Lupa    

Finally!!!!! I have manage to make a reservation on that saturday night after my tennis game to eat at Famous Mario Batali restaurant Lupa in Central. Its been a long time I wanted to go despite all I hear about it. I am not specifically a fan of Mario but I found the guy nice and genuine so I dont think with that qualities that the experience should be bad. I made a reservation few days ago thinking on a saturday night it might be difficult to get a table... but maybe not!!!
when comes Saturday 8pm the fact that the restaurant is not exactly full do not bother me as it should be a better service and better food then.... yeahhh!!!!
But did I forget where am I? Am I so optimistic that I cant seem to accept the reality of Hong Kong? My girlfriend seem to think so. Anyway, we arrive at the restaurant and nicely the hostess offer to take my tennis bag to get it out of the way for ease of service I assume but it is nice nonetheless. We are excited by the idea to be eating here. To be fair and to understand I am following Mario on twitter and he spend so much time answering many of his followers which makes me appreciate him a bit more and certainly respect him more. However here in Hong Kong it seems that he has mix reviews, I personally have friends that have been there and loved it and some swear they will never come back. But in many case, it is good to go and experience it personally.
So here we are hoping for great Italian food, and I am starving actually so is my girlfriend.
We received our menu and we looked at it, few dishes already catch our eyes, and you dont need to have all dish you like in a restaurant as long as there are couple or few that makes you hesitate the battle is half won for the chef. And italian should do just this, making you want to try many.. (although your wallet or your appetite will restrain you) we are exactly at that point. As usual we like sharing the food to have a taste of few things. so we choose two different appetizer, and two different main dish, and hoping we can order desserts after, while we wait for the waiter to come we look at the drink list, but not long enough to make our choice as the waitress came to take our order.
First disappointment happen there as it was out of order of one of the item we wanted, and while I asked why, as it is saturday night, and it is early, I am told the restaurant was busy last night.... Sorry did I hear that correctly!!! did the waitress made this up? how can you tell me that the restaurant was busy the night before therefore it is out of stock today? Don't you have cooks working today? were they off until the service starts? did Mario's Chefs do not know that in Hong Kong most suppliers will be happy to assist you and deliver on saturday? Seriously "we were busy last night..." is it something any costumer wants to hear ?
So of course we choose another dish, we ask the waitress to bring the two appetizer at the same times as we will share it so not to worry about it.
while I am choosing drinks/wine, my girlfriend goes our for a cigarette, and surprisingly enough the first appetizer arrived!!! but not at all what you would expect as only one came and it seems that she got it wrong as she brings two side plate to share and put the cold cut on the middle of the table. I am thinking, it is ok she will bring the ravioli we order and then we will use the side plate to share, not a big deal. At this point the table is small and this is why we did not requested plate to share but i understand her trying to do well and I can appreciate it. Only to discover few minutes later that she did not try to do well but only did not listen properly as the ravioli never came at the same time. so we are serve the cold cut first and most likely when we finish it they will serve us the ravioli. Again I know that in Italy they will serve the pasta between the appetizer and the main course but this is not what i requested...
Anyway, we went on with our dinner and while I was surprise they do not serve wine by the glass they have a selection of quarter bottle. Yes at first I thought the same as you might, if I only want a glass why would I buy a quarter but on the other hand I can of understand a bit, I might not agree but I respect it. anyway after over 20 mn waiting for anyone to take my wine order although we wave at waiters few times nobody came I then simply throw the wine menu on a service table beside us and actually the menu stayed there for most of the evening. In short they don't up sale nor care at all. As we ate our cold cut we were surprised that an italian restaurant do not offer a better bread basket, but not just the quality that was poor the variety was a shame for any italian chef or restaurant. no ciabatta, no focaccia, bread stick so hard it could injure someone if it was thrown by mistake or fall on you... sad sad.... really sad.
I requested from the waiter if that was the only bread available and was told yes it was. I took the opportunity to tell him that they might want to rethink their bread selection, but i am pretty sure that neither the chef of the restaurant manager would have that feedback.
