jetsettingfoodie's Profile

A quick dinner after work.Started with a 'Cover Scent' cocktail, which is like a smoother, lighter take on an Old Fashioned (one of my favourites). The taste was excellent and easier to start with than a normal Old Fashioned. It came in a jar with smoke and glass/ice separately. LOVED this presentation not just for the visual impact, but also meant you only pour a small amount onto the ice and keep it from getting too dilute.In the mood for steak, I was happy to see Hanger Steak as an option. This flavourful cut is not always on menus and can be a little tough if overcooked. Luckily, this was cooked to a perfect medium rare (as per my order).I also had a side of Mac n' Cheese, because... Mac n' Cheese! It was tasty (and the homemade spaetzle pasta was impressive), although I feel it could have done with a lot more cheese to make it the sinful affair I was after. Nonetheless, it was still tasty... kind of like  a 'cacio e pepe'.Service was attentive without being intrusive. I only had to glance around a little obviously and someone was at our table very quickly.…Read More

I've been here before to play mini golf, but this time got to try the Sole Fillet and Popcorn Shrimp tacos.  They were super tasty, with a great balance of seafood flavour, crispness, sweetness (mango salsa) and sharpness (from the pickled onions). All 5 tacos in the serving disappeared fast!In addition to mini golf, Strokes now has a bunch of other games like table football, air hockey and ping pong to play. Good fun venue to hang out in with friends, and the offering reminds me of pubs in the UK where you have food, drink and pub games on offer.…Read More

Tokyo Lima has been on my list to try for a while, from when it was one of the few South American-Japanese places (no longer the case) in Hong Kong.Firstly, I appreciate that although initially allocated bar seats for the two of us (not something we requested when booking online), they managed to find us a normal table just before the booking time. However, that might not have been the blessing it seemed when we realised how loud the music was. I'm all for a lively atmosphere, but 2 people dining (at 7:30 pm) really shouldn't have to shout to talk to each other across a small table.Food-wise, can't really complain that anything was bad, but it never quite going beyond a good average. The Ceviche Japones embodied this, where the description evoked higher expectations than the dish that came. The tuna and watermelon tartare was slightly better, but the soy dressing made everything taste samey (basically raw tuna and soy sauce) rather than being able to understand why the various elements were in the dish.The Spicy Hamachi rolls were a bit better, where the mint chimichurri brought something interesting to the party. But to my palate it still lacked something in the mix to be complete/balanced. The pork belly buns were even more one dimensional, mainly tasting of (wait for it) pork and bread. The pickled onions were nowhere near acidic enough (or plentiful enough) to cut through the grease and starch, and the aji amarillo sauce didn't have the sweetness and vibrancy to lift it all.  Ironically, the best dish was the Ki-mo-chi fried chicken, which was a very generous portion for a 'small plate'. Juicy, perfectly spiced, and fried to a crisp skin/exterior with juicy interior. One telling thing was that this was the only dish that seemed to take more than 5-10 minutes to come out. The others came out at such a pace that undoubtedly there was only some little finalising and assembly required.Service was decent for Hong Kong standards, though at times a little flustered if you caught them in the middle of doing something else and at times perhaps a little too casual (horseplay between the serving staff can be sometimes charming/fun, but can also border on unprofessional).Overall, the food is probably going to be acceptable to a wide range of people, and priced well (HK$1,200 for two with about 3 cocktails each). Wouldn't quite object if someone were to choose it, but would not choose it myself. I find myself missing El Mercado (Wanchai) which served similar (but much superior) cuisine but has since closed.…Read More

