richardg23's Profile

Business lunch for 5.Seated quickly, decent setting. Service a little slow in getting going, speeded up.All 5 of us rather ridiculously had the set biz lunch ($378 for 3 courses). Lots of nice warm bread offered, which was good as service slow and starters slow to come. I took a marinated salmon carpacio for a starter which was nicely done, not overly marinated and fresh. Mains, all five of chose beef with polenta (in favour of pea risotto, duck confit), which was very tender and nicely presented. The heavy desserts (apple crumble) are better than the light or the cheese (small portion, weired overly hard chips served with them). Good coffee, all in all good value considering. It is all presented in modern style,m elegant and creative, making it feel more special as a meal than the surroundings woudl suggest, which are more casual. Ie the plates look better than the decor. But I go for food, so this counts as good.Would go back - keep it up. …Read More

Highyl recommmended private kitchen.This place was recommended by a friend and sold partly on the "no corkage" policy. Not very salubrious location in a warehouse in Aberdeen so you have to be intending to find it but that makes it quite a "find" which is fun. Dining room large enough for about 30, a little noisy when we went as it was full, but just enough to be atmosphere without being too irritating. Eddy is the chef, on site for every meal, runs the open kitchen you can see from the dining room. Eddy came out and walked us through the menu, where the ingredients are from (he sources locally where he can and uses seasonal produce) and managed to up sell to us truffle egg starter - see below. Personal touch much appreciated.There is a set tasting menu for each evening. We had (i) scrambled egg and truffle (excellent - very very generous white truffle serving which we paid extra for); (ii) sushi scallop and sea urchin salad (very fresh ingredients, used Hokkaido sea urchin) which was finely balanced, tasty; (iii) cappuccino of seasonal vegetables which looked and tasted great; (iv) mussel and white wine broth which was long cooked and tasty (Eddy swapped one to a sous-vide cooked salmon on request due to an allergy one of us had and the salmon was beautiful, probably better than the mussels to the chagrin of the mussel-friendly crowd!); (v) beef tenderloin, foie gras, cooked to perfection, just beautiful tender meat; and a dessert which totally escapes me but was good. I suspect we had had too much wine by this point to fully appreciate it (or remember it).Overall, great food every course, no let downs. Service good all the way, and the no-corkage means it is a wine-heaven to eat out. Most other tables had bottles and bottles lined up. The card machine was down the night we were there but luckily we had cash galore on hand, probably worth taking enough just in case.Well worth the trip to Aberdeen, and take LOTS of your own wine. We budgeted a bottle a head. Venue works best for parties of 6-10. Not sure how often the menu changes so worth checking before going for a second time. …Read More

Good for Friday night drinks, with tapas to boot. Quite funky look, good bar area and good selection of wines and cocktails. Open kitchen is nice to see and its well laid out. we selected a few dishes to accompany the wine : slow roasted pork belly was was very good, moist, and tasty, could have done with a little more of it for the price. Corn crackers (good dips, and taste, tricky eat as they are twisted and long, but nice, perfect for accompanying wine), marmatiko (fish stew with mixed seafood, tomatoes, Spanish style, tasty, well presented, could be bigger). For dessert Chocolate Popsicles and Peanut Butter dessert (both good). One of us thought it was overly sweet. Service was patchy as they were busy and a bit overworked. Adding one more wait staff to the team would solve that. But very friendly and helpful when we could get attention, so overall, a happy visit. Dishes could be a touch more generous for the price but given the location and fact its a food/drink combination place, overall ok.…Read More

Here for very early dinner with kids, so 5 of us in all. Not busy, quickly seated. Pleasant surroundings, and they quickly turned down the ridiculous and irritating music when asked.Food. We ordered a variety of dishes to share. Linguine vongole was good. Fresh, perfectly cooked, well seasoned and flavoursome sauce. One of the better ones we have had in hk. Spag bolognese advertised with wagyu beef, I guess to justify a nice big price for them. This was disappointing, too much meat, sloppily presented, a bit overcooked. They would be well advised to get the cooking right before wasting money on wagyu. A salad was fresh, if small. For the kids, they loved the chicken quesidillas, and we had a pretty nice selection of cakes and dessert and decent if not great coffee. So overall food was ok, with some misses.Service was an issue. It wasn't busy but we had to work hard to flag down staff when we needed. Mistakes were made, table not cleared etc. Manager needs to be more in control here, assign waiters to tables, make people take responsibility, its called service, so serve. The two managers seemed busy on computers, not managing. If you must do the accounts or play angry birds, do it when the restaurant is shut.Happy enough to come again if i'm passing, but would not make a special trip.…Read More

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.…Read More

With my Malaysian food expert, wanting to try something close to authentic laksa in HK. Smallish restaurant, facing off against malaymama competition right across the street. Soup noodles $60-80 a bowl.To save you reading down, in summary its ok for a middling laksa, but the other food is horrible and service terrible, so we would never go back.Ordered laksa, mee siam and har mien in order to try a range of things. The laksa soup was good flavour, but small frozen prawns used in it really detract, and noodles a bit hard. Prefer to have a mixture of vermicelli amd mee, my fault though, i should have asked.Now for the other food : shockingly bad! Har mien had one half of a frozen prawn in it, soup the colour and taste of old washing up water. More pork than prawn. Only taste of meat, white pepper (which should not be in there). No prawn taste. If they call it dirty water pork mien, would more accurate. We hardly touch it, send it back. Inedible. Mee siam ok but not great, over sour, again the prawn issue. Worst of all, the waiter insist to charge us for an inedible bowl of dirty washing up water we had sent back and complained about so much, and no apology or any effort to compensate. Terrible service. I'm not price sensitive, just good food sensitive. Drinks came late, after we were halfway through the food. All the glasses and bowls were messy, spilt, not the cleanest place to eat honestly, hygiene of concern. My Malaysian food expert had tried the one in Elements last week, which was cleaner, better. And the laksa there used fresh, large prawns, brilliant. Go there. We guess they are focussing on the new elements store, maybe the chef move there too? In which case just shut this one down.…Read More

Pleased to see Sabah in Central - good to have access to acceptable Malaysian/Sing food closer to the office. 4 of us had set lunch each: prawn mee, a laksa, hainan chicken rice. Noodle soups were not flavoursome enough, need to cook longer with more spices. Not spicy enough by a LONG way. Need to add some kick and flavour here. WanChai branch seems to do better at this (just move the chef for a month?). Ok for a quick eat but doesn't hit the spot if you have craving for this style of spicy food. Only HK$78 for set lunch which is great value, but I'd happily pay more for stronger, better flavoured food. Side note - our waiter was probably over 100 years old which I think is brilliant. He was charming and diligent, if incredibly slow. Good to see them employing all ages like that.…Read More

2 people, both took the set lunch. Its very cheap, and it shows. We had 2 different starters and 2 different pastas. Tiny portions, badly cooked. We left hungry and a little nauseas. Too much oil on everything, pasta way over-cooked, ingredients not terribly fresh. Took over 40 mins to bring main courses despite repeated requests of various waiters and waitresses. Restuarant itself is badly laid out (horrible climb up some backstairs to get to the dining area), tables too close, noisy etc. Venue ok for beer and pizza in the evening, but the location is not conducive to that. Don't eat there.…Read More