the ravioli came and nicely they separated it into two plates... well I am being sarcastic, we never requested to have it separated into two plates. it looks ridiculous, dry and not appetizing at all. Maybe the kitchen decided on their own to separated it or maybe the waitress asked for it, I don't know, but definitely not what I asked for. The pasta was too thick and the filling too little in comparison. the sauce was almost inexistent which makes the whole dish dry while I believe it could have been a good dish initially. it is just a poor execution.
at that point while I was asking the waiter passing by for some drinks, and actually that specific guy was pretty good as it end up serving us while passing by couple of time i found him professional and nice. So I asked him a bit about what happen tonight that we had such a bad experience. First the appetizer out of order, the wine order that never been consider (although we told the waitress we will order but to give us few minutes) the bread that is disastrous, the order not coming as we requested, etc.. etc... he apologized and went on with his work. he really seem genuine and I appreciated his apology as well as his concerns for our experience.
So we went on and continue our dinner, decided that this will not ruin our evening after all... sometimes we might have bad experience not because it is that bad but because we build up expectations. honestly it was not the case here but we do not want ruin our time. So we continue our dinner.
Then the General Manager of the restaurant came to see us, either because he heard us as he told us or because the waiter told him we were unhappy, whatever the case he did came and see us to understand what happened. As we explain to him we still have our ravioli that we are eating in front of us. we explain to him everything and he nicely apologize and offer to make it up. Well I never complain to have freebies, I hate that... so I declined his offer not to be rude but just not to seem that I might complain for having something free. my point is never for that. I go somewhere i don't mind paying whatever you assume it is worth, but give me what you pretend it is worth. do not sale me a hkd 500 dinner and serve me a tea house menu, with tea house service...
anyway, after much insisting in his part we accept to have a glass of wine offered by him. the guy is nice and very professional. Interestingly enough just to illustrate what we were talking about and while our ravioli still on the table the waitress came with our main dish... he send them away as not only we are still talking but mainly we are not finish with our pasta. He looked at us.... smile.... and apologize again as he can experience that something is going badly wrong with our table. he left us after a while only for me to realize that actually the food that was coming was not even for us... it was deliver to a wrong table... what is going on!!!! Are we not the only ones getting terrible service tonight? Meanwhile my tweet to Mario are still unanswered probably due to hours difference between hong kong and America.
After a long... long wait our main dish finally came and it was nice, the general manager came by again to see if it was ok. then we decided to order dessert and followed the recommendation of their general manager who surprised us with some more wine to match our choice of desserts. that now is impressive, transforming a bad experience into a positive one takes some people skills and he has it.
we enjoy the desserts but even more the combination with the wine was spot on. to the point that I think that dessert should be serve with it only. We can always comment on the presentation of a dish, but I feel it is usually an intimate relation between a chef and his plate, we can appreciate or not, we can understand it or not, but it doesn't make it right to decide if it is good or bad. I avoid in general to go down that line but some facts remain. First wether your overall experience match your expectations, based on the restaurant/chef reputation or because of the price they are charging, either way it has to be a balanced which we did not experience with my girlfriend. Sadly because both of the situation, I was expecting a lot and their prices is not on the lower range of the market therefore they set themselves in the upper part but fail to deliver, on the service for sure but also on the quality of the food we have experience.
Then there is always a bad day and it can happen to all of us whichever industry we are working on, and if it is the case then it was a bad day for the chefs, the servers, everyone...still hard to believe.
But despite this, I still want to trust we can have better food and better experience in Lupa and I want to go back to see if it is as I hope... a bad day or simply one more place that do not care for their costumers only because they fail to understand which industry they are in...
So if you go there let me know how was your experience...
Enjoy,

