AVA Restaurant Slash Bar    

Ever since AVA opened at the refurbished Hotel Panorama, I have heard quite positive news about this space and in particularly that Rose Petal ice cream dessert which is apparently to die for! We were here for previewing the French Le GourMay menu and hoping to spread the words. The price for the Le French GourMay 4 courses dinner menu is $468 which is well priced. I do suggest that you order a separate serving of their amazing Rose Petal dessert, as it will definitely make an impression on your date. I myself really liked it so may be it’s just me..

.

我吃法國菜，尤其是法式甜品，總是停不了口，所以想提提大家現在快到"法國五月"了! 很多餐廳都會在這一年一度的法國文化節推出法國菜單，而我就試了AVA 四道菜的"Amazing Bourgogne"。食物由大廚Massimo Santovito準備, 十分美味，每位只不過$468。最後，還一定要試試AVA的Liquid Nitrogen Raspberry and Rose Petal Ice Cream，雪糕香甜軟滑，玫瑰味很濃，我覺得這美麗的甜品絕對是一個愛情的象徵!

I have a very special relationship with French food, in the sense that I just can't stop eating it. Therefore, I believe it is my duty to remind my lovely readers that we are now approaching the month of "Le French May", an annual festival in Hong Kong and Macau that promotes French art and culture. Many restaurants will feature a special "Le French May" menu, and I was invited to have a preview of AVA Restaurant Slash Bar's "Le French May - Amazing Bourgogne" set dinner.

AVA Restaurant Slash Bar is the sister restaurant of Azure. Dining at AVA is an opulent experience which begins even before you step foot into the restaurant - a glass bullet elevator takes you to the 38th floor of Hotel Panorama by Rhombus in Tsim Sha Tsui, showcasing a panoramic view of Hong Kong island's breathtaking skylines. The restaurant serves modern European cuisine, and also boasts a selection of signature cocktails.

The decor of the restaurant is simplistic and elegant, and is predominantly in tones of cream and white. The main dining area can accommodate around 100 diners, and there is a private VIP room that can accommodate 10 to 12 people. We were seated at a table in the corner, which I was told was the perfect spot to watch fireworks - looking out at the unobstructed harbour view, I could totally imagine why it would be so!

Dining at AVA is an exquisite experience - from the moment you walk through the carpeted pathway at the front door towards the elevator, overlooking the extraoridinary Victoria Harbour through the elevator window, dining at a sleek designed room with exquisite cuisine, you will be impressed.

I have always wanted to try the famous nitrogen rose ice-cream from AVA, it looks really appealing from photos.
When i knew that AVA is offering its signature ice-cream on the Restaurant Week menu, there was no reason of not going!

We had a three course dinner, including starter, main course and dessert, of course.Bread was served first with a trio of butter. The bread was so so, just lukewarm but the butter was impressive! The orange layer was sun dried tomato, the green was herbs and the yellow was garlic. All three were flavorful and delicious.Me and my friend ordered the same starter which was the "lovely macaroon".
It was Alaskan king crab slash blue swimmer crab on a bed of tropical fruit and avocado, all served in a citrus macaroon.
Flavors and textures were balanced perfectly, making it a refreshing starter! Plus, i admit its really lovely and well presented.

For main course, we ordered lamb rack and lobster gnocchi.I had lamb rack. It was very tender and full of flavors, yielding a crispy mint crust. However, the portion was quite small, as you can see, there were only two pieces of lamb rack... Lobster Gnocchi, butter poached lobster, herby gnocchi, baby vegetables, foam.
The lobster was fresh and resilient, so good! Gnocchi was soft and a little bit chewy.

Finally, time for DESSERT! I had waited long enough for itI enjoyed the smoky dry ice effect in front of me, feeling so real hahaaSignature raspberry & rose ice cream
Melt-in-mouth ice-cream - this can definitely sweep you off your feet!
It was velvety and scrumptious,however it would be better if more rosewater s added to make it more flavorful.


Service was excellent, the waiters were attentive, helpful and friendly.
Environment was cosy and spacious with a 270° harbor view.
By the way remember to take the window seats to enjoy the stunning and spectacular sea view and skyline!!

It was my fiance birthday and we look forward to the visit. We had the table reserved a week ago and were were being situatied at the window side, nice view.

The meals:
The Parma Ham havent been filled even we requested for more than 3 times in 20 minutes of time, we were told to wait and finally it has only been refilled for once out of the 3 hours lunch. The manager instead of rushing the parma ham he went to clean up tables around and it was already 2pm and wasn't during rush hours.

No waiter came over to take orders of the main dishes until we grab a waiter from outside.

Main Dish: Seafood Alferdo, sauce is watery and not creamy at all.

Appetizer: Oysters are not competely opended and can't take off when eating it, yet they are fresh enough.

Desserts: Tiramisu is average. Macaroons not as reviewed as no coffee, no rose but only served orange and green tea. Meringe is kinda thick and unmelted and quite sweet.

Coffee: taste like water.

We are not dare to finish our only cup of water as we afraid they wont be anyone to fill it up....

Glad we was holding the coupon as 308 for two plus 10%, it comes to 338....first and would be the last visit.

Was a pretty disappointing dinner for Friday night with the travel to TST after a long working day.

The menu was really unsurprising and the taste and presentation of the dishes were just like a "HK-styled Western restaurant". We ordered mushroom ravioli, duo of beef and 2 side dishes (asparagus and chips). The duo of beef was ok (the braised beef with potato mash was tasty) but the ravioli was way too soggy .

What we were least impressed was the service - we paid almost HKD500 each (after discount) but it took them almost 20 minutes to deliver the dishes (and they missed my drink) and another 15 minutes for the bill to come.

Definitely not a place for romantic dinner (what a shame given the great view) - they have a "DJ" started playing pop music (loudly) from 10pm onwards, and the place (and the crowd) became like a lounge bar at a local TST hotel

there was a wedding last night & i was saying 'let's get another restaurant' but my friend insisted. he made a reservation in advance so i guess he really loves this restaurant. he's the spontaneous type

after i spoke ' we shall leave for a better place'
the manager pops by & lead us into a vip room. no other diners there so it's just 2 of us occupying the room. the view is nice, but i've been staying in hk for too long, so i dont feel wow or voom. just the same view as Sky Bar / Spoon / Nubo / Aqua, nothing special for me.
my friend was kidding: if u found the view boring, u can look at me

oysters are great, it was like tasting the ocean.
lobster is great, the food is excellent just the drink list is a bit boring. i think they've a lot of rooms to improve for the drink list. afterall, the target customers are those paying 2k for a dinner.

excellent service too btw

(For efficiency's sake I'm writing this review in English. The Chinese subtitle can be translated as "riding on clouds and fog".)

Such a beautiful setting, such wonderful view and not a picture was taken, oh why oh why oh why Not just this time but on a subsequent visit as well!

Let's move away from my amnesia and onto something much more pleasant, the food. Set lunches seem to follow the same format: a starter (soup or salad from salad bar), a small dish of roast, main course from 3 choices, dessert, tea/coffee.

First visit:

Salad from the tightly-edited salad bar - fresh salad leaves, good prosciutto, smoked salmon, marinated grilled veg. Lovely!
Can't remember what soup was on offer but my friend said it was delicious, and he's a picky eater.

Small slice of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding - very very very tasty, and oh I do love Yorkshire pudding!
My friend didn't eat beef and the chef was kind enough to substitute a grilled chicken breast for the roast beef. We were floored by how juicy and tender the chicken breast was. The service and the quality of the dish left a great impression on us.

I really enjoyed my creamy and tasty mushroom risotto and that says a lot from someone who doesn't usually enjoy mushrooms.
Friend's grilled fish was declared superb.

The lemon macadamia pudding was light and refreshing and the chocolate pudding was VERY chocolatey. I didn't try it but could certainly smell it!

Second visit:

I had salad again and was pleased with it. Mom said her garlic soup was tasty, garlic was not overwhelming at all.

The roast turkey failed totally: the meat was dry and tough, and so was the Yorkshire pudding. I wish they didn't serve it.

Main course was grilled tuna. It was nicely seared on the outside and not at all chewy.

Believe it or not, I can't remember what dessert I had... but I remember that the strawberry ice-cream we ordered on the side was not up to standard, tasted too sweet and artificial.

The restaurant was very empty on both occasions. This part of TST is probably not the place to go for fancy lunches, pity, as the food is really good, service attentive and the view stunning. There was also a 15% discount on both visits.

One portion of artichoke soup arrived cold and and also a portion of mushroom soup was cold. more importantly, the mushroom soup was served to the wrong person. Given that it was important that the person ordering the artichoke soup required vegetarian food, it would have been a grave error to eat the mushroom soup which was exactly the same color as the artichoke soup. my main of snapper fish was just plain inedible and I and one other at my table had to send it back. It was so tough, i could hardly cut it with a knife - even for a piece of chicken it would be tough. by the time a replacement came the other two were finished eating. the second snapper fish was still not cooked correctly as it was slightly overcooked and was overly salty but we both ate it anyway as we were hungry and didn't want to hold up the others any longer. Sadly, this is a restaurant to avoid. Despite the restaurant being empty we were not seated by a window for the view, which would have been the best part of the evening. Service was slow and the food disappointing at best.

I came here with my beloved one for dinner to celebrate a very special occasion. The restaurant has recently finished its renovation to look more spacious and contemporary. Located on the 38/F, it certainly offers an unbeatable view of the Victoria Harbour. Luckily enough we were given a table not only by the window but also in the corner with the broadest seaview, very much pleased already before eating anything!

The amuse-bouche offered before the meal was much to our delight, with an interesting presentation and a lovely taste. We ordered a soup for each of us to start with, followed by a duck foie gras, The Cap and Dover sole to share. From my experience, foie gras made of duck usually tastes less buttery than that made of goose which is often served with fruits like apple or pear to counterbalance its richness. The duck foie gras we had was served with waffle. The two as a blend was actually much palate-pleasing. Regarding the main dishes, the beef was undoubtedly more impressive than the fish. The fish was OK but the beef was really high quality, very tender and juicy. Our meal was concluded by their signature liquid nitrogen ice cream freshly made in front of us by the restaurant chef, definitely the first time we were trying something like this in town. The raspberries had been frozen in advance to contain their juices and flavor, before mixing with the ice cream paste. Similarly, the rose had also been frozen before the chef broke its deep red petals into pieces, as a romantic decoration of the dessert. The ice cream was fresh and soft, with a strong raspberry flavor, and its making process was simply a piece of performing art.

The service of the restaurant was at least as impressive as their food. To illustrate, my beloved and I ordered a mushroom soup and a tomato soup respectively. When the server was delivering the soup to my beloved, he put down the plate and then gently poured the soup out from a little jar into the plate. However, it was actually a tomato soup! The shrewd captain took notice of it and asked the server to take everything back to the kitchen. A couple of minutes later, the captain came back and served us the right soups personally. In fact, he could have asked the server to pass the poured tomato soup to me, but he didn't do that. Instead, he chose to handle the mistake in a very professional and customer-focused manner.

Interestingly, the ambience of the restaurant changed after 10:30pm, when the lights dimmed and a DJ came in to give some mood-uplifting music, making it perfect venue for having some good wines and chit-chat with a gang of friends. To conclude, it was a very fun and warm dining experience for us.

I had never heard of this place except to hear that it is in the same realm as Azure in Hotel LKF as they are opened by the same team.

The bubble lift up to the 38/F gives a very nice preview of the view, but nothing compares to their window seating with panoramic views of the harbour and HK side.

I was impressed with the fact that they had a "Garden" menu for vegetarians which was probably the largest vegetarian menu I have ever seen in a Western fine dining restaurant.

To start I had the "Garlic" which was a creamy soup served hot table side from a tea pot. Very fun to watch and then eat. It was served with their loaf accompanied with a terrine of butter with a top layer of pesto, then sundried tomato, then garlic.

For my main I had the Black Truffles served 3 ways. It was served on a tray with 3 porcelain pots to be unlidded like a little surprise. Very tasty and very cute!

Dessert I'm told was one of their signatures which was a lemon nut cake. I love lemon curd and it was covered in the stuff.

I would definately recommend this place for a special occasion as the view, ambience, and food serving is very experiential and actually makes the evening feel more special.

Will be back for the next fireworks show for a great dinner and beautiful view!