I was in the mood for a sandwich and I noticed this place had a few, so I ordered one for delivery. I got the chicken schnitzel sandwich, "chicken breast in homemade breadcrumbs, rocket salad, and tomato salsa" - $78. There was an option for sourdough or baguette and I got the baguette. I didn't originally intend to add anything to the sandwich, but there was a $55 surcharge for orders below a certain amount, so I actually *saved* money by adding cheese (+$18). Brief tirade: if you don't want to fulfill orders below a certain amount, just charge everyone who orders below that amount that amount. Don't charge them *more* than that amount, that's just ridiculous.

My main worry in advance was that there wouldn't be anything tangy (a good sandwich needs pickles), but it wound up being OK with the tomato salsa. I was also worried a bit about sogginess, but the breading on the chicken held up reasonably. The cheese was a fine addition, though it wasn't really necessary. The bread was more soft and chewy than crisp. I thought they went a bit overboard with the tomatoes.

The comparison that most obviously comes to mind is Knead, which also does a chicken schnitzel sandwich. I like Knead better because I can get avocado and jalapenos, but I'll admit that Flying Pig's schnitzel is superior. This was a reasonably good sandwich and I'd consider ordering from here again.

Please note, this review is of delivered food, not food consumed in the store. As such, quality may differ.

So I have to dine alone for lunch for the foreseeable future (wife has new job), so I've decided to try everyplace that will deliver to my location (currently using online dining platform ), and review them all. This was my first choice.

I ordered: Fried Dumpling (5pcs) - $50 and Pork Bone Rich Taste Hot Spicy Soup Ramen - $110. Both were "favorites" and they gave me an option for spiciness in the ramen and I picked "super spicy".

I ordered around noon and the order was confirmed within minutes. Delivery was estimated at 25-35 minutes, and it was about 35 minutes. (This is Monday if it matters.)

Review:
Dumplings: somehow the fried dumplings are on the "grilled" part of the menu. I assume this is a translation error. Anyway, I was quite pleased with the dumplings, they had an excellent flavor, a good crisp bottom, and were nice and hot. If I re-ordered from this place, I would definitely get them again. I do wish they gave you more sauce. It's not that I used all of it, but it's hard to dip the dumplings given the container they give you. Rating: excellent. Ramen: I reheated the soup in the microwave a bit. Soup is not all that great for delivery, given the containers it's typically transported in. There was certainly a lot of food. The noodles were thick and medium firm (no option for noodle firmness). The broth was spicy, maybe about a 6 on the 1 = none, 10 = too spicy to eat scale. I didn't really like the flavor of the broth, though. It was rich but it was missing more dimensions. This is going to sound a bit odd but it kind of had a "dark chocolate" flavor. The pork was OK. Rating: mediocre.

I don't think I will order from Hakodate again. I'll admit that their dumplings were good, but I was completely underwhelmed by the ramen. Indeed, some high-quality instant ramen with added meat and veggies would have been better and almost infinitely cheaper.

Final opinion: not recommended.

I've been to 3 Monkeys on many occasions, as it isn't that far from where I live and there aren't a lot of bars in this area. I even came here for my birthday once. But up until now, I hadn't eaten there, so the other day when my wife and I found ourselves with nothing else to eat, we came here.

The menu is a little bizarre. Not the food, the design. It's got a lot of drawings of chimps on it. Now, you might think "OK, they named their restaurant '3 Monkeys' without knowing what a monkey is." But on the menu, one of the chimps is saying, "Quit looking at me like that. We're monkeys but you just don't know it yet." Is this some sort of militant cladistics prescriptivism? Because actually, I'm on board with that.

Linguistic and taxonomical issues aside, let's talk about food:Cheese Mochi: "Chargrilled mochi balls loaded with melted cheese" ($58/ 3pcs). It sounds good, but it's basically very soft bread with tasteless fake cheese in it. Limp, empty calories: Not recommended.Okra: "Crunchy okra, soy, shichimi, bonito flakes" ($40). I was a little disappointed that there were no shishito peppers on the menu. It's so hard to find green vegetables at some Japanese places. Anyway, the okra were nicely crunchy.Aspara-Roll: "Fresh asparagus in Kurobuta sheets" ($44 each, so $88 total). The other green vegetable we got was asparagus wrapped in pork. If you don't know this, Kurobuta pigs are actually from England originally and are there known as Berkshire pigs. But you're here for a food review, so: the asparagus was also nicely crunchy, and the pork was a good touch.Negima: "Thigh meat, piquant scallions" ($80 total)/ Nagasaki Neck: "Soy and chicken jus" ($80 total). I'm going to roll my chicken reviews into one paragraph. So, Yardbird is just down the street from 3 Monkeys. The prices at the two places are similar. The quality is not. It's hard to say exactly what makes one skewer of chicken delicious and another one, with the same part of the chicken, merely OK. The chicken at 3 Monkeys is merely OK, if you want chicken, go to Yardbird.Galbi 'Our Style': "Garlic and chili marinated rib" ($120 total). 3 Monkeys' style of galbi is not as good as pretty much any galbi at a Korean joint. It just wasn't saucy or flavorful enough. The meat was cooked fine and all, I just wanted much more of a garlicky punch.Yaki Yasai: "Grilled garden vegetables, sake, and garlic" ($92). This was actually my favorite dish of the meal. We were going to order some mushroom skewers, but our server dissuaded us because she said that this dish we had ordered had a bunch of mushrooms in it (and it did). I don't recall from the experience, but looking at the picture it looks like shimeji and oyster mushrooms, mostly, with some other sliced veggies and a bit of cabbage (more hiding beneath the mushrooms). I thought the flavors were well-balanced, and you could notice the garlic, in a good way.

One complaint we had about 3 Monkeys was the pacing. We were some of the only customers in the restaurant, so I think they just threw all our skewers at once on the grill and then brought them out at pretty much the same time. This meant we either had to inhale them or eat some of them cold, and I can't breathe pork. Perhaps my tepid opinion of the meat skewers had something to do with eating them cold.

The total for the food above is $518 and that's before service charge or drinks are factored in. It didn't particularly strike me as worth it. The pacing was off, the taste was OK, but nothing special, and 3 Monkeys no longer has that great $28 bottle of craft Japanese beer that used to beckon me through the door. I'll probably come back for a drink sometime, but the food didn't impress.

As part of my ongoing mission to try all the local classics I've neglected, I made a trip down to Sun Yuen, which always smells really good and has Michelin bib gourmand recs in the window. The recommendation is short enough to quote here:

"Located next to Sheung Wan market, this traditionally styled, simple but well maintained barbecue shop has been run by the same family since the mid-1970s. Over the years they've built up an appreciative following so the small place fills quickly. The appetising looking suckling pigs are  not the only draw: roast pork, duck and pigeon all have their followers, as do the soft-boiled chicken, the homemade sausages and the  preserved meats."We got two combo sets, each with two choices of meat, so four total: bbq pork, roast pork, suckling pig, and chicken. You get a choice of rice, rice spaghetti, and I think rice vermicelli. If you get the rice spaghetti, it's noodles in a broth. This is one of those things where I think I've finally mastered chopsticks-- y'know, like, level 1 mastery, not level 99 or anything-- and then I just get completely embarrassed. The noodles are weighty and frictionless. How do you get them in your mouth? Anyway, the noodles are very boring and I recommend the rice.The chicken: I always forget. Always. As an American, my restaurant default is always "the chicken." We're culturally conditioned to think it's healthier and involves less rainforest deforestation. Plus, who doesn't love chicken, right? Frequently, however, it's the worst choice at a Chinese place: cold, slimy (greasy?), full of bone shrapnel, almost no meat, just clammy chicken skin and tiny bone shards. Ya burnt.

The suckling pig: OK, first of all, bone shards. How suckling is this pig? I thought pig bones were hidden beneath a huge layer of pigfat. Whatever. Also, I just don't understand the hyper-crispy skin. Crispy skin, yes, that's the way skin should be and that's why the chicken is so clammy and undesirable. But they make the skin so crispy it shatters when you bite it and then it feels like you are crunching on bones. And because there are also bones in the pork, you *are* crunching on bones. It's a lot of picking things out of your mouth to see if they are safe to crunch on. Ya burnt.The other meats were to my mind better. Char siu: this was absolutely fine, but pretty unremarkable. Like, better than the stuff at the supermarket, but not noticeably different from the other roast meat shops around town.