On this night we decided to start off with the below while we were waiting for the rest of the party to arrive.

Starter #1 Beets and ….. (Not on website menu)

Not much for me to comment on this dish as I only had a piece of one of the Beets from here and all I can comment on was that the beets seem to have had its natural flavors and colors removed.Starter #2 “Straciatella with Speck and Mint” Creamy cows milk cheese with smoke prosciutto

This was quite an average dish in my opinion. Nothing to good nor bad about this one.Starter #3 “Calimari and Seppia Fritti” Crispy Calimari and Cuttlfish with Capers and Pickled Chili”

Dish didn’t really live up the the description of being “CRISPY” but aside from that the flavors were quite nice and tasty. Would surely recommend this as the appetizer to have at this particular restaurant. Only complaint I have about this dish was that I felt the chef took very little care into making sure the salt was spread out evenly as I ended up with 2 pieces that were so salty that I was worried that I was going to have a heart attack on the spot!!! (Not exactly but it was pretty salty)

As we were finally finishing off the starters, the late comers started to arrive and we got onto ordering the Main Course.

To be fair, I am only going to comment on the 3 dishes that I tried.Main Course #1 Seabass (Sorry I do not remember the name of this dish but it seems we had a menu slightly different from the one provided on the website, NOT THE WHOLE SEABASS)

This dish to me was the entree of the evening. Nicely presented and rich in flavors that really complimented one another. Although not the greatest Seabass dish I have ever tasted, this dish was the only one that managed to receive no complaints from myself on this night and takes the spot for my recommended Main Course dish.Main Course #2 “Porcini Rubbed Rib Eye with Aceto Manadori and Roasted Potatoes”

26oz USDA Prime Rib Eye finished with Balsamic

Being the big steak lover that I am, was really really looking forward to this dish and although it wasn’t that bad this dish left me quite disappointed. Once again I found the outer edges of the meat overly “salty” in certain areas. The cut itself was quite decent however a proper cutting knife was not provided and it took quite the effort leaving each piece looking like I tore the meat apart. The potatoes that came with this dish were quite flavorful and was definitely the best part of this entree. On a side note, the areas which were not overly seasoned did have quite a nice flavor to it. Such a pity that the bold flavors that I am sure this dish was intended to have were masked by carelessness.Main Course #3 “Linguini with Clams and Hot Chili”

Local clams with cured pork belly and spicy chili

The last dish that I had a chance to try was again nothing to write home about. This dish lacked flavor unlike the rest and I wish they would have made the mistake of adding more salt here instead of the other dishes I tried. Although I hate over cooked pasta, the linguine tonight could have spent and extra minute or so in boiling water as I had about 5 strands that were raw overly crunchy in the middle. (And no I don’t mean the traditional Italian way of cooking pasta!! I mean RAW).

Overall take:

Although this restaurant does not go into my TOP 10 do no go restaurants, I would rate it AVERAGE. Maybe I was expecting more from a restaurant with ties to American IRON Chef Mario Batali, but the food really didn’t impress me in any way. On a side note the dim lighting gave a good relaxed casual feel with exception of course to the lack of personality from the servers/hostesses. Dinnerware was dropped on a few occasions throughout the night and there were less than 50% of the tables occupied. If it weren’t for my great friends and family, this night would have ended quite sour!

Would I revisit????? Not in the near future.

Before i was a total skeptic for lupa having read all the reviews and the disappointment since the opening of lupa.

But tonight i tried, and i specially opened a openrice acct to write about lupa to do them justice.

It was well cooked rustic italian food that is a hard find in hk. They deserve more credit that what has been written. Service not great, but food can make up for it, its authentic italian with great hearty and cheese flavours that are well balanced.

Speaking as an italian cook, pls give lupa another try because it is worthwhile ur time.

2 of us had dinner, followed by 2 more joining for dessert and drinks.

Lovely welcome, smiley receptionist directed us to Pre dinner drinks on the terrace. Good environment but angry faced waiting staff and poor sound system spoil the atmosphe here. I had to go and ask about our table rather than being found to be told when my table was ready, not ideal.

Quite good decor and atmosphe in the restaurant, relaxing but lively and open kitchen to see. tables too close together though, feels more cafe than fine dining.

We shared starters. Prawns were fresh and flavoursome. We had the mushroom starter too which was disappointing, lacked seasoning, and included chinese mushrooms which is odd for an italian. Salad ok, but nothing amazing.

Main courses. Linguini vongole arrived undercooked, we like al dente but this was in the " its still flour" category. Good news is waiter agreed, immediately replaced with a new one. Actually pretty good, needs more garlic, but generally well executed. I had the veal which was well flavoured, but a little dry. Sauce was nice and i would order again.

Worth commenting on wine, selection, which was cheap, decent selection, and comes in various carafe sizes which is great. Wine is a plus.

Service, generally excellent in the restaurant. We had a very enthusiastic and helpful waiter for the first hour, but oddly he vanished and for the second half we were covered by a variety of different staff, of mixed quality. The head waiter used to work at shiro in PacificPlace, recognised us, was very helpful. Good if they can assign a waiter to a table and keep them on it.

Overall decent enough, not very excitimg, but won't fill you with anger. Wait staff on the terrace need some smile training. And its oberpriced for what it is, so need to improve food, environment and service for that price, or drop prices.

Company drink is arranged at outdoor rooftop of this restaurant.

The restaurant is newly opened and decoration is modern and concise, a bit low key but in comfortable way.

Outdoor place can have oversight LKF and we happened to see A&F models parole on open-roof bus.

Finger food is mini in size but good taste and all fresh made.

Deep fried cheese ball is not oily at all and yummy. Another ball with smashed potato is just soso. I like parma ham a lot, very fresh and rich in flavor. It served with wood stick (easy to eat during the drink). Pizza looks good but i have not tried given too much cheese on the top.

Service is great. All waiters are very polite and nice and pay close attention to customers.

Will come to try to semi-buffet lunch sometime.

I was honestly disappointed after all that publicity Lupa received. Other than the wine we got, I really can't say I was too pleased with any of the dishes. I wasn't full after the meal but I didn't even want to order anything extra from the menu. I was THAT disappointed. The ambience was fine and the service was good, but that's the least you could expect from a place like this.

Walnut & pecorino salad - Mediocre. The pecorino was good but that's about it.

Cured cod - Way too much olive we could hardly taste the cod.

Crab pasta - This was the best dish we had. The portion wasn't too small, pasta was chewy and sauce was nicely infused with sweet crab flavours.

Pork shoulder - Meat was dry and tough. This dish tasted very similar to the 鎮江骨 you get in Chinese restaurants. There were no sides, except a few slices of cucumber and chilli. So we were expecting the meat to be really spectacular, that melt-in-your-mouth-goodness you get with pork cooked in this way. But let's say that my grandma could do a better job with her pork stews.

I visited many bars & restaurants but this one seems to have an exceptionally bad attitude!
Their unfriendly Maitre' D did not acknowledge or greet arriving customers. After finally got a table outdoor, didn't realize it was such a hard work to get their staff's attention. The staffs avoided customer eye contact and focused solely on big groups. It took me about 25 mins to get a drink's menu and after that staff disappeared for a long time and could not get them back to order. Next table experienced the same frustration and they got so irritated and left.
When my friend turned up and we ordered a bottle of wine and still their staffs provided no service for us. The wine was left in the ice cooler on our table and staffs walked past our table a couple of times but with no intention to refill our empty glasses.

When I asked for the bill, the staff turned up with the bill in a flash.....so they could be efficient !!
The bill was charged with 10% service charge and complusory $1 donation (for what) ! I didn't even know if this is legal ?!

The whole experience was bad and unacceptable.

Finally a good pizza in HK! I feel a bit ashamed to say this as I am Italian, and it is a New yorker who had to come here to show HK what a pizza should taste like.
The margherita was so good that I ate 2 .

The first time I went there, they had run out of pizza, so I had the Crispy duck instead, the portion was abundant and it was really good.
The pasta dishes were good, they tasted like home made but not big enough to fill u up.

The wine selection is good and reasonably priced

The service by the New York staff was great, the local staff still needs some improvement.

Tables were too close together at the terrace. I could hear everything the next table were saying. Service was not professional for a restaurant like this. The staff was not well trained or well groomed with greasy hair. The pizza was not hot when it got to our table, and it tasted like cafe O's. The wine took 20 minutes to arrive. Would NOT go back . Below average food and service with high price!!!

With Babbo being one of my fav restaurants in NYC, was looking forward to trying Batali's first restaurant in HK. Dinner is a bit difficult to book so we reserved a table for a Sunday brunch.

There isn't much decor to talk about but the tables could've been positioned better. The two of us were seated in a table next to a large drawer and throughout our meal, the servers kept asking me to move my chair so that they can access the items they need from the drawer. A small nuisance there.

The menu itself was quite disappointing - a bit lacking in selections. We started with grilled mushrooms. Friend's comments were it tastes like the mushrooms her mom stir fries. Wasn't bad but was uninspiring.

Then we moved on to share a pasta course and a meat course.For the pasta we ordered oxtail ragu with some square pasta (forgot its name in Italian!) The pasta was al dente (to my liking) and quite interesting. The ragu could use a little hint of sweetness. Overall it's okay. Friend said the pasta is very 得意. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing for a serious restaurant.Next comes the braised pork shoulder - supposed to be a signature dish, or as someone has told me. It tasted very Asian ~ and being Asians in an Asian city eating at a western restaurant ~ that feel didn't go too well. If I had that in NYC it probably would have been on the interesting side. The taste was like a cross between balsamic and chin kiang vinegar (鎮江醋), the texture of the meat, as my friend had described it, was like the meat from Chinese soup (煲湯肉). Even the cucumbers accompanying the pork felt too Chinesey.