My friend reserved a table for 9 pm, but when we showed up table wasn't ready, which isn't that unusual. But after waiting around for over 40 minutes (when our food order was already taken) and being told (for 20 minutes of that time) that our table was getting ready to leave, I went to check and saw that the table hadn't even been presented with their bill. We were eventually seated at 10 pm, when our moods were already not great. A free 'shot' (consisting primarily of juice) does not make up for an hour long wait for a booked table.Because of this, there was some confusion about whether we were being offered the round of draught beers we had while waiting on the house. But regardless, bottom line is a restaurant that makes its customers wait an hour on a booked table should most certainly try harder at keeping its customers happy. Or tell them that they can't honour the booking, at which point we would have certainly been able to go elsewhere.The food, in fairness, was decent quality Indian food. Probably even good by Hong Kong standards. Not stand out though. Compared to other places like Tulsi (Quarry Bay), Serendib (Sheung Wan), Black Salt (Sai Ying Pun, though not strictly Indian) and some other smaller places around Nathan Road, it didn't sing on my palate (I grew up in Malaysia and then the UK so think I know good Indian food!) as really good Indian food does with its spicing. Anyway, when it got to paying the bill, there was then a big disagreement over how many beers had been promised for free or not. We were only ever disputing the 5 beers we had out while waiting (they said only the second round was on the house, and not the ones while we were waiting an hour *eye roll smiley*), not those for any additional people that joined us at the end (because we were so late that people we would have been meeting elsewhere had to come there).Regardless, the whole experience put a sour taste in our mouths. Not to mention it was my friend's birthday (his first in Hong Kong). Honestly, I am not out to get free things from restaurants (you can read my numerous other reviews here and on a well-known international trip review site) but I get annoyed at restaurants that don't understand you're paying for the experience and don't seem to appreciate how frustrating it is to be made to wait that amount of time for a booked table, then are so arrogant as to threaten customers with calling the police.For the money they are charging, there are certainly plenty of other restaurants that will give you food as good or better, along with great customer service. Perhaps you'll be more lucky than us and have a much better experience.  But I wouldn't count on it.…Read More

Having lived in Europe for many years and been to Spain a fair few times (and speaking Spanish), I previously dismissed Chico Chica having seen that the staff did not seem Spanish. So despite living very nearby, it took me over 6 months to venture in here.I'm very pleased to report that I'm mistaken and have to eat some humble pie.The food was delicious. Using a reliable base of Spanish recipes and quite a lot of imported Spanish products, it elevates and modernises these with some innovative flourishes.Me and a friend ordered a selection of tapas and just about everything was bang on.The salad of beetroot, tomatoes, cucumber and leaves were a nice and simple but very tasty start. This was followed by a fantastic scallop carpaccio, which was spot on with the granita, lemon curd and ponzu. This dish would not be out of place in a restaurant verging towards a Michelin star.Morcilla (blood sausage) was served with fried cubes of potato and topped with two fried eggs. Quite a classic combination, but nonetheless as good as I've had in Spain.The special of baby squid in a tomato sauce flavoured with Spanish sweet paprika and had little chunks of fried aubergine, which really brought something else to the tasty fresh stuffed squid.The one dish I was not a fan of was their patatas bravas (fried potatoes topped with spicy sauce). The bravas sauce simply tasted over poweringly of Tabasco, which is really not how good bravas sauce is made. This is a shame, as the potatoes were nicely fried and topping them with melted Manchego cheese was a nice take on classic patatas bravas.At this point we were almost full but being the glutton I am, decided to order the Hansburger. Not quite sure about the name, nor was the meat as unctuous as you'd expect of something with Wagyu, but the crisp bun topped with black sesame seeds and sweet kimchi were just fantastic. Here's where the sum of parts led to a very delicious tasty whole. I'd go so far as to say as this Hansburger could easily give the famous Little Bao a run for its money.Couldn't manage anymore food by this point, but the table next to us had a plate of very yummy looking churros con chocolate, which had ice cream as well. All this food for two and a glass of wine came up to just over HK$600, which I think is rather good value. Service was nice, without being fussy or pretentious.I'll very happily be back, with the hopes that this could be one of my local go to restaurants!…Read More

Good Vietnamese is often accompanied by a generous amount of fresh herbs.The signature pork Bun certainly had that in abundance. The pork was cooked to perfection and packed full of flavour. The vermicelli rice noodles were generously topped with pickled vegetables and fresh herbs and crunchy fried shallots.Soaked the whole combination with the chili vinegar on the table and an amazing bowl of yummy is the result.No idea if the other dishes are any good, but I'll be back just for this Bun.…Read More

Fusion food is difficult to pull off. Glasshouse is typical of the type of restaurant that has fusion so much as a concept it seems to put odd ingredients together for the sake of espousing the fusion concept rather than because they work well together.The 3 of us started with a green salad and coca cola beef robata skewers to start. Salad of mainly leaves was fine, although the addition of kidney beans was out of place. Fennel was a really nice touch, but had nothing to really accentuate it and make it special.The beef robata skewers, however, were pretty divine. Could have had a whole plate of them. Good beef, perfectly cooked and the coca cola marinade resulted in a sweet, slightly sticky glaze.My main course of Singapore noodles, with lobster (great touch) also came with goose liver and bits of air dried ham. The latter two items really didn't add anything and felt added in for the sake of it. While I finished it with no problems, it felt more like what I do at home of throwing whatever I have in the fridge into the noodles rather than a planned recipe.My fellow diners had no complaints of their food, but when the bill of $350 each came, we certainly thought it was pricey for what it was.We had a cocktail each, which was perfectly drinkable, but unremarkable.Service was not great. Something went wrong with the POS apparently so we got presented a whole bunch of dishes that were not ours making us wait further for our food. This is fair enough, mistakes happen. However, they then made it clear to us when we had to have last orders because our 90 minute dining slot would be up soon.Overall, fine to fill the stomach, but not really worth it.…Read More

