empyrion's Profile

New restaurant concept from Swire Hotels to generate revenue from the space formerly occupied by the now-defunct private club’s Hoi Polloi restaurant (the old name meant “unwashed masses”, perhaps too on the nose for a club, so this new place has a more PALATEable name). Bottom line: the food is pretty good and the vibe is relaxing, but there are some kinks that might have benefited from a longer soft opening. The concept for lunch involves 188 for “two small/sweet plates and one large plate”, or 238 for three and one. I opted for the 238. The small plates all come out together with the bread whether they are hot or cold, and you’re faced with deciding whether to let the hot plates cool, or the cool plates warm. The large plate (actually, medium) follows quickly and the small plates concept becomes a buffet concept. Also, the staff will randomly take away your cutlery when clearing individual plates, so watch for that. Anyway, the food. I would guess that the kitchen team from the dearly departed Mr and Mrs Fox is responsible, as the quality is quite high and the plating is attractive. The style matches. French Onion Soup. Piping hot with deep beefy flavour and delicious cheese bread. However, I crunched down on a piece of hard oxtail cartilege (see photos) - this is a soup not a stew! The bread is also a bit huge for the soup size. Beef tartare. Crispy sourdough slices, quail yolk, and well chopped steak. Very good, would suggest dialing back on the pickles a bit so that the beef shines through more. Garlic butter snails. Don’t advertise garlic butter when you don’t deliver garlic butter - these aren’t the traditional French escargots. These are grilled pesto snails which are fine, albeit lukewarm. Crab and Zucchini pasta. The size of the plate is deceivingly small, but the portion is ideal for lunch. Generous with the jumbo lump crab and spiced just right with chili, not detracting from the crab at all, and with texture contrast from the zucchini. I enjoyed it a lot. There were however bits of hard crab shell and sand…a running theme I see. Service is polite but functional, which is inevitable as we transition into a fully QR code restaurant scene to match the Chinese Mainland. Lastly, a bit odd that the total bill was $261.80 but I was made to pay $262. I know it’s just 20 cents, but it’s always jarring when the bill doesn’t match the payment screen. Overall, the pricing for the food and experience is not expensive, but it’s certainly premium. I hope the kinks will be ironed out soon. …Read More

Chatterbox Cafe bills itself as the originator of Mandarin Chicken (also known as Hainan Chicken). If this is true, I am glad that many other restaurants have since improved greatly on the dish. We ordered the Mandarin Chicken, the Scallop Laksa, the seasonal vegetable, and a Milo Dinosaur. The vegetable and the drink are normal. The Mandarin Chicken was a disappointment. It is obvious the Chicken was brought out from the freezer as the meat wasn’t springy at all. The portion served was also quite small for ~$120. The rice and the sweet soy sauce were quite good. The Laksa’s flavour was decent but the amount of soup was so little. Most of the noodles and “seafood” were above water. I say “seafood” because aside from the three small scallops, the rest were just bean curd and fish cake. You are likely going to run out of soup before you run out of noodles- they might have wanted to highlight the bowl design (see photo). It cost $150. I suspect the chefs at the original Chatterbox did not travel to HK to open the new store. They might have just sent the recipes over: it is a pity. I would not recommend lining up. The ceiling is quite low and the noise level is average. …Read More

話說四點鐘想食下午茶，走過這裡看見得意點知叫的煙三文魚芥末蛋薄餅 （$88）貨不對辦得離譜 （見附圖）味道...一般吧？全熟雞蛋與全熟三文魚嘛。餐湯有點水，柚子梳打還算好環境最好，較寧靜。…Read More

Solo dining at 8:45 pm on a Thursday1. Ask for hot water --> bring cold water2. Order beef carpaccio --> beef is tasteless3. Order buffalo mozzarella risotto --> wait 30-40 minutes, get mushroom risotto. Waiter was unable to identify what risotto it was and the manager had to come over and tell the waiter it was mushroom. Then he had to check the order record before offering to replace. Cue more waiting. I understand it is a new restaurant, but at $100~ for an appetizer and $160+ for a pasta, with the place mostly empty, you really don't expect this level of service. Also, the place is decorated with a lot of hard wood so it was quite noisy even with not many people there. On weekends I imagine it would be quite deafening indeed.…Read More