It was too bad, if we had a larger party could've ordered more dishes to try. Heard the pizzas are great.

Having heard such mixed reviews about Lupa, my friend booked a table for 4 to see what the fuss was all about. Unfortunately, we have to agree with the negative reviews - Mario Batali or not, the food is mediocre at best, and the place seems to be resting on its laurels relying on the celebrity name.

Our dining experience did not start well with us being seated right by the toilets, on a tiny table for 4 which would have been a squeeze for 2. Everything appears to be in kiddy portions in order to fit on the ridiculously small tables - tiny plates, tiny forks, tiny bread. Maybe they are trying the good old dietary illusion trick - make the plates and cutlery look small so the portions look bigger than they are!

We ordered a selection of small bites to start, and they appeared at the table so quickly after we ordered that we had to conclude they were all ready made, and they tasted like they had been sitting around for a while. Arancine is one of my favorite things in the world, but their version had bland filling (my friend mentioned it reminded him of baby food), and the crust tasted quite stale. The sardines turned out to be tiny anchovies, and their clams dish tasted mostly of greasy pesto.

The mains were a bit better - at around $200 a main, it can be considered cheap for the location. Duck confit was competent, the homemade pasta with crab was good although could have done with more actual crab, and the roast chicken weirdly tasted of pure Szechuan peppers. Their long beans side had the same stale crust that ruined the arancine.

The service is also a mixed bag. I heard that they had imported some of their New York staff for this restaurant opening, and it is so clear which ones they were. We had some great service from the NYer in glasses, very charming. Unfortunately, he was helped by some rather unhelpful staff who seemed to lack both food and attire training - the waitresses in particular all needed to go and brush their hair, and we felt like we had to ask for every little thing, e.g. our mains arrived, but we had no cutlery, so cue the embarrassing 5 min wait staring at our food, waiting for cutlery.

The saving grace for the restaurant though is their terrace, which serves a smaller menu including pizza, vs. the finer dining room. The terrace is absolutely lovely to spend a few hours, and the pizza that my friend ordered was probably the best dish of the day (although at $198 not cheap). I would gladly return for drinks & pizza on the terrace, but the dining room itself needs a lot of work.

After all the hype and hoopla surrounding the opening of Lupa restaurant by a celebrity NY chef, expectations were understandably high.
Lupa did not live up to the press releases.
The restaurant space is large but spread out so that diners in different sections are experiencing dramatically different venues.
Near the kitchen the tables are fairly well-spaced and conversation with your table mates is comfortable. However, the temperature from the open kitchen is so high that people sitting here had sweat dripping down their backs and faces.

Walking towards the restrooms the temperature gets bearable but the tables are so close together that it is akin to sitting at a crowded diner. The restrooms finally offer some true relief from the heat!
Interestingly, some people in the crowded areas were dressed in jeans and t-shirts and very casual clothes. Near the hot kitchen there was a true smart casual vibe.

The food was non-memorable. Hard to think of this as Italian. The pasta with clams was so ordinary it was laughable. A large plate of what looked and tasted like spaghetti out of a box had only a few clams. The sauce had chillis which is certainly not the norm for this dish which in typically served with a wine/butter reduction sauce.

The duck was ordinary and greasy. The fish in parchment over unwilted spinach was like any piece of white fish served at a ladies lunch. Just steamed fish with no spices except for too much salt. The arugula "salad" is a pile of arugula with no discernible dressing just shavings of cheese. The mushroom starter is a dish of sauteed button mushrooms heavily salted with no other seasoning. Disappointing.
No vegetables or sides accompany the main dishes.
There are no true green vegetables, mixed leaf salads , or soups on the menu.
The Italian ice cream was also a disappointment since it came out melted over the top of the dish (though the coffee was cold).

Nice waitstaff was very attentive.