Roast pork: To me, this was the best. It had a surprising amount of flavor, quite salty (but in a good way), fatty but not too much. This is what I'd recommend and it's what I'd have if I came back. They give you two dipping sauces: one has preserved vegetable of some sort (probably mustard greens) in a strongly flavored oil-- maybe peanut or sesame. I thought it was very good. The other looked sweet so I didn't try it.If you get the rice, you don't miss out on the soup, they bring you a separate bowl. The soup is decently meaty, but could use a little salt. As I said, go for the rice, it's the best choice.

Overall, I can't say I was disappointed, because I know what to expect, and things were fairly well in line with expectations. Most of what I didn't like was my own fault: I know that people here just have a different theory about what makes chicken good than I do, and I don't dispute de gustibuses with other cultures. Still, I was a bit disappointed, because I was hoping to have *the* best siu mei place that did *the best* stuff, but in the end, I thought it was kinda meh. Oh well, hundreds of other places to try in the city...

Mon Dieu!

The first time I had raclette was actually here in Hong Kong. I think it may have been at Weinstube, but I'm not sure. The second time I had it, and the first time I had all-you-can-eat raclette was in Geneva at a very corny touristy restaurant, where we also had fondue, and my wife (probably an "alternative fact") estimates that we ate 1lb of cheese each. That's of course what vacations are for, making you question your life-decisions during your non-vacation hours.

Anyway, Mr. Chatte has an all-you-can-eat raclette deal going. It's only on Thursdays and you have to book in advance. Seating is limited, but not quite as cramped as they make you believe when you talk to them beforehand. I don't know if the French in general like to lower your expectations before punching you in the jaw with something awesome, but that's how it played out here. There's no byob, but you can buy wines from the shop at their normal prices, and they're happy to chill them in ice water if you buy white. They have a wine from the region the cheese is from, if you're that big on pairing, and I can't recall the price for sure, but it's around $150. Water is free, but not sparkling water. If you don't know what raclette is, let me fill you in. "Raclette" is a French word meaning "scraped." The dish is of Swiss-German origin, and, at least in Mr. Chatte's incarnation, involves a half-wheel of cheese, placed below a broiler. The top of the cheese is roasted and then scraped off onto a plate, and then you eat it with salad, potatoes, pickles, and meats.

One thing that I love about Hong Kong is the endless amount one learns about cross-cultural communication. As difficult as I find communicating with locals sometimes, one thing that helps is that they are willing to see my crazy requests as crazy. French people always assume I'm rational and give me what they think I should want, rather than what I in fact asked for. Exhibit A: I kept asking for no potatoes, just cheese. You see, I had pegged potatoes as dead weight, what with my goal being to gain as much weight from cheese as possible, and wind up dead sooner. I never once succeded at communicating this idea. As the French say, oy vey.

The cheese is very good. If you've had raclette before, obviously it's like that. I like it better than fondue, it's nice and creamy and smells better, in my opinion. The potatoes are, as I've said, dead weight. I also think they're rather bland. They are meant to be covered in cheese, so that partly counts against their blandness counting against themselves, but *to be completely fair* fries meant to be covered in cheese are meant to be covered in cheese, and they aren't bland. The pickles are cornichons and pickled onions. They are relatively inconsistent: not everyone got onions and most of us asked for "more pickles" the second time around and got wildly different amounts. The meat was of three kinds: a French ham, a salami-thing, and a prosciutto-thing. The latter things weren't called 'salami' and 'prosciutto', so we had trouble articulating what we want more or less of (to be clear, they say you can have more or less of anything you like. This is true insofar as you can communicate).