Possibly the best Modern Japanese food I've had in Hong Kong, and possibly the worst trained waitstaff I've experienced (at least at this price point).First, the food.  Simply outstanding - the only issues were probably not the fault of the kitchen, but I'll get to that later.We had a party of 4 and ordered sets.  We also had a small bottle (300ml) of ginjo namasake:1. Sushi set (1280) x22. Teppanyaki set (880) 3. Teppanyaki set (1080)AppetizerA delicate pot of sesame tofu and abalone with some morels at the bottom coated in some sort of jelly.  This was very refreshing and had just the right amount of bite to the abalone.SaladThe two teppanyaki sets had salad - one was a mushroom and spinach salad (which wasn't really a spinach salad as it only had one spinach leaf) and a salad with onsen egg.  Both were delicious.Cooked DishesThere was a slow cooked pork which was unbelievably tender with lots of fat (part of the sushi set).  It came with a thick slice of daikon which was so full of juice it must have been cooked for hours.  My Set had a whole cooked abalone which had lots of "modern" garnishes which just worked.  The other Teppanyaki set had a seared scallop which was a bit gimmicky with a crackling fire underneath.  Still, it was cooked perfectly and came in a salted seaweed soup with salmon roe floating in it.  It was a great touch and complemented the unseasoned scallop very well.  Another was king crab legs cooked in a plastic bag.  Due to waitstaff problems it was overcooked.Sushi and SashimiWe didn't have the fancy modern sushi on the a la carte menu, so there's not much to write about the sushi/sashimi.  Great temperature, rice kneaded together just right and at room temperature, fresh fish, etc.  Teppanyaki beefOther restaurants could definitely learn from this place.  No idea how they managed to pack the thin sliced beef rolls so tightly with dried sakura shrimp / burdock root (880 and 1080 set respectively).  The thick cut beef was also very good by itself and with the sauce.RiceCould be hotter given that it was teppanyaki, but I guess ferrying it from the teppanyaki area to our table took a while.DessertTheir modern take on tiramisu (white sesame) was very nice.  It didn't have the chocolate powder that one always chokes on.  The green tea panna cotta was a surprise - didn't expect the very intense macha flavor.  Possibly a bit too big though.Verdict: Outstanding, A++, would eat again, and I didn't think I'd ever say this about a $1000 per head restaurant, but the food is WELL worth the money.  90% of what you might call gimmicks on traditional Japanese food do work great, and I'm looking forward to returning to try the designer sushi at a later date.Can the restaurant do no wrong?  ....SERVICEA list of the errors I can remember:1. Serving the 4th course of the 880 teppanyaki menu (the wonderful scallop) before ANYTHING else, and placing it in the middle of the table.  2. Serving ONE salad next, and when we asked the waiter whose salad it was, he couldn't identify the salad.  He called the manager and they flipped through the set menu for a while, and then finally they gave up and took back the salad.  They apparently went back to the kitchen to ask the chef what kind of salad it was, and finally told us it was the mushroom and spinach salad.  This is why you should put more than one spinach leaf on the salad, because the waiter and manager won't be able to identify what it is otherwise.3. Constantly placing dishes in the middle of the table even though the waiter asked us in the beginning if we were sharing, and we said no.4. Serving both seafood courses in the 1080 teppanyaki menu (the abalone and the crab legs) at the same time.  This is why the crab legs were severely overcooked, because they kept simmering in their plastic bag.5. Serving new courses when dinnerware from previous courses still on the table.6. Noticeable crack in the bowl used for the green tea pannacotta.  etc, etc.I wouldn't mind this level of service if I were eating at a hawker market somewhere, at a cooked food stall on top of a wet market, or even at Japanese restaurants in Kowloon City.  But at a restaurant fronted by one of the biggest names on the HK dining scene, in one of the hottest new properties in Causeway Bay?  A severe disappointment and it is a testament to the quality of the kitchen that the food shone through at all.  Verdict on service: Please send all staff, including the manager who should know his own menu better, back to training.…Read More

I knew it would be a bad idea when I walked in on a Sunday 1 pm and the restaurant was completely empty. But I was hungry and in the mood for a nice lunch. I had visited the place before a few times on working days, and those times were decent. So I figured weekend would be the same. I have never been so wrong before in my life. My main course was the beef short ribs ($228). The menu said slow cooked, but either the beef was extremely old, or their cooking method involves boiling all the moisture out of the meat, slowly and agonizingly. I did try to save it. I asked for more sauce (there were a few desultory drips on the plate) but the waiter said they had no sauce left. Errr okay. They had mustard which didn't help. Hot sauce on tough meat (short rib is supposed to be soft by definition) wasn't any good. I ended up returning most of it to the kitchen. I've almost never done that before. And it made me whip out the phone and write this review, and I haven't written any Openrice reviews in a very long time.  I probably should have taken a picture of the meat.I should mention the waiter gave me a free Tiramisu.Moral: don't come here on weekends.  Weekdays generally good.…Read More