Have never heard of this place, but my friend took me here for dinner.Between the two of us we order a pumpkin, quinoa and leaf salad, scallop and prawn pasta, and the confit duck on waffles. These dishes came out in this order, extremely quickly.Too quickly, since before we had even served ourselves some of the salad, the pasta was already on the table, and 5 minutes later (we were still halfway through the salad), the duck arrived.So by the time we got to the "hot" dishes, they were already lukewarm.Which is very unfortunate, because the food itself was surprisingly very good.The pumpkin and quinoa salad was nicely proportioned, with chunks of pumpkin giving body and sweetness, quinoa providing a nutty bite, and the mixed leaves and orange dressing rounding everything else off with a bit of zest and flavour.The duck and waffles, was topped with a fried egg and a couple of shavings of black truffle; a sort of blueberry (?) compote and mustard sauce were provided on the side. As odd a combination as this sounds, the flavour does actually work. The blueberry and mustard cut through the salty, rich duck flesh, and the waffle provided a soft base to soak up the flavours, accented with a few crispy edges. Not sure if the egg was quite needed but it didn't offend too much. Personally if I were putting on an egg, I'd have tried a poached egg or even a deep fried egg with runny centre.The pasta (linguine?) was thankfully still a little warm when we got to it. Again, I was rather surprised at how good it tasted. A generous amount of scallops and prawns (something like 5 of each) were almost perfectly cooked (they were a bit overcooked, but that's more because they sat at our table for over 10 minutes) and tasted fresh and delicious. The sauce was a fairly simple garlic and oil, and something else I couldn't work out that made the sauce very yellow (but didn't taste of much), which is a classic combination with the pasta and seafood. My main complaint here that it was a little too heavy handed with the oil, and I think they could have used a much better quality extra virgin olive oil, which would have added some peppery/fruity notes to the dish.I also commend the apple, beetroot and ginger juice, which is a classic combination, very well executed and full of flavour.The menu is also very well priced, and I consider it excellent value given the high quality of food and location in Causeway Bay. I'd happily return, but would be very careful about ordering dishes one at a time.…Read More

Like many others, I've been wanting to try Little Bao for a while to see what the hype is about.My friend and I went on a Sunday night at 7 pm, and we had about a half hour wait, which is to be expected. You can put down your name and number and go off while in queue so fairly reasonable.We started off with the famed pork belly bao and fried chicken bao.The pork belly was worthy off its sterling reputation, and was close to perfection. The braising spices gave it subtle depth of flavour, beautifully balanced by the pickled vegetables and sauce.The fried chicken was also very tasty and well executed, with a distinctive tasty Sichuan mayo, but it's not winning any awards.We also had the shortrib pan fried dumpling (gyoza) style that was very nicely executed. Their talents definitely lie in the slow cooking department.At this point we were still not full, so ordered the vegetarian Sloppy Chan, which we'd read good things about. The best way to describe the filling is it's very similar to a mushroom duxelle, usually found in a beef Wellington. A paste of shiitake mushrooms paired with truffle mayo will probably not be too everyone's taste. Not bad, but the pickled vegetables weren't enough to lift the earthy base.At this point my friend was full, but I went ahead with the dessert bao. This was smaller sized and deep fried with a filing of salt ice cream and caramel. Oh golly, this was an absolute decadent treat. I also had the yuzu leaf cocktail. Pleasant enough, but it tasted more lemon than yuzu (which has a very distinctive flavour).For the price and the setting (it's a very small, casual counter style venue), I think it's overpriced. Wouldn't hurry to go back, but wouldn't object either, now that I've pinpointed things on the menu I like.To me, this is very good comfort food, but priced at 50% more than it's worth. But you can judge for yourself.…Read More