All in all, this was one of the most fun meals I've had in HK. One time I did the eat-in-the-dark thing, that might have been more fun, and maybe the time I ate on a boat (not Jumbo!). But the staff is really nice, they're more-than-prepared for your personal decadence, seeing as they see sweaty-cheese-eaters on a weekly basis, and the wine just keeps goin' 'round. Everything I do or eat or meet at Mr. Chatte is great; it's the best part of the Frenchification of Sheung Wan and I hope they never go out of business.

Man, somehow I never knew that the Belcher's were so huge! Anyway, I recently came here for a dinner after an HKU talk. The graduate students had been to this place a number of times, but they are from places like Italy and afraid of spicy food, so I don't in general trust them to find Chinese restaurants that are good. Well good job, grad students!

Embarrassingly, I live right near a ton of Chiu Chow restaurants, but I've only ever been to one of them, once. I'll be frank, I kind of always thought of Chiu Chow food as lame Cantonese food. This wasn't blow-your-mind great stuff, but most of what we got, I liked, and I could see going back here.First up was the soya goose, and this was very good. It had a reasonable amount of tenderness, was not too fatty, and not overly salted. Then came the green beans w/ pork. I thought this was a relatively weak rendition of this dish. The Sichuan version of this dish is always my favorite, with chilis, Sichuan peppercorns, and sometimes pickled mustard greens. This was reasonably bland; I even think they used my least favorite beans: the light-green yardlong beans (vs. the dark ones, which are fantastic). Still, it wasn't terrible. The oyster omelet was a monster, but very crispy all over and not badly fishy. Even if you hated oysters I think you could have dug this. I thought it was one of the better oyster omelets I'd had. We got a whole fish. I forget which part of the menu this was on, I assume some part titled 'whole fish' or some such. It was fine. Not quite as tender as I'd ideally want and I wound up swallowing a bone--obviously not the restaurant's fault, but I feel like I'll forever harbor a grudge against this fish. Pretty good though.Finally was this noodle pancake thing: favorite dish of the night. On the outside it was crisp and crunchy. Sometimes you get crispy noodles; I don't tend to like them, because they don't have the softness and chewiness of noodles. These were just crispy around the edges, with softer interior noodles, a really good flavor, and some add-ins as well. The add-ins were vinegar (thumbs up) and bizarrely enough, sugar, which latter I did not try. Instead, I mixed them with some of the chili oil from the table, and they were pretty boss. Would order this again/ 10.

Look, is it authentic? Why are you reading an English review if you want to know that? I have no idea. But they've got Chiu Chow classics (the omelet, the goose, for instance), the staff speak Chiu Chow (at least, according to one of the grad students). And anyway, the food is pretty good. There's an English menu... I don't think they really expect many gweilos to show up on any given day, but it is worth a go and I highly recommend that noodle thing (can't recall the name, but it's the one that says it comes with vinegar and sugar).

I hate health food. Not healthy food, that's great. I just hate all the made up nonsense superfoods ancient grains living water spirit animal gluten free garbage. But I'll suffer it if they can deliver healthy food that tastes good. Here... not so much.

The menu consists of five sections, with 3-4 items in each section: open-faced toast, home burgers, salad bowls, earth bowls, and oven-fired flatbread. I went with a flatbread, the Blue Whale: "green base, falafel, roasted garlic hummus, mixed greens, roasted bell peppers, cucumber" ($60 for a short one). The green base is "wild thyme, oregano, coriander, sumac, sesame seed, cayenne, sea salt," but I didn't really notice it, to tell the truth. Mostly it was just the falafel and the hummus, and neither were all that good: you can get much better at Mana. I asked them to put their fermented chili sauce on it, because their other flatbreads have sauce on them, and because they have a "custom flatbread" menu that invites you to "choose your sauce." So I figured bland vegan food... it's gonna need it. They charged me $12 for the sauce upgrade (it's free on the custom menu), and despite two warnings, once from the cashier and then again from the people who handed me my food upstairs, that it was VERY spicy, it was not spicy. It also did not make the food less bland.My wife got the Siberian Tiger Earth Bowl (how dirty I feel saying that!), "Purple rice, mixed mushrooms, marinated tofu, seasoned garden greens, beetroot, pickled cucumber, fermented chili, raw teriyaki." It's an awfully long list of ingredients for how very little food came. Her main complaint was that the proportions were so off: that picture you see is not after she ate some of it, that's as soon as we got home. It's mostly rice and then you get a small amount of overcooked vegetables. I'm not even sure all the advertized things are actually in there. They also have their own brand of kimchi, so I got some. It wasn't very good. Despite Home's love of fermentation, this stuff seemed more like the unfermented Japanese kimuchi. It wasn't nearly funky enough, or spicy enough. I guess vegan kimchi is not going to have anchovies in it, so that'll be one dimension on which the funky and umami flavors are lessened.

