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Bibo (Closed)

4

4

65 Reviews

Taste

Decor

Service

Hygiene

Value

|

8778

Sheung Wan

Above $801

French Wine Fine Dining Bar

51

7

3

amuse bouche

3 Recommended

eatwithjess

Level4

178

11

I’ve walked past the front entrance of Bibo numerous times. Each time I glance at the dark teal tiled walls, flashy gold and bronze door and awkwardly smile at the intimidating bouncer that is always standing at the doorway. Finally, I got to try out Bibo for myself. The space is big- lined with murals, graffiti and really cool art displayed all along and around the restaurant.The artwork inside this French restaurant is pretty damn awesome- one of the most famous art pieces being the giant Kaws

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I’ve walked past the front entrance of Bibo numerous times. Each time I glance at the dark teal tiled walls, flashy gold and bronze door and awkwardly smile at the intimidating bouncer that is always standing at the doorway. Finally, I got to try out Bibo for myself. The space is big- lined with murals, graffiti and really cool art displayed all along and around the restaurant.

The artwork inside this French restaurant is pretty damn awesome- one of the most famous art pieces being the giant Kaws sculpture that’s lurking in the middle of the dining space.
The menu had a ton of variation on classic French dishes but be warned it is expensive.

Sourdough bread was immediately placed in front of us.

The amuse bouche was terrific. What a great start to the evening. This take on onion soup with fresh crab meat was superb. I licked the entire shot glass clean and it was the best decision I made. It was freaking fantastic! (Bibo, can you please make this one of their items on the menu!)

Fun cocktails were also a highlight! Strong, fruity and delicious!

This take on G&T was my favorite cocktail blended with 5 different citrus juice to make it super refreshing and delicious. Can you see that giant pink ice cube in the glass….it’s shaped like a skull!

Le Pate En Croute

We ordered their signature starter- Le Pate En Croute HK$360 which is homemade terrine, foie gras from Les Landes with pistachio and pork belly. The portion was surprisingly big which actually made this dish TOO much. The pate was so much that it became a bit overbearing and too powerful.

pan fried crayfish, mixed vegetables and lobster bisque

We also ordered a bowl of their pan fried crayfish, mixed vegetables and lobster bisque for HK$340. I was a bit disappointed by how small the portion was and also the lobster bisque was way too salty. The broth was very rich but think it definitely had too much salt in it.

This main dish was done really nicely though. The staff was nice enough to let us have the pigeon from the tasting menu. The Pigeon was perfectly pink in the middle with a nice glaze and sear! Only problem was I wanted more. The portion was a bit small but absolutely delicious.

pan- fried sea bass with cherry tomatoes, white asparagus, and jerusalem artichoke puree

I picked the pan- fried sea bass with cherry tomatoes, white asparagus, and jerusalem artichoke puree at HK$480 which came recommended by the staff and I have to say it was underwhelming. The sea bass was super under seasoned :/ and for HK$480 was quite disappointing.

The cheese selection HK$150 was really good! Fragrant, appetizing and rich.

Last but not least was the petit fours! I have to say I think I had way too high expectations for Bibo…so it was a bit underwhelming. Overall, Bibo definitely had a mix of hits and misses for me. The price was also quite high. I did love the vibe, company and cocktails though!

(The above review is the personal opinion of a user which does not represent OpenRice's point of view.)

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DETAILED RATING

Taste

Decor

Service

Hygiene

Value

Date of Visit

2016-11-05

Dining Method

Dine In

Spending Per Head

$1500 (Dinner)

Recommended Dishes

mjhk

Level4

375

10

Bibo has been on my radar since it opened up, but I never really found the impetus to go there. It's always seemed rather strange to me with the large, rotating art displays, fake train station exterior, and for a while a seemingly unnecessary number of doorpeople. Though admittedly, they probably had to pay people to stand out front because it doesn't look like a restaurant from the street you can enter it on (i.e. Hollywood). The price of art is indeed steep.We came here "for Valentine's day",

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Bibo has been on my radar since it opened up, but I never really found the impetus to go there. It's always seemed rather strange to me with the large, rotating art displays, fake train station exterior, and for a while a seemingly unnecessary number of doorpeople. Though admittedly, they probably had to pay people to stand out front because it doesn't look like a restaurant from the street you can enter it on (i.e. Hollywood). The price of art is indeed steep.

We came here "for Valentine's day", though not on that day, because dining on that day is ridiculous, even in HK where it's less popular/ commercialized than where I'm from. That was the impetus I needed.

You can order a la carte at Bibo, but online there are three tasting menus posted, Le Menu Trouffe Noire $1,388, Le Menu Gourmand $900, and Le Menu Plaisir $1,200. When we showed up, the menu we were handed had only the latter two tasting menus on it, so if you're obsessed with truffles, I can't for 100% sure say they have them, so call ahead, you mushroom-pig you.

We each got Le Menu Gourmand, with a pairing of 4 wines for a total of $900 + $550 = $1,450 each. Not pocket change that's for sure. At three points in the menu there's a choice, and they let you as a party of two pick both and split them. So you wind up getting to try a lot of things.