So we had lunch today at Shakey's Pizza in Central. We had 8 people and booked a table beforehand. so far so good.Lunch Sets - AppetizerThe Chicken Wing/Potato option is probably the best choice. Even though the wings are covered in their signature spices, they provide you with their "secret sauce", which we call sour cream. This sour cream blunts the saltiness of the wings and makes it good.The Caesar Salad is OK. Too much sauce, so if you are on a diet, don't order the salad. (If you are on a diet, why are you looking at pizza reviews?)The Potato Salad is OK. Nothing special.Lunch Sets - MainsSince we had 8 people, we ordered 4 pizzas and 4 pastas. Why are there no photos in this review? I have determined with my amateur judgment that it will make no difference at all. All of the pizzas cost the same, and they each offer a salty flavor with a different texture. You have a "choice" of smoked salmon (salty fish), parma ham (salty meat), pepperoni (salty cheese), and Shakey's special (salty cheese).The pastas... same story. Although I must praise the spicy linguine which is within striking distance of being good.ServiceLunch in Central, as any Hong Konger knows, is somewhat fast-paced. People expect to be seated at 1 pm and to be back in the office by 2. With this in mind, it is quite interesting how Shakey's Central believes it can handle the rush with 1 manager and 2 waiters. The situation is exacerbated by the restaurant cramming as many tables as possible into their space. The 4-person table next to our 8-person table was literally less than a foot away.To make things worse, the workers try to compensate for their numbers, by injecting copious amounts of sarcasm. For example, if you politely ask a passing waiter (assuming you are lucky enough to have them actually patrol near your table) for water, they will ignore you. If you repeat your request, they will sneer and say they heard you the first time. You will then have to wait another 10 or so minutes for them to refill your glasses, which have already been sitting quite empty for 10 minutes. Because you drained them after eating the salty food.The lunch sets include a standard drink (coke, sprite, lemon water, etc). We tried to order this at the beginning. The waiter informed us he would be right back to write down our choices. The appetizers arrived and were eaten. We asked the waiter again if we could have our standard drinks. The pastas came. We ate the pastas and drained our water glasses. The pizzas came. After half the pizzas were demolished, the waiter came to take our orders for the standard drinks. Are you serious? A couple of us stayed past 2 pm because we were meeting friends who worked in Central. As expected, most of the tables emptied slightly before 2. A waiter walked over and slapped the check on our table to make us leave faster.Positive pointsThe place has big windows. There is 3G service.…Read More

日本的拉麵店，大多數很細小。 一個店鋪可能只有一排座位，但通常不會感到狹小。 這是因為日本的人機工程設計往往做的很好，雖然空間不多，但吃得挺舒服。香港的秀拉麵嗎？ 狹小這方面做得不錯。 空間感？有待改進吧。---一間拉麵鋪的『鎮店之寶』非它的湯底莫屬。 拉麵的湯底基本上要有獨特的味道，濃厚而不肥膩。很可惜的是，秀拉麵湯底喝下去，滿口油膩，雖然味道不差，但本人對$85一碗的拉麵有相當高的要求。順帶一說，秀拉麵用的麵身有個性，並非傳統的拉麵。我們這次一行五個人，試了該店全四種拉麵，分別是紅，白，黑秀，還有博多元祖拉麵。看看你能分出哪個是哪個嗎？ 其實，紅秀和黑秀，只不過是加了『顏色』的白秀而已。叫了紅秀的朋友，想吃『少辣』，但店鋪給了他『大辣』...---餃子。劣。餃子皮裡面有肉，也有空氣。空氣越多，該店的邊際利潤『Profit Margin』越高。 這一碟餃子的肉應該不會超出兩茶匙吧。-----服務很好。 伙計很樂意幫忙，還為我們填寫餐單。歡迎的 いらっしゃいませ 很端正。-----如果一碗拉麵$50的話，但這個價錢，這等空間，很差。…Read More

IntroductionThe Mirror Restaurant is ensconced in a small space in a commercial building halfway between the Causeway Bay MTR and the Wanchai MTR stations. The decor is modern. A curtain of forks and spoons provides the centerpiece of the single room, while the best-lit section is the open kitchen. Music is slightly loud. The acoustics of the room are slightly grating. Hard surfaces all around mean conversations unduly resonate, and if one or more tables has had too much to drink, it can become rather noisy.Most of us chose the 6 course degustation menu (898). Corkage was $150 per bottle.Note: Mirror uses a lot of truffle. Nothing inherently wrong with use of truffles, but to this reviewer, it's a lazy way of making a dish more fragrant with minimal effort.ServiceWe had a large group of more than 8; our meal definitely tested the co-ordination of the staff, since simultaneous serving of each course is expected at this price point. On this point, Mirror definitely passed, although the gap between the soup and the main course was more than 30 minutes. This was not the fault of Mirror, but possibly the fault of one of the sous-chefs. I observed the head chef yelling at the unfortunate sous-chef, calling him "stupid" and that it was "not funny". One of the perils of an open kitchen, I suppose. The poor guy looked like he was going to cry.In general, the staff avoids the common problem of high-end restaurants in Hong Kong, where the food is of high quality, but the service is of Mongkok quality. Here, the staff were quick to respond to every signal, and they knew how to pour wine, a sadly rare skill in Hong Kong.AppetizersThe bread and butter were very good (no pictures)Our degustation menu featured three appetizers.Scallop Mousse with CaviarBland. The menu indicated that the sauce was lemon, but wasn't particularly noticeable, certainly not enough to provide a lift to the mousse. The caviar was nothing special.Scrambled Eggs with Too Much TruffleI changed to this from the original lobster salad on the menu. Very boring. It had one flavor. Egg and truffle. There is a point when the flavor of the truffle overpowers the fragