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2014-04-22
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So last week my friend who’s visiting HK asked me if I wanted to try NUR before she leaves. I’ve read about NUR from various food blog and it’s one of the most anticipated restaurants in Hong Kong. Why? The chef of NUR, Nurdin Topham has worked at Noma (the world’s top restaurant for a couple years, specializing in Scandinavian Cuisine & Molecular Gastronomy) and subsequently at Nordic Food Lab, which is an organization headed by Noma’s head chef/founder aimed at researching & developing new cul
Like Noma, NUR serves contemporary Nordic cuisine but without the molecular gastronomy elements. In fact they coined the term “Nourishing Gastronomy” which, according to their website, means “The art of gastronomy, everything from selecting ingredients to eating, married with a respect for nutrition”. That is to say, their food is more health-focused and their dishes are designed to be nourishing to the body. I also love how they maintained Noma’s principle of incorporating as many local ingredients in their dishes as possible. They even have their own rooftop garden in the restaurant! This is extremely refreshing as many restaurants in HK tend to impress customers by doing the opposite, often boasting to their diners how their ingredients are sourced overseas, adding to the ‘prestigious factor’. Not saying I don’t enjoy it – but it is indeed nice to see an upscale restaurant supporting local produce for a change.
For a promising restaurant like this it was surprisingly easy to get a reservation. If you call in for a weekday night reservation you are pretty much guaranteed to get a table. To be fair the restaurant just opened last week so I guess they haven’t received too much press coverage yet. My friend made a reservation for 4 – us two and two of her other foodie friends for a Monday night dinner.
The location is easy enough to find, just on the corner of Lyndhurst Terrace & Wellington Street. When I stepped out of the elevator I was pleasantly surprised by the pale, simplistic and home-y interior design. However it was also quite dark which explains the bad lighting in my photos below (ahem..excuses..lol!).
I was hoping to order some drinks to start but unfortunately their alcohol permit wasn’t ready yet so they didn’t have a cocktail menu yet. They did have a selection of wine – which according to my friend is a bit limited. I got some boring warm water instead.They had two choices of menus – a “LIGHT” 6-course menu @ $788/person and a “FEAST” @ $988/person. Yes, it is very expensive! But since I was there already I decided to splurge and get the FEAST which I did not regret
The staff were very courteous and friendly, and I didn’t get that fine dining stuck-up vibe from them. They mainly served us and introduced the dishes in English (albeit a bit hard to understand..hehe..) but would offer additional explanations in Canto if we needed clarifying.We were given the following dish of fingerfood to start as an appetizer
Left to right:-Beetroot ‘taco’ with watercress emulsion – This was a very problematic piece of food for a clumsy person like me as it was SO delicate. My hands were literally shaking when I held it in my hand LOL. Although the beetroot was extremely thin and crisp, it was still strong in beetroot flavour which is a good indicator of how good their ingredients are. However I couldn’t really taste any watercress so the foam was really just there for an interesting mouth feel. -Loved this little snack!
-Fresh asparagus with home cultured cream – we were gigging while we had this because we felt so silly picking up a piece of floppy vegetable and dunking it into the cream. It was tender (as it should be seeing that it’s young) and mild in flavour.
-Slow cooked (I think) carrot sticks with powdered carrots (from what I understood from the server) – Anyway, the carrot was perfectly cooked texture-wise and was tender but far from mushy. It was surprisingly sweet and resembled sweet potato. I liked it better dipped in the powder as it boosted up the carrot flavour and made it more savoury.
-Cucumber with mint – OK I really should have written down notes as I ate. From what I recall it was a piece of peeled cucumber, with mint and some sort of sweet/sour gel on top. It tasted very refreshing and herb-y.
After this appetizer we were served with a small glass of this as a palate cleanser.
Apparently it’s a juice of pickled kombucha, pear, roselle & mint. It tasted very interesting – vinegary followed by a strong wave of grape-like sweetness (probably from the pear) and ended on a refreshing, slightly spicy note. It served its purpose as a palate cleanser since it definitely helped to dampen some of the sweetness I had left on my tongue from the previous dish. I would order this by the glass if I had the option to!OYSTER – Gillardeau oyster, wasabi, cucumber
-So my oyster connoisseur friend (hahaha) told me that this breed is very popular right now and it’s really good. Unfortunately (or not..) the oyster in this dish was actually poached (in its own juices!) and served warm. Will definitely try to get this raw next time!-The dish is served warm on warm pebbles (and I made a joke about how the pebbles are fresh and sourced locally ;)). However, the oyster didn’t feel cooked and instead felt like a warm raw oyster so the slimy texture was retained, which was perfect! My friend was right – it is a very good tasting oyster, although poaching it might have helped. Although there wasn’t a strong seawater taste it was very sweet.