This review is more on the atmosphere of the restaurant. But geez, it was cold.We went here on a night when it was 13 degrees outside. What we didn't expect was that in the restaurant it would also be thirteen degrees inside!Tulsi doesn't have a door that closes. The entrance has a couple of plastic flaps that doesn't keep the cold out. The only tables for two people were in full blast of the draught. We asked to move, but were told the table further from the door was for 4 people even though no one occupied any of the 4 person tables while we were there. The result? We were freezing our way through dinner. Even with our coats on!Ok, so the food. Difficult as it was to think of anything except staying warm...Tandoori chicken was tasty, but not classic tandoori. Was more wet and it definitely didn't have the typical tandoori oven treatment and seasoning. Interesting, but with something this classic, I'd like to get what I order.Lamb saagwala was a rather small portion. However, couldn't fault it taste wise.Bhindi masala (okra curry) tasted nice, but half the dish was onion, which makes it more an onion curry garnished with some okra. Again, I'd rather get what I ordered.We ordered a couple of naans. Garlic was decent. Truffle naan is an abomination that should never be. I have serious doubts that it could ever be matched with this style of Indian food. However, when it's oily black truffle from a jar slathered onto naan. Why why why?!Overall the food isn't bad. Unfortunately, we could barely concentrate on the food as we were freezing. But the spicing while pleasant, doesn't match the price point that they are pitching it at. In particular, it is nowhere near the deft spicing of Tulsi in Quarry Bay, which has years of Michelin recommendations to its name.Note that I grew up in Malaysia and spent the past 14years in the UK, so I've been eating Indian food all my life and dare say my Indian cooking is pretty decent too.Sadly, I can't agree with all the glowing reviews here. It's an ok place to eat, but with all the great places in Sai Ying Pun and beyond, I won't be returning. …Read More

Stopped here by chance after hiking the 'mini grand canyon'.Dining under a large canopy on a 24C day (in January!) was great ambience. Felt like we were on holiday in the tropics.Food was good - see photos. Vibrant and fresh, and very colorful.To be picky, to my palate, the food seemed to lack the depth I associate with well balanced Thai food, something usually provided by the use of dried/fermented shrimp.But still, an enjoyable Thai meal. And for a large amount of food, we paid something like $220 per person, which was very good.…Read More

Dined with a couple of friends on Friday evening.A nice range of options of the menu, and we basically ordered a number of dishes to share, which the restaurant seemed to cater well to.To start, we had the octopus ceviche. Tender and flavoursome octopus, minimally dressed, was a great way to kick off the meal.Unfortunately the second dish of pimientos de padron (pan fried peppers) was disappointing. This is usually a very standard Spanish tapa, which is simply fried, sprinkled with salt and olive oil. But the peppers they sourced were simply not good, tasting sappy (prob under ripe). Not really a good pairing with the other things on the menu anyway, so I wonder why it was on the menu. Stay away from this one.Luckily they quickly redeemed themselves with all the other dishes. In particular, the grilled local eel was spectacular. Grilled ima go style, it had yummy layer of melting day (like fatty tuna or Wagyu) next to tender flesh and crisp, sweet skin. The crab tagliatelle that followed was also faultless. Nice amount of crab meat in a creamy sauce that surrounded the pasta cooked perfectly al dente.The star of the show was the large whole fish, the selection of which varies depending on what they can get. We chose the tile fish, which our waitress explained was a local white fish, with sweet flesh, which turned out to be a great description.The whole fish came with beautifully crisp skin, served with a brown butter sauce, capers, croutons and boiled new potatoes. The flesh was perfectly cooked, and it was refreshing to taste a local fish, but cooked in classical French technique. We picked the fish clean, and I'm still thinking about it!We should have stopped there, but being the gluttons that we are, went for a dessert to share. This was a mango, coffee and coconut dessert that unfortunately didn't work. The flavour combination should have worked, but the coffee was not bitter nor sweet enough to harmonise with the mango's tart taste. And the desicated coconut just kind of sat on top.Anyway, lesson learnt. They are a fish restaurant. Stick to fish dishes and you can't go wrong.Also worth mentioning the very good service we got throughout. Friendly and present, without being over bearing or stuffy. Wine list was good although the reds they had by glass don't seem (to my palate) to be good pairings for their fish menu.Will totally be back though. Not a cheap place, but you mostly get what you're paying for. Just pick off the menu wisely.…Read More

Had a very satisfying bowl of chilli pork ramen here.The stock was unctuos and thick, full of umami. Very tasty broth. You can choose thin or thick noodles. I had the thick ones, which were nice. Al dente, which a bit of bite.The prices might seem high compared to some cheap places, but it is also very generous with quality ingredients.The char siu pork slices were average. Could have been a bit more barbecued.I'd happily come back here when I get a craving got pork ramen.…Read More