Look, if you're a vegan, I understand it can be hard to find food. But you can get similar, and much better vegan food at Mana or at Supafood. If you're not vegan, there are tons of better options, and I recommend not going here.

Dragon Noodles Academy, or DNA as they like to call it, is the new concept from the people who brought us Yum Cha. Now I like Yum Cha-- I even took a selfie there, and I don't do that lightly. So I was definitely jazzed to give this place a go, especially cuz I like noodles.

According to DNA's website, "With one foot in the past and the other in the  present, DNA provides guests with a truly unique meal, where they can  experience contemporary Hong Kong through their palate and surroundings. We’re not just a noodle shop: DNA offers a wide  array of must-have Chinese dishes, showcasing fine-dining techniques at an approachable price point." OK, that's not very informative. Let me give a try at writing the copy, "With one foot in the past and the other in the present, DNA specializes in lobster and has far fewer noodle dishes than you might think, considering its name. Some of the items on the menu are secretly off limits." FTFY.24 HRS Sous Vide Beef Cheek Lo Mein ($129). Why this menu item is on the section of the menu entitled, "Rock Lobster Soup Noodles / Lobster X Shrimp Roe Lo Mein," will forever be beyond me. Perhaps it's more perspicuous in Chinese. Anyway, I thought the noodles were pretty good, but the beef was surprisingly not that tender for 24 hour sous vide cooking. It had a subtle spice to it (anise, maybe?). I'd say it was OK.Rock Lobster Spicy Tofu ($169). I will say that this dish looks super unappetizing. It had a little bit of a spicy kick to it, but the tofu was pretty standard. I've never really understood what's so great about lobster. You pay a lot for it, you don't get that much, and it doesn't strike me as superior to other seafood. Anway, we had to get lobster, so there you go.Crispy Lobster Wontons ($69). By "we had to get lobster," I mean that quite literally; it's hard to avoid. Every dish on the "Dim Sum" menu has lobster in it. Every. One. This style of wontons always looks so great, but then it usually disappoints. On the whole they were alright.Muffin Chicken Tray ($99). This is cute and you get some pickled veggies. The chicken is fine, but the breading's not particularly crispy and the skin is a little bothersome. I have a long tirade on chicken skin and fried chicken that I'll reserve for another time. This dish isn't terrible, and the bonus pickles are nice, but I won't sing its praises.Braised Fish Maw w/ Veg. ($129). In true Cantonese fashion, it's hard to get vegetables that are just vegetables. Like, y'know, vegan vegetables that a vegan could eat. (I thought "vegan vegetables" was redundant before I came here.) But of course everything has ham or egg or dried prawn or fish maw or whatever in it. We decided to duck into the punch and get the fish maw. Now I know what that's like. No comment.

Scallion Pancake (n/a): I think this is the thing we tried to order but they wouldn't give us. "That's only on the lunch menu," they said. No, it's on the menu you gave me when I walked in here *for dinner*. It is, pardon my Latin, ipso facto on the dinner menu. Of course, I didn't say that. Feel free to use that line if you want a scallion pancake for dinner.

Mostly in this review I've just been trying to think of non-repetitive ways to say "it's OK" or "it's alright" or "I won't sing its praises." That's how I feel about the restaurant. This surprises me, because with Yum Cha, I thought there were a number of things that really stood out as good, like the turnip cake. And the... scallion pancake, oh yeah. It's probably because this place "has one foot in the past," which I take to mean something like, "unapologetically puts fish maw in things." That's maybe better than OK and alright if that's what you're looking for. But I just wanted a big fried up plate of noodles and, yeah, they don't do that here at the Academy.