-The wasabi foam was very light and complimented the oyster well. Kind of like eating wasabi with your sashimi.
-The cucumber were scooped to little pearls and placed inside the shell so it was immersed in some of the wasabi foam/oyster juice mixture. It helped to keep the dish refreshing and looked very pretty as well!
TOMATOES – Zen heirloom tomatoes, king crab, tomato water, herb, blossoms
-The heirloom tomatoes were AMAZING! They were very intensely sweet in a fresh, vegetable-y kind of way but without the flatness of cherry tomatoes. Also, they were skinned which made eating it so much easier -The waiter poured the tomato water into the bowl at our table and oh my goodness it was delicious! It was INTENSE with tomato flavour but not in the tomato paste kind of way. It was like tomato essence without the sourness. I am thinking they probably made the broth with king crab as well which adds a lot of sweetness. It was so good I drank it all!
-The green oil emulsion is actually basil oil, which was a perfect complement to the tomatoes/tomato water and added a herb-y kick. By the way, they’ve also added some random flowers into the dish so that it’s not all just tomato flavour.
-The king crab was also very good. It was bland for the first few bites but the sweetness of the crab came in after a while. It was also tender and not stringy which would have been annoying
SALMON – Irish organic salmon, beetroot, smoked buttermilk, dill
-The salmon was very very flavourful. We had a hard time guessing how it was prepared (since we missed what the waiter said, again) because it tasted like smoked salmon but the texture was like raw salmon (no stringy bits). Delicious!-The buttermilk was a nice touch. It tasted very strongly of salmon as well and added some richness to the dish.
-Loved the variety of beetroots here. Not only are they so colorful and pretty to look at, it definitely added a crunchy & refreshing note to the fish. The dill brightened up the dish too, and added a very Scandinavian flair to the fish (according to my interpretation of it hahaha)
SALAD – Zen organic garden vegetables, Perigord black truffle dressing, aged parmesan
-They used a nice colorful mix of vegetables for the salad, and we later found out from the waiter that they actually use produce from their own rooftop garden so the salad mix changes everyday. He also said that we actually had an off day and was only given 10 kinds of vegetables when normally there would be around 30. I thought my dish was beautiful enough – 30 must be crazy!-Anyhow, I was slightly disappointed by some of the greens as they tasted a little bit bland to me as opposed to the natural sweetness that would come with organic vegetables. I do respect and appreciate the thought they put into it though. Good thing they also included some flowers into the mix which kept the salad very interesting.
-The dressing was at the bottom of the dish which I guess could be a good or bad thing. It actually didn’t have too strong of a truffle taste and was slightly overpowered by the parmesan.
EGG – Taiyouran egg, mixed grains, shiitake mushroom, garlic chive
-Before this dish was served we were told that this egg came from a special kind of chicken bred in Japan that eats only corns. I have no idea what a corn diet can do to chickens but for sure they produce some very fine eggs! Just look at the color of the yolk – so orange and tasted soooo rich <3 I forgot to get a better picture of the intact poached egg but it was very nicely done – with folds on top kind of like a xiao long bao hahaha. The choice of mixed grains was perfect with the egg – both creamy and rich and delicious.-Each plate had one dried shiitake and one fresh shiitake. I love shiitake and both were done very well especially the dried, but I felt that it didn’t really match the eggs/mixed grain.