The amuse bouche was carrot puree with mushrooms and one particular herb. I want to say oregano, but I can't really recall. It was pretty tame. The mushrooms weren't super-rich, the carrot wasn't super sweet, it was a subdued dish. OK.

First course was L'Oeuf Mayo, "slow cooked organic Taiyouran egg, homemade mayo." From wavespacific.com, a Hong Kong supplier of Taiyouran eggs, we find that

"Taiyouran Japanese eggs have a natural sweetness and rich, thick orange yolk. Chickens are reared on a special diet of Stevia leaves, a natural herb which is 300 times sweeter than sugar."

Wikipedia says Stevia leaves are "up to" 150 times sweeter than sugar, so somebody's fudging here. Anyway, I'm not entirely sure what those numbers mean. It looks like a taste thing, because Stevia leaves "have a negligible effect on blood glucose" (Wikipedia again). But how attuned are chickens to that taste, and does that even matter? If you feed chickens artificial sweeteners, do their eggs become sweeter? By what mechanism?

Anyway, the egg is fine. Runny and orange-ish with a ring of tangy yellow mayo and some crispy bread bits. I wish I had not eaten the pre-dinner bread, but instead saved it for this dish. Although there was of course more bread to be had, I didn't want to fill up on the first course.

Le Presse de Foie Gras

Next came the foie gras "homemade terrine of foie gras, orange brioche." Here on the menu you have a choice between this and the raviolis, but since we were two, we got both. This is terrine, so really dense and rich, and personally, though I only had half the amount pictured, it was way more foie gras than I wanted to eat at one sitting.

Not more than I'd ever eaten at one sitting, of course, because sometimes there's just a pile of foie gras that needs to be eaten and you're the one called upon to do it, but still, I apologize for being insufficiently French. Apres foie, le deluge. Sorry, that's probably not even funny.

[Foie Gras Toast]

My wife believes that sugary bread is what's supposed to accompany foie gras, and I won't say that's wrong. I'm not saying the empereror has no clothes, just that his clothes are 300x sweeter than normal clothes. I guess what I mean by that is that really, I wish I had saved the original sourdough bread on the table, which was fantastic and sour, for the foie gras as well.

Les Ravioles - "mushroom duxelle, lobster, shaved cauliflower, confit potatoes, and foie gras sauce." The shaved cauliflower was mostly a garnish. The confit potatoes were a short cylinder of crispy fried potato, with nothing of the flavor the word "confit" typically incites within me. I liked the ravioli though. They had good, al dente wrappers and a nice flavor. They were fair enough.

"Slow cooked Sagabuta pork, confit turnip, maple syrup, star anise and apple jelly."

Again, it's not like Bibo lists their distributor on their webpage, but after googling "Taiyouran egg" and getting wavespacific.com as a top hit, and a HK distributor, I googled "Sagabuta pork" and got the same thing. Let's hear the product description:

"Our Japanese pork is a cross-breed of Duroc, Yorkshire and Danish Landrace pigs, raised in the mountains of Kinboshi, Japan. In this picturesque environment, pigs can pursue natural behaviours and gain weight naturally without hormones or GMO-feed."

Wikipedia doesn't even have a page on this, so who knows. I do know, without intending to look it up, that "Duroc" sounds like a scary kind of pig-monster.

Anyway, the pork was fine, if a little plain. Not super fatty, so good on that front. "Deliciously marbled," says someone at TripAdvisor. One of the sauces, the star anise one, we were particularly fond of. Again the "confit" turnip was just fried turnip. Not knocking it, but that's what it was.

"Pan-fried lamb fillet, puy lentils, baby carrot, and calvados." Puy lentils, which I did not know, are peppery green French lentils. Calvados is an apple brandy. I was a fan of the lamb. I thought it was reasonably tender and meaty. They asked us how we wanted it and I asked the chef to decide, that being the clearly most sensible option, when the chef knows more about food than I do. Which is almost always.

At this point we got pre-dessert, which-- alright, whatever. It was like a tomato snowcone. Shaved ice with tomato pulp/ flavor. Not as sweet as a snowcone, thankfully. A little strange though.

First dessert was a pile of cheese. I ate some of it. Middle one was favorite; stinky bleu one was only mildly stinky and mildly chemical-tasting, but I have a chronic case of Americanitis and unfortunately, it's not for me. The other thing was a thing, not too exciting.

Le Millefeuille Crepe Chocolat

Thousand-fold thin chocolate pancake: tastes like cardboard. I'm not even trying to be facetious.

They do indeed serve food here, and none of it is bad. None of it really impressed me either. I probably insufficiently appreciated the plating or whatever, but art pays its way in aesthetic plaisir, if I may borrow a phrase from the menu, and there was only a limited amount of that on offer.