I've long *kinda* wanted to go here. I know it's a classic, but I was never all that big on tomato soup. I also know they have non-tomato soup, but you don't go to a classic joint and then not get the classic. So recently my "New Year's Resolution" (yeah yeah, you laugh) was to go to some of the classic Hong Kong places I've been missing out on. So I went here, I waited in line (and waited and waited) and then I got the soup.

So when I go back home to America and people find out I live in Hong Kong, the most common question I get is "What's it like in China?" Because Americans are idiots. Sometimes I get, "What's it like in Japan?" Same reason.  The second question is, "What's the food like?" When I tell people, "Oh, it's like tomato soup with instant noodles and a hot dog thrown in. Maybe a chicken wing." they don't believe me. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.I'll give the soup the full rundown. Broth: it's tomatoes. The boxes stacked around say "Italian Tomatoes" and the cans say "Rosso Gragnano." I looked up Rosso Gragnano, they have a hilarious webpage. It says, "I am the sweetest, juiciest, and finest of tomatoes. I am the best choice for those who want to give their recipes a natural taste and at the same time a gourmet touch..... I was born in the land of Puglia." I like first-person tomato sales pitches. OK, so legit Italian tomatoes. The broth has a nice saltiness to it, and a light oiliness. I thought it lacked some depth, personally, so I put the chilis in oil on the table in it. That gave it a little bit of spice, some more oiliness, and another depth of flavor (maybe they're smoked chilis?) Anyway, it seemed pretty good to someone who doesn't really like tomato soup.

Macaroni: I'm assuming you know what elbow macaroni is like. It's like that. I wouldn't call it al dente, but it wasn't mushy, so that's nice. I didn't see the boxes of macaroni so I can't tell you if it's some fancy import like the tomatoes. Well, of course it's imported, it's not like Hong Kong has wheat fields... but that doesn't tell you if it was fancy.

Beef: I wouldn't call it tender, but it wasn't tough or chewy or gristly either. It had a fine beefy flavor, but that was about it. Like the tomatoes, the beef comes out of a can. That's never gourmet, so I didn't bother to look up where the can was from. It looked like maybe China though. (Who else eats canned beef?) I've gotta say, the beef brisket places in town totally outclass this place beef-wise.

Add-ins: I'm torn. I think that scallions and cilantro would definitely improve the soup, but I'm wondering whether it would ruin the soup concept. Like, this is food out of a can and a box. It's not freshly plucked and flown in from New Zealand or wherever. Anyway there were no add-ins unless something accidentally fell into the soup pot.The other thing we got was the crispy bun with peanut butter and condensed milk. This was more for my wife. Actually this whole trip was mostly my wife's doing. I don't really like tomato soup, I don't really like peanut butter, macaroni without cheese is OK, and I've only ever ingested the tiniest amount of condensed milk in my life, and I plan on keeping it that way. These things take forever because there's a big backlog of orders for the oven. Ours came after we'd finished everything else. My wife liked though.

Final assessment (for non-locals only): it's worth a go... once. If you're a tourist, you can probably skip it and wait in line across the street at Kau Kee. If you're an expat, you should try it. It's definitely not bad, surprisingly good even. But I for one won't become a regular here, like I am at some of the other classic places around town.

I first learned of Mamasita's Cantina from an article in the SCMP about four restaurants "celebrity" chef Harlan Goldstein was opening in the same building on Lyndhurst Terrace. I didn't know, until I was at the restaurant and one of my friends told me, that Goldstein has now backed out of the project entirely, and is not associated with any of the three now existing and one soon-to-be restaurants. One certainly wonders what drama led to this-- "health concerns" are cited in the media, but Coconuts HK reports that "a source familiar with the situation told Apple Daily  that the chef's personal views were 'incompatible' with ZS Hospitality [the parent company that owns the company that Goldstein was-- until recently-- CEO of]." What "personal views" might those be? Perhaps we'll never know.