-There was a side story to the green emulsion – the server kind of murmured what the emulsion was made of so we asked him to repeat it. Instead of clarifying he thought we didn’t know what an emulsion was and explained that it was a mixture of oil and liquid. We asked him again what it consisted of and he muttered “vermouth” and left which made us very confused. We had to ask another person who finally told us that it’s a garlic chive emulsion. Nevertheless, we agreed that it didn’t really didn’t add anything to the dish (and definitely didn’t taste any vermouth in it either…)
House baked 10-grain sourdough with mushroom butter
-I don’t normally like sourdough but this was served warm and who can resist warm bread? -There was a good crust on the bread too which I really appreiciate-The mushroom butter was light, creamy and delicious! It was like cream of mushroom in butter form hahaha. It was so good that I even ate it on its own! (and proceeded to reflect upon my mistake…)
CHICKEN – Roasted chicken, romanesco cauliflower, seaweed, oyster emulsion
-The chicken was SO GOOD! I’m guessing all the flesh were sous-vided, then the breast meat was coated in seaweed powder then wrapped in a layer of thigh meat then roasted. The meat was super super tender and juicy and the skin was thin, crisp and PERFECT! However I’ll have to say I barely tasted the seaweed, but that didn’t matter since the meat outshined everything <3-I haven’t had romanesco cauliflower before and was slightly taken aback by its appearence – it looks too starfish-like for a vegetable :s I tried it anyway and turns out it was really good! Roasting it brought out the sweetness and was very different from regular cauliflowers.
-Unfortunately the oyster emulsion again didn’t really add anything to the dish. I barely got any oyster taste.
BEEF – Stockyard smoked wagyu cheek, black garlic, kai-lan
-The waiter explained that the wagyu was applewood smoked for 48 hours. That plus that fact that it’s wagyu gave a very VERY tender and gelatinous-like texture. It was cooked medium rare and the beef flavour exploded in my mouth. So delicious!-The black garlic sauce was actually quite sweet and complimented the beef well, though I’m sure the beef would have tasted just as amazing on its own
-I appreciate how the chef incorporated local elements by including gai-lan into the dish, but again I’m not so sure if it matched the dish well. It was very tender and mild-tasting, but maybe for pairing with beef beef I would have preferred some potatoes or other root vegetables.
GUAVA – Guava, white chocolate, coconut, roselle
-The guava in this dish was actually served as a guava granita but it was very light and not sweet. It would be very nice to have a glass of this on a hot summer day!-The white chocolate was a tiny piece of toffee/white chocolate thing that was slihglty sticky. I’m not sure what it is exactly but I liked it!
-If I recall correctly the sorbet was coconut/lime but stronger on the coconut flavour. In fact the texture was very grainy which I believe came from the coconut milk
CHOCOLATE – Bitter chocolate, orange, hazelnut
-Not sure why but coincidentally everyone at my table didn’t like chocolate orange-flavoured food. The ice cream was done very well though – imo the heavy bitter chocolate taste (not dark chocolate!) seemed to go better with orange than milk/dark chooclate. I loved the ice cream!-The hazelnut wafers were a nice additional too and went very well with the chocolate flavour.
-They also added some fresh orange flesh around the ice cream which gave some me some surprise as I digged through the dish.
We sat down at 7:15, and finished at almost 11. Over 3.5 hours for a 9-course meal! I felt that the slow pacing wasn’t entirely intentional – being a new restaurant probably some of the staff needed more time to prepare certain dishes.
When we were finished the same guy who confused us with our emulsion question came to our table and asked us for our opinion on the meal. Turns out he’s actually the sommelier & manager of the restaurant! Anyhow, he listened to our feedback and answered some of our questions. He admitted that the restaurant is still learning and there are definitely some room for improvement.
And as you can tell from the photos, the portions were very small. I guess spreading the meal out over a few hours helped me digest the food better and thus helped make me feel more full, but I really could have used a slightly larger portion for each dish. As for the price, I may be biased but I really think it’s worth it. Please get the 9-course option as it’s just a $200 difference but you get to fully experience the chef’s dedication and brilliance in designing the dishes. Highly recommended for special occasions!
Before we left we took a look at their rooftop garden and they had a wide variety of plants. Aside from the usual herbs there were some unusual plants as well such as stevia (reminded us of breaking bad, hehe). They really do seem committed to the concept of getting the freshest ingredients possible.
I’m guessing the restaurant will become more and more busy and hopefully will be able to maintain its standard despite its popularity. I love this place and it’s well-worth the hype. The only reason keeping me from coming back would be its price – I just can’t afford to (or should I say…shouldn’t) dine at these places regularly. I can’t say for sure though because I’m guessing their menu is seasonal and will change on a regular basis. Not sure if I can resist the temptation!
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