for the buffet, although there is a note saying *Please note that all buffet items are subject to change due to availability* I thought it would be fun to see what items could be found and what were not there.
It was easy to book a table at late notice however they needed credit card confirmation.

Overall the food was ok, but some of the items I could not find.
My favourites were the oysters, green tomatoes

location: 3.7 / 5
goods: hotel outlet, clean, plenty of space between MY table ( same others not so lucky)
bads: the hotel was a bit old

service: 3.8 / 5
goods: fast refill of food, fast in change of dirty plate, stuff were nice
bads: they took away our folks n knives without asking, did not ask if we want a refill of coffee/ tea

food: 2.2 / 5
goods: beef with rice noodles 炒牛河 -never seen carbohydrate dish to go so quickly in a buffet
pasta -the carbonara sauce was creamy, smooth in texture, the timing in cooking the pasta were just right
roast beef -was okay, not the best beef, but it comes with Yorkshire pudding.
roast potato -rich potato taste good seasoning
dessert -the cheese cake n chocolate cake were nice

bads: cold seafood -most of them are tasteless, no sweetness in any of them at all.
oysters - aren't fresh broken shell in most of them.
soup -tasteless
rest of the food are what you expect from a hkd250 buffet.

hkd 504 per person Inc. 10%

皮蛋

In celebration of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s sixty years on the throne, Clipper Lounge at the Mandarin Oriental is offering a Diamond Jubilee ‘Royal Afternoon Tea’ until 1 July.

Created by chef Uwe Opocensky’s the is never short of surprises but still due respect for tradition.

Don't laugh at me, the last time I went to Clipper Lounge was already 4 years ago for buffet. It was not until I came with some friends recently that I got to try out its signature afternoon tea.

What a failure! Only remembered to take photos at the last round.
The environment was a great one to have celebration with your beloved ones(including friends). The sofa chairs were cozy to sit with. Not too many tables so there won't be too many people crowding for food. Everything was constantly being refilled thus even coming at a later time won't lose much. The service needless to say, was good, at least met up to the standard of a 5 star hotel.Oysters provided were named U.S.A. and New Zealand. I personally preferred the ones from New Zealand as they have a "sea flavour" that tasted very fresh. The U.S.A. ones nonetheless were rich and "fat"Can you believe I was having bread even at the last round?! Out of the three kinds, the raisin rye bread was my favourite. Chewy yet soft. I wish they had a toaster for us to make warm the bread.I'm sure everyone who goes to Clipper Lounge is for their dessert. Alas! I failed to show the complete variety of desserts they offered. I had 4-5 rounds of desserts and they completely filled my plates everytime The lemon cake was the best although none of my family members liked it! They thought that it was too sour but that was the best part of it! The cheesecake on the other hand failed to meet my expectation, the cheese wasn't that rich and couldn't satisfy my taste buds after all the food attempted. The creme brulee stopped refilling after a short period so I only managed to try a bit(from my sis who took it at the very beginning), what a pity. There were a lot of chocolate desserts, probably due to its afternoon tea theme. Will definitely go again..and to take more photos! FYI, they gave out one dai jarp haai to every customer during this peak season.
In fact, I went to Clipper Lounge two months ago but on a Wednesday, the refills were certainly slower with less variety of desserts. With the lack of icecream, I would definitely choose to go again during the weekends. (not expensive even without any creditcard discount)

Recommended to go to this dinner buffet by a colleague, who described this as 'quality over quantity' and they were
most certainly right. You will certainly not be overwhelmed by the choice at this buffet, although the seafood was
of very good quality. Smoked salmon, oysters, crab etc all to a high standard

The salads were enjoyable - particularly the truffle and mushroom salad that night. The tenderloin beef at the carving
station was cooked to a good medium consistency. The desserts perhaps a slight disappointment as the
choice was not particularly large and the choices given were bland.

The decor and atmosphere is fairly relaxed, although I could see some people would think it is a bit too casual - for
eg., you would not come here for a business meal.

Overall though, we would go here again.