The restaurant's "about" page tells us: "Equal parts restaurant and bar , the venue strives create a concept that was new to Hong Kong- an authentic, true-to-home restaurant serving real Mexican cuisine. Heading the venue are Chef Edgar Navarro and Orlando Eggleton, two Mexican natives who are sure to bring the heat to the city."

I'm not one to be offended, but I could see how some people might be by this description. I mean, Verde Mar's executive chef, Eligio Escobedo, is Mexican through-and-through, so it's kind of disrespectful to claim that the entire concept of an authentic Mexican restaurant serving "real Mexican food" is new to the city. I mean, you can write nice ad copy without spitting on your competitors and calling them fakes. Indeed, might I just say foreshadowingly, "you're one to talk!"

I made reservations for 5 people at 7:30pm on a Saturday night. We were told that they would only hold our reservations for 15 minutes, so we arrived promptly at the specified time. However, at that time and throughout the entire meal, there was plenty of seating in the restaurant, so at least at the current moment, I think you are safe with a walk-in. After we were seated, the chef Edgar Navarro walked us through the menu, pointing out what he thought were the best things, and then even going through the second and third-best options, in case we didn't want the stuff he pointed out in the first place. I'll admit that I thought the treatment was nice, and appropriate given the dinero we were about to spend. Through the meal you could see Navarro manning the kitchen with a small army of diligent understudies.The first thing to arrive at our table was the guacamole. Menu description: "Avocado, Tomato, Onion, Jalapeno Chili, Queso Cotija, A Touch of  White Truffle Oil, Served with Fresh Corn Tortilla Chips" - $88. It comes in a faux tree stump, and looked like it might be a little small, but it was a nice size for 5 people. The guacamole itself was good. One of my friends wanted it to be more garlicky, but I for one was surprised you could taste the garlic, as most places it's a little one note. I myself would have put in a little more lime juice and salt, but as I say, it was good guacamole. I couldn't taste any truffle (thankfully) and most truffle oil isn't even made from truffles-- not that I care, since it doesn't belong in guacamole. The tomatoes were halved grape tomatoes, which I wasn't really fond of; I couldn't taste any spice from the jalapeno; I don't recall noticing any cotija cheese; and finally, there was some cilantro as a garnish, but I'd have preferred more chopped cilantro in the guac itself. I was fine with it, but it was more on par with Cali-Mex (the chain, not the cuisine) than with, say, the guacamole that your friend who makes great guacamole makes. (Hi Marie!)

I'll also make a note on the chips. I'm used to (being from Texas) fresh tortilla chips that are very thin and crisp, still glistening with oil and hot from the deep fryer. These chips were especially thick. I view thick chips as an artifact of chip-bagging (like the one's you buy at the store): they have to be sturdy to not crumble to pieces during shipment and distribution. But ideally a tortilla chip is very thin, so you can eat lots of salsa without filling up on the vehicle for the salsa. So I wasn't happy with the chips. (And also, if we're doing "real Mexican," where's my free chips and salsa? I understand that in Hong Kong this is usually not a benefit as the salsa is questionable at best, but you should be showcasing your salsa game if you want to prove you've got authentic chops.)Mexican Chorizo Sausage ($108), "Charcoal-grilled, bell peppers, potato brava, achiote mayo, and green chili mustard." This was alright. It was a sausage (a hundred dollar sausage). It came with some stuff. I mean, I just can't really get excited by this, but hey, when you dine with others you're not in charge of everything, and others seemed to like it.Empanadas Cubanas ($108), "Baked Cuban pastries stuffed with fresh corn, prawns, chorizo, topped with black garlic aioli and cactus salad." The empanadas were OK. The filling didn't really stand up to the crust that well, in my opinion, and they were a bit bland.  I think perhaps a larger size would've worked better. Think of a samosa: if you kept the pastry just as thick but shrunk the overall size down, it wouldn't work. Also like a samosa, you need something to add some zip to the flavor, like a lemony mint chutney. Here there was a tiny amount of black garlic aioli, but it didn't assert itself that much. As I say, the overall effect was a bit bland.