I guess there's art in the building. There was a motorbike with Chinese characters written on it. Under normal circumstances I wish I read Chinese, but I'm sure I'd rather do without the artist's message. The object seemed designed to have overdressed people sit on it and take their picture, somehow like the reverse of this object I encountered in Pingyao:

It's a rickshaw you sit in and take tourist photos in. Hard to feel like all the Frenchiness and art wasn't just there to provide a space for people to take pictures of themselves inhabiting that space. The selfie-density-per-second was definitely on a par with, say, Amah Rock. Bibo was like a disco with everyone's camera flashes going off rhythmically. Hey, good on them that they're doing well, and great for them that they can charge $1500 a head, but I wouldn't recommend it.

(The above review is the personal opinion of a user which does not represent OpenRice's point of view.)

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FoodieRoodie

Level4

111

0

I have learnt my lesson the hard way about newly opened restros - don't ever endeavour to be the first flock which guarantees disappointment 9.5 times out of 10. I have heard so many bad reviews and comments about BIBO last year that I have lost count, so I had no courage to pay dearly for just but a disappointing meal until quite recently when we finally heard some good comments among other friends. We went at last, and liked it.Setting - like everyone else, we missed the entrance on Hollywood

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I have learnt my lesson the hard way about newly opened restros - don't ever endeavour to be the first flock which guarantees disappointment 9.5 times out of 10. I have heard so many bad reviews and comments about BIBO last year that I have lost count, so I had no courage to pay dearly for just but a disappointing meal until quite recently when we finally heard some good comments among other friends. We went at last, and liked it.

Setting - like everyone else, we missed the entrance on Hollywood road not once but twice. There is no signage suggesting BIBO, so what we could do best at the time was to google photos of the doorway which mostly came back, including the profile photo here on openrice, with their big glass window on Cat Street, so we mistakenly thought the fire escaping doorway was indeed the entrance. A server saw our puzzling looks from inside and gestured us to go back up to Hollywood road. We approached the golden door which we thought was the closest guess where two bouncers stood guarding. They must have been so customed to people running in circles like a lunatic that just one look at them with a nod to their question "BIBO?" would yield open sesame. With the 30’s French tramway company La Compagnie Générale Française de Tramway as the core design inspiration in everything, the mastermind behind the conceptual restro invented a story that its head office had occupied the very location previously, and therefore all you get from signage to decor to menus is the name of the tram company in lieu of BIBO thus the intended confusion created. In spite of the fuss, we were totally wowed as we descended the staircase. Every nook and cranny is covered with artwork and apparently most pieces are genuine work of the artists involved who flown in to do the work on site. Contrasting the graffiti and street art gallery setting, the table setting otherwise resembles that of a fine dining restaurant.

Food - the menus follow the same line of thought (in creating confusion) and are printed on preprinted stationary of the imaginary tram company, and therefore are super hard to read. So hard that we decided to give up and asked for recommendations before our heads started to spin. To save the trouble, we each asked for the full tasting menu designed for the Art Basel season. It's a 8-course meal plus coffee/tea.
In the order of what we had:
~Housemade sourdough with french AOP butter: tasty, we liked it
~Mushroom base amuse bouche: ok
~Figs and vege salad with truffle vinaigrette: good truffle aroma on the nose otherwise ok
~Lobster salad with blood orange vinaigrette: lobster tender vege crunchy but couldn't taste much blood orange flavour
~Asparagus soup: average
~Seared duck foie gras: ok
~64 degree egg with sourdough crust and housemade mayo: tasty orchestration, we liked it
~Lobster ink risotto: taste good but we found the risotto much softer than al dente
~Sea bass: skin fried crispy meat juicy, ok
~Pigeon: tender meat and taste good, we liked it
~Cheeses: of reasonable good quality
~Lemon soufflé with rosemary sorbet: we didn't like it. We found viscous residue left in the mouth after each bite

Drinks - for the above stated reason, we couldn't really bring ourselves to read the drinks menu in detail and took the server's recommendations to have two of their signature cocktails:
~B24 Martini: way way way too sweet. I put it aside after the first few sips, but it went well in the end with the dessert cheeses
~D1&T: basically gin and housemade tonic served in a light bulb, cool presentation

Service - you get the service of a top notch restaurant, and for the price they fetch, it'd better be!

Price - pricey, pricey and pricey that makes you think you are actually paying a premium to gain entry to force appreciate the artwork rather than for the food. Our bill came to $1700 per person withOUT any wine! They charge a whooping $1400 for a chicken despite its exquisite source, which as I overheard was being suggested to every table including ours, is daring and totally mind blowing.

Housemade bread and AOP butter

Figs and vege salad with truffle vinaigrette

Lobster salad with blood orange vinaigrette

Seared duck foie gras

64 degree egg with house made mayo and bread crumbs

Lobster and ink risotto

Lemon souffle and rosemary sorbet

(The above review is the personal opinion of a user which does not represent OpenRice's point of view.)

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DETAILED RATING

Taste

Decor

Service

Hygiene

Value

Date of Visit

2015-03-28

Dining Method

Dine In

Spending Per Head

$1700 (Dinner)

Recommended Dishes