This is my second time coming here for dessert buffet. I used to like the one in Tiffin's very much but have got tired of it a bit. So this time I am bringing my sister to MO for this dessert buffet instead.
All the desserts here are made of chocolate. I must say I can tell that the chocolates used are premium chocolate. And I admire the creativity of the Chef in making so many different types of desserts out of chocolates. But to me and my sister (and I believe to many other people as well), this is too much chocolate for an afternoon.... a lot of desserts are made of really rich chocolate (e.g. chocolate mud cakes, chocolate dip, truffle..). It is just too rich and sweet that we built up a very full and unpleasant feeling after perhaps the first plate of desserts. I think they may do better to include more lighter version of chocolate desserts or even sobert will be great. The ones that we like most are mixed fruits and a chocolate mousse cake (which is very light that does not remind us of chocolate at all). Also , they should allow for refill of savory dishes such that we can have some more breaks from the sweet dish.
Also there is a strawberry mousse dessert made from champagne and something, it tastes like cough medicine...
Plus there is no chocolate fondue / fountain. There is just a bowl of melted chocolate for chocolate dip, which is not impressive for a chocolate dessert buffet.

My wife and I went last Friday to try their buffett. I was not impressed with the food and especially the crowd that night. The decor looks old and service could have been a bit more attentive.
I like the crab legs, pork neck, and prime rib (which ran out rather quickly). However, the oyster was not as fresh as it should be and the tuna sashimi still had a frozen taste. Each person was given a hairy crab, which I think is quite nice. Although service was at the typical Mandarin level that you can always expect, the servers could have been better in collecting plates and refilling water more timely.
What kills my dining experience that night was the crowd, about 30-40 local Hongies were there celebrating something. They were talking loudly, blocking walkways for others to walk. Some were even drunk after taking advantage of the HK$98 all-you-can-drink special. Their behavior completely ignored other guests' presence. They obviously presume they were just dining at another tea-house/茶樓. I'm a Hongie too and have no problem people to celebrate special occasion, but be considerate of other people! The restaurant should not have allowed a large group like that to have an event there.

It's my first time to try this restaurant.
The seafood are their main focus.
Oysters, mussels, crabs' legs, salmons, tunas are all good to try.


I recommend their sushi as they are freshly made, not as hard as those in other hotels.


Desserts are all very good and delicious. I also recommend chocolate lollipops.

They are my daughter's favourite.

It's my first time going to Mandarin Oriental and having the lunch buffet there, the place is not as spacious as I thought but the variety of food is great. There are lots of sushi, sashimi, king crabs, fresh oysters, salad, and other hot dishes. The best part is the dessert, esp. the dark chocolate truffles squares!

Another thing that surprised me is the price, which is relatively fair, esp. in Central (it’s about 298+10% service charge per person).

I heard Clipper Lounge was holding a Japanese-themed buffet so I made reservations two weeks prior to our dinner here. We were given a table with a sofa on one side and chairs on the other - the sofa was rounded and same length as the table so it was rather annoying to get in and out of! What if I were large?

Okay to the food: in general not very many choices for a dinner buffet, but I thought execution is more important and Clipper Lounge did mostly well in executing their dishes!

For Cold Dishes, I tried:
salad bar - grilled yellow and zucchini squash/ red and green peppers dressed with pesto and pine nuts: excellent!
Tomato and mozzarella balls: these were good quality vine-tomatoes (not cherry!) and cute small mozzarellas with a hint of balsamic dressing - again, very fresh and good.
Iced peeled shrimps: Bouncy and good with cocktail sauce
Iced Alaskan crab legs: I really appreciated the way it was presented - you don't have to get messy eating the huge legs as they are cut precisely in half so all you do is take out the meat. The meat was slightly salted, which was good, often hotels don't quite know how to prepare them and they end up tasting way too salty and 'drowned' - i.e. the meat no longer intact.
Iced tiger prawns: these were bad - the meat did not taste of anything and it was 'chewy' and hard rather than bouncy and fresh like the smaller peeled shrimps.
Sashimi/sushi - sweet shrimp, lean tuna, smoked mackerel sushi : The sweet shrimps were my favourite - even though small they were fresh and sweet! The tuna was alright, but mackerel was bad. I don't like raw salmon, but everyone else liked it - they were 'fatty enough'.