Before I talk about tacos, I want to talk about taco prices. Most of the tacos here are $88 a piece, though the veggie one runs $68 and the shrimp one is $98. And these are authentically sized tacos, so on the small side. This caused no end of grousing amongst my dining companions. I can certainly see where they're coming from: I was just in Arizona and for about a tenth of that price I got much better tacos. But one has to consider the context: rent is higher in HK; this is a fancy restaurant; and Mexican food is genuinely foreign and has import costs, from the chef all the way down to the ingredients. (It's not like you have to struggle to find a Mexican chef in Arizona.) But context cuts both ways, and we can look at other places here in HK (average prices of tacos, as calculated by me from online menus):

El Loco [sic] Gringo: $50.6

Chino: $52

Brickhouse: $59.6

Mamasita's: $86.3

So I think the grousers were legit: the tacos are overpriced. I'll readily admit that Brickhouse and Chino, for instance, are cheaper venues, but I don't think they're so crappy that one should be paying 45-65% more for a taco at Mamasita's. Alright, well, maybe it depends on whether the tacos are 45-65% better.Well, they aren't. My wife and I split two tacos. My choice was the Fish Taco ($88), "Sol beer-battered fish, creamy avocado, red onion, chipotle mayo." I thought it was pretty good. It seemed a bit small even for a small taco, with not as much fish as I'd've liked. The avocado wasn't really noticeable either. I remember quite liking the fish tacos at Chino, and really, it's hard to do fried fish in cabbage-and-mayo poorly (unless of course you are El Loco [sic] Gringo, or Bread and Beast). If you're happy to pay $88 for a taco, this one is a good choice. My wife chose the Pork Carnitas ($88), "Pork confit, coriander, onion, radish, pineapple jam, and green tomatillo sauce." She demands that I tell you that this was not a carnitas taco. Standardly, carnitas is a type of pulled pork that is additionally crisped in fat before serving. You can fail to do the crisping stage and my wife will pout a little bit, but if you just serve her chunks of pork and tell her it's carnitas, she gets angry. To be fair, chunks of pork is acceptable carnitas, but it should be so tender that it could be shredded, and this was simply not what we had here. I didn't really see the tomatillo sauce, but you can definitely see the pile of pineapple jam on top-- not really the best choice in my mind either. Returning to the Chino comparison, their pork tacos are probably worse (though thankfully not billed as carnitas), so I guess that's something? BBQ Pork Ribs "Pibil" ($258), "16 hour slow-cooked pork ribs, pibil sauce, apple slaw salad, achiote BBQ sauce." This was easily the dish most beloved at the table. The ribs were exceedingly tender, the sauce was not too sweet and added a nice depth of flavor, and the slaw was also very good. I didn't notice until now that it was "apple slaw"-- I'm not sure how to reconcile that with my experience. Anyway, the ribs were certainly my favorite, as well as the table's. We also ordered the Mexican Rice ($48) and Refried Black Beans ($48). In some sense it was good that we got these, because we had trouble ordering enough food, because my friends were so outraged that everything cost so much. At the same time, they were relatively small portions, extremely basic, and (surprise, surprise) kind of cost a lot. The rice in particular was a bit disappointing. I like Mexican red rice that's glistening with oil and separates easily into separate grains, and this was a little bit just like rice that had been cooked in tomato sauce. It didn't even fill the small bowl it came in either.

I can't really see myself coming back here. The mains are all for sharing, and they don't come with rice and beans, so it's difficult to dine alone here and it's difficult to make a balanced meal. The tacos are priced outrageously and quite frankly so is everything else. It's not that I wouldn't pay these prices for something transcendent, but transcendent this is not. You can get comparable tacos at Chino and Brickhouse (not saying any of them are all that great). Why is it that for one US dollar I can get a great taco in the US, but for 10x that much it's a struggle to find something even mediocre here? I personally think it's the emphasis on pineapple jams and black truffle aiolis at the expense of, y'know, making good carnitas. One adds an extra fancy ingredient for the food bloggers to fawn over; the other... well, maybe it's just lost on people here, I don't know. Anyway, I do believe truly good Mexican will come to Hong Kong, but today is not the day.