Soho is one of the chic districts that could manifest the exoticism of Hong Kong. There are a variety of restaurants respectively serving French, Italian, Mexican, Greek and even Nepal cuisine. How well is the food? My friend J and I started off a journey at SOHO, trying to find the answer by ourselves. This restaurant was our first stop.

We strolled along the south of Hollywood Road with no fixed destination in mind. Noticing that there were some customers in this nicely decorated restaurant (and that there are more than a hundred of smiley in Open Rice), we decided to give it a try. It was 12:15pm. There were a number of empty tables which however had been reserved. The waitress said she could give us a table if we could return it by 1:30pm, and took us to an old Chinese building right next to the restaurant.

After climbing up the few stairs in the old building, we settled down at this upper branch of the restaurant, which shared a consistent theme with the branch on the ground. It was surrounded with red bricks of walls, reminding me of a fortress or a castle.

Food - my order
I ordered a set lunch ($98), which included:
1. Mozzarella Cheese and Tomato Salad,
2. Soup of the day,
3. Sea Bass fillet with tomato salsa (there were two other courses that you could choose- chicken steak and lamb brisket),
4. Daily dessert,
5. Coffee

Bread and butterSlices of baguette were warmly served with creamy butter. At that time, there were not many customers and was quite quiet with soft music. The bread was so crispy that the customer at the far end of the restaurant could probably hear the cracking sound made by me.

This very piece of bread and butter raised my expectation of the food here, which was however disappointing.

Mozzarella Cheese and Tomato Salad, Corn soup with hamCorn soup with ham was the soup of the day. It was served with the salad.
It was not a cream soup. The cubes of ham were salty and a bit hard. The corns were crunchy. Nothing special. The soup did not go well with the baguette.
And there was the awkward moment... when the diameter of the cup was small while the spoon was not.

The mozzarella was actually quite nice. Soft and lightly sour. I like the vinegar dressing. However together with the tomato, the combination could only lead me to one adjective- sour.

Pan Fried Sea Bass Fillet with Tomato Salsa I like the eye-catching red and green of this dish.
The skin of the fillet was quite crispy. But the texture of the flesh was poor- hard, dry and rough. What's worse, it seemed to be stale. The mash potato was cold.
The sourness of the tomato salsa was refreshing, and the asparagus was sweet and juicy. However these could not help much to this dissatisfying main course.

Daily DessertThe daily dessert was chocolate cake - seriously?The chocolate flavour was so weak that I suspected scarce cocoa powder was the only chocolate ingredient in this cake and its ganache. If the cake were not in brown, I would have thought that was just a piece of sugary cake. Also the amount of nuts was embarrassingly small.

Food- J's order The "Create your own pasta" set included salad and soup (which were double the size of mine), pasta, daily dessert and drink. One could choose the pasta, the ingredient and sauce.
J chose French Sweet Shrimp, Broccoli and Cauliflower with dill in cream linguini. The source was creamy and lightly sour, tasting good. However the sweet shrimp was unacceptably small! Including its head, it was even smaller than my little finger. I could hardly imagine a decent restaurant in SOHO would serve shrimps that were so small and dry.

Overall comment/ Next?
J and I still do not understand how this restaurant could receive so many positive comments. Is it because they put more effort or have a better chef at night when they charge people at a much higher price (and the commentators come at night?)? Given that there was full booking, perhaps J and I were the only unfortunate customers? Quite sure that I would not be back again.

First of all, when I called for booking, the waitress was very rude, by not asking me my preference reservation time and just told me straight away they were fully booked. This is so NOT professional.

We arrived there ontime, ordered 3 courses meal x2. 1. escargot, onion soup, duck with foie gras. 2. salad, duck breast, ginger souffle. Among the 6 dishes, we are only happy with the onion soup. All dishes are cooked in Chinese flavor. Well, it's overall a good price dinner but their price are affordable are just because the quality of food are not up to standard.

To sum up, if you are looking for traditional French cuisine, this is really not the place you should go.

Yumyum!

Had the 3 courses dinner. ASparagus with crabmeat, quite cheesy and rich. Delicious. Btw the bread they provide is not bad. Nice crunch with soft center.

For main course I had the duck leg confit which was surprisingly good! Nice crispy skin and the leg meat was flavorful~

For dessert, a bit disappointed with the souffle.. had the ginger flavor and it wasn't very well made.

Service is quite good. Courteous staff. Will def come back and try their other entrees!

Date: Friday 27th May

First time dining At Soho and a friend of mine took me there as a surprise... It was a bit of a long walk from the Central Station through many flights of stairs / escalators. Got there around 8pm and I was surprised It was fully booked.

Service was excellent from the start till the very end.
We ordered 2 three courses meals as follow :

Two glasses of champagne for the start


Starters :

Crabmeat with Asparagus
Smoked salmon Salad ( which I didnt take a photo of it )

My starter was just average I thought, When it came the presentation didnt attract me...
the smoked salmon salad wasnt all that neither, Its something I could easily make.

2 x French Onion SoupHonestly I didnt like this, It was just a bland soup with a flat french bread on top with a bit of cheese.


Cheese and Mushroom risotto with Black Truffle

I love risotto!! either creamy / cheesy or tomato risotto!
Had been craving for risotto for a good few months! Had to order this!!

Its presentaton indeed wowed me! LOOK AT THE BIG BRICK of cheese???!?!?
The waiter poured the ready cooked risotto into that big tub of cheese, started scraping the cheese with the spoon and mixing it together.
I couldnt stop looking at it... i already knew it would taste amazing! First time eating black truffle in my life, it wasnt bad at all.

My dish : Pan fried Foie gras + duck breasts the foie gras was delicious, the duck breasts was a bit chewy... but overall it was good.

Desserts:

I ordered the mango mille feuille , the waiter first said they were sold out I got disappointed, 2mins later he came back and said they had one more left.. I had a big smile on my face.. wouldnt say it was the best ive ever had.. it was acceptable. Creme Brulee

nothing special ~Overall It was a good romantic spot for couples and people to go on a dates.. gorgeous food, services was great!

Dont know the total of the bill, But as i remembered the three course meal was around $350+ 10% charge? Which is not expensive at all.

Very impolite. I was calling them to reserve a table. Once the guy who picked up the phone call jotted down what he needed, he said ok byebye I was still talking to him....

food quality is average to below average.
my friends and i wasted our quality time having a below average dinner there.
i will not recommend this resto to anyone.
.....mmm..... i have a question. can anyone tell me if this is the original Le Fauchon opened many years ago in soho? i remember it was a good one( i had young non experienced taste buds back then).

This is the first time I write a review of what we have eaten.
As the dinner was a special one for us (anniversary + new year's eve), I had made the reservation a month ago. Researching from this website is indeed useful as we are just ordinary diners working and living in this hustle and bustle city. We would be happy for whatever eat and not picky enough.
Soon after we arrived the restaurant, we found that it was quite full. The waiter politely told us that we could choose one of the two tables that had been reserved for us (so nice). We chose the far end one, but it was quite noisy as a group of diners chatted loudly there. But we understood that it was new year's eve so we tried to tolerate. Luckily, they left much earlier than us. We could enjoy the meal better.
We selected the New Year's Eve Romance Dinner with different courses as follows
Bread - as most other diners have commented - soft and fresh enough (we'd two baskets) :-)
Chef's Platter - scallop, escargots, smoked salmon, goose liver paste and green :-)
Pan Fried Goose liver - the top was fried crispy and the middle was soft and smooth :-)
Wanyu Sirloin Steak (M7) - prepared well :-)
Cod Fish Fillet - not like frozen one, though it should be, but freshy and right fishy taste :-)
Baked Warm Chocolate Pudding - too sweet perhaps, but good presentation :-)
Creme Brulee - not the best one we've ever tried. :-OK
We're very satisfied with what we'd chosen, though the price was much higher than ordinary days. The service of the restaurant is good with very polite and helpful waitresses. As I had requested for a special cake for celebrating our anniversary, the waitress deliberately delivered it at the end of our meal. Free Chocolate Brownie for us, thanks. They even helped us take a photo without us requesting it. Nice +++
We will definitely dine there again but may choose a table close to the entrance.
A+

Went for dinner with hubby for our 3rd year anniversary last night. We arrived at 7pm but it's pretty packed already, probably it's Sun night plus Halloween.

There's a back portion of the restaurant with red brick and candelier....good atmosphere. Only that it's a bit packed but I think most restaurants at Soho are like that anyway.

Service is superb, especially wanna praise the Manager. I had actually purchased a dinner coupon for use before Oct 30. However, as I had 腸胃炎 and was unable to eat anything, I request the Manager if I could have the dinner later, and he nicely agree. It was understandable even if he said, as the coupon is purchased from those group-buy site and the restaurant probably has to close the deal by the deadline. Do appreciate his offering us some flexibility.

What's more is that I have requested a dessert with some special wordings in my first booking. But I had not mentioned this in my 2nd booking. I thought they might have forgotten, but when the dessert is served, there's the exact wordings that i want. was really happy about this and the manager take the initiative to take pics for us. Well, I assume other restaurants will do the same, but I do see a different attitude. He does it with eagerness and a genuine attitude. This is exactly how a restaurant manager should be.

A very happy meal. Thank you.

My first visit to this restaurant thinking it was a branch of Fauchon Paris, so lets try the degustation menu. After its on Elgin street in Soho right, gotta be authentic, right? WRONG. I thought something was wrong when the waiter did not understand what "foie gras" was. Then things started to head south when the prawn bisque arrived that tasted more like "prawn bisque cup-a-soup" . The biggest anti-climax of the evening was the steak, it did not taste anything like beef but more like a mixture of meats that has gone through the meat processor

For me, writing an English review is a tough task cos I'm not the naive one, but when I think of my teachers, majority of them are foreigners, struggle of finding good dining place in Hong Kong, so this time (maybe the only time) choose to write an English review.

24 May was my 2xth bday, my hon brought me to Elgin street, asked me whether I like this place, of cos I would say "yes" cos he seldom choose the dining place for our dinner. At the entrance of the restaurant the waitress direct us to the back of the brasserie, after walked out to the corridor, woot! A lot more seats inside~with low light, candles, red brick.... Gorgeous! There is no place I've ever seen like the castle~~really surprised me I've previously tried Le Fauchon Color @ Mongkok,(http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/commentdetail.htm?commentid=2024542) I think this rest. is far different than the Mongkok one. We were given menus, with English, Chinese and some descriptions but no pictures inside, we have to guess which dishes are potentially delicious through the given descriptions LOL

Baguette
Crispy baguette slices which goes very well with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, a mouth-watering entrée!

Ceasar Salad with shrimp
the pan-fried shrimp was quite bouncy, fresh shrimp are always perfect! Vegetable was crunchy too~

French Onion Soup
I love onion soup but the onion soup in here is not as good as I imagine, I have tried onion soup in different restaurant, I think this one is the worst I have ever tried, not creamy and I can't taste the onion, taste of chicken broth/beef stock instead. The cheese slice was so hard I can't even chew it.

Rib-eye steak
My hon read the reviews in Openrice before coming to this rest., he said majority of them like the grilled rib-eye steak here~~ we ordered a medium steak which was perfectly grilled and seasoned, taste smokey in the surface, but tender and juicy inside, specially like the taste of grilled tomato = )

Cointreau Souffles
This is the first time I tried Souffles, beautiful in taste and texture, its soooo soft, but quite curious that I can eat the sugar, sugar is not supposed to well combined with the mixture? I'm not critizing, just curious to the unmelted sugar lumps.

Well, an unforgettable dining experience for me, but needa improve their service, every single waiter/ress are having a "poker face", seems they are unwilling serve their "customers"