The Hot Dishes:
Teriyaki Salmon: Very well executed - fish was cooked perfectly and remained warm on their stove, with a hint of teriyaki flavour.
Miso Cod: This fish is very fatty - oilier than the salmon but that just means more omega-3! it paired well with the miso marinade (although quite light in flavour) and again, cooked well.
Soup: For the western soup they had a very rich and creamy tomato soup that had fresh blended mushrooms in it - really good with the bread they provided (but the bread by itself was not as good as i expected MO to provide). And they also had a miso soup which had a good amount of tofu cubes and seaweed and was not salty as it can be in many Japanese restaurants.
Tempura: I think these were really really good. They remained crisp even though after sitting a while - the batter was thin and fried till golden brown - a lot better than the one at harbourside I had a couple of weeks ago! The shrimps were small but fresh, and the eggplant was very good. I would've liked to see more variety of fried items like pumpkin or sweet potato, rather than the not-so-popular green/red peppers.
Tonkatsu pork These were nice lean porkchops coated in panko and deep fried till brown and crunch! Although the piece I ate was only luke warm the outer crust was still crunchy and the curry sauce was good.
oden: Oden was not great but not bad either - slightly too light in flavour in my opinion.
beef sukiyaki: This was presented very nicely - thin slices of medium cooked beef on top of noodles and radish. Apart from the radish which was way too undercooked, it was tasty.
Yeung Chow Fried Rice: I am a sucker for fried rice so I just had to taste theirs. They had duck and shrimp meat in the rice, which was slightly spicy - I liked the taste but i would've preferred the rice to be more dry?
Garlic Broccoli: This was a bit oily but good in taste - I love garlic so no complaints.

For dessert I tried the following:
bread and butter pudding - too buttery and the top was not crisp like I would like my bread puddings. Sauce was good though, and custard was well-set.
Fruit salad: Not good - had dragonfruit, melon and canteloupe...blehh.
Chocolate mud cake: This was my favourite! rich ganache with cake inside.
MO cheesecake: Not bad but not great either.
Panna cotta w/ strawberry syrup: Wayy too soft! Sweetness was good but texture-wise it was wrong.
Black sesame mousse: I appreciated the toasted sesame and the tapioca pearls but the mousse was again just too light/soft! not too sweet =)
brownie: Their chocolate brownie was tiny - a good size after sampling so many others! it was crisp on top but had an unnecessary layer of bad plain cookie on the bottom.
Chocolate ganache tart: A really good rich tart which can be consumed in two bites.
Vanilla mousse/cream: Very normal and not very good at all.

I would say this buffet for $330 a head + $110 if you want free-flow of selected drinks (including house wines and juices) is very affordable. Their cold and hot dishes are much better than I expected, but they fail on the desserts sadly (hence the 3/5). Not only was the above-mentioned desserts just average or disappointing, they did not serve ice cream, which I think should be included in all hotel buffets as a standard?

Lastly, I ordered a cappuccino to end my meal with. The lack of foam reminded me more of a latte, but the coffee was really good. No bitterness even without sugar - it reminded me of a cappuccino I've tried before but I simply cannot recall where. Anyhow this was a good cuppaa!

With the reference from OR I and my best friend choose to dine @ Clipper Lounge to celebrate my B day. There aren't many food choices and the Chinese food is sort of plain. But I do like the attentive service, and of course, the seafood. Lobster, crab, shrimp, clam....all are fresh, tasty, and in a liberal supply. Dessert is also unexpectedly good.

At the price of 298 per person it's really VALUE FOR MONEY.

My 2 friends and I went for afternoon tea (note, not high tea) at Clipper Lounge on Monday. This is the second time I visited after they renovated. The first time was about 2 years ago and I had good memories of it. This time however, I was shocked at what they served as sandwiches. Little cubes of bread with the fillings on the outside. . How are you supposed to get at them? If you use a fork, the glass tray tips, if you use your fingers, they will smell of fish or egg or whatever else and frankly, they are an insult to the sandwich invention. We were also disappointed with 2 ugly slices of plain cake that were on a plate and not on the 3 layered tray. They look the most unattractive, worse than a slice of Sara Lee's marbled cake.

And I always had a problem with the tea at Clipper. It always goes cold since the refill hot water is brought at the beginning with the tea, so by the time you refill, the water isn't hot and the other thing is, the tea strainers holes are too big and tea leaves go through them.

The only saving grace had to be the scones. The waiter let us choose plain or raisins and we all went for plain ones. They are still very good although the clotted cream isn't thick enough.

Need to find another place for afternoon tea next time. Nothing is anywhere near the nice hotels in London

There wasn't that much to choose from but quality was excellent. I found the seafood very icy, maybe i'm just used to fresh seafood and not those frozen ones. But my friend found the crab legs delicious. My personal favorite is definitely the roast beef, very tender. Dessert was also excellent, everything was good. They were small but that's perfect because you can try more variety.

I also liked the shrimp salad and carbonara fettuccine. I went on a weekday but it was still quite pack but overall, excellent quality for the price i paid. The only disappointment was the snail / escargot, there was sand in it. And I bit quite hard, i thought I cracked my teeth. Glad i didn't.