For HK$1200 per couple the nice decor and lovely staff did in no way make up for this ordinary food.
Save your money- so many other true and excellent Italian dinners to be had in Hong Kong. And the celebrity chef Mario Batali has long since left the kitchen.

although i always wanted to try this new restaurant i was always intimidated by the bad comments written on openricefinally me and friend said we ve got to try this and see how choatic the menu goes so we arrive there at ard 6:00pm , the tables were fully booked but they managed to get us a table endless ceiling to floor windows , and the classy furniture created a strong vibe of chicthe subdued light and soft music sooth our mindsthe service was good , staff would recommend the signature dishes and always ask if we need some more bread with a smile on their face ! we ordered the fried truffle cream, ricotta gnocchi and the duck confit . ( we took their word !) the fried truffle cream was absolutely delicious , crispy on the outside and very creamy with a rich taste of truffle inside tis is my first time having gnocchi made wf cheese i must say i m not a big fan of it s texture but the sauce is good . the saltiness of the duck confit was well balanced with the slightly sweet sauce , i would definitely say it s a must trythe dining experience was great and we decided to come cisit nxt time and might sit at their terrace

Big disappointment and have no clue on how this restaurant get to be fully booked and earned it's fame. I will certainly have no interest to come again.Complicated lunch set ordering rules which staffs didnt even bother to explain; limited selection of appealing dishes from menu; sloppy setting of salad and desert buffet; the quality is equivalent to canteen buffet; crowded setting; many staffs walking around but useless and cold; portion of dish is tiny; ordinary taste. Place presenting a chaotic atmosphere. There is a table set up in front of kitchen oven and next to salad buffet table. Heat of air directly blown to customer's face and traffic of people for salad bar - and staff describing this table as the one with privacy?!

This restaurant came highly recommended by a goof friend of ours as its counterpart in New York is one of her favourite.

This is located at the new LHT Tower in Central, and is divided into two sections - outdoors and indoors with the reception sited at the top of the escalators. The staff member who assisted me in locating our table was actually quite helpless as another one was trying to use the only laptop available to make other reservations.

I was then led to one of the round tables near the entrance which wasn't really an issue apart from the fact that it was much to small for three people - our knees were practically touching each other's. Fine for a couple but for a business lunch, such intimacy was far from ideal. With the lunchtime crowd, the high ceilings did nothing to make the noise more bearable. If one had wanted a little privacy one would have been quite disappointed with the closely packed tables.

We soon found out that no a la carte menu was available for lunch and we thus had to go for one of the set lunches. The setup of the menu looked somewhat complicated but it was actually quite simple once the waiting staff came over to explain. In addition to the buffet, one could opt for a soup, a pizza, a pasta or a main course, each as an additional item/price.

There were essentially two buffet tables, one for the salad, breads & cold cuts and one for desserts. The main buffet table had about a dozen different varieties of pesca antipasti and salad - some more appealing/tasty than others. There were three different types of bread and three cold cuts. But the time we got to the buffet at about 1:10pm, a good number of the items have already run out and we saw no sign of any staff replenishing them. As such I could not comment on a lot of the dishes (lingua with fennel and citrus peels, razor clams with fregula and basil, caponata, cipolla onions and balsamic). Cheese, what cheese? Most of them were pretty ordinary and bland but the ones that stood out are as follows:
- grissini - these bread sticks were crispy with a very balanced taste of cheese
- focaccia - these were rather ordinary with hardly any taste of the herbs sprinkled on the surface
- cucumber slices - these were most bland with hardly any flavour at all
- grilled peppers with anchovies - very yummy
- salami - not too salty nor chewy
- parma ham - a bit too dry to my liking as all the slices were left exposed individually

Two of us got to try the two soups on offer that particular day - mushroom and minestrone. Both these portions were small. My mushroom soup was thickish without the fragrance nor the taste of mushrooms. The minestrone looked acceptable but same again, size was small and the taste was balnd.

The smaller buffet table for desserts was actually well presented with a good variety for every taste bud. We had no issue in finding what we liked - fruits, lemon tarts, panna cotta, cinnamon amaretti cookies, and peanut butter cookies. Some of them have also run out - chocolate bread pudding, Bombolini with cream filling. The lemon tarts were of a good size and a fine balance of sourness and sweetness. The cookies were very impressive with just the right amount of chewiness/crispiness and the taste of individual flavours stood out well but not overbearing.

All in all, it was quite a chaotic experience, and the food was not something one would want to write home about. Oh, they didn't even bother to bring us any vinegar/olive oil nor salt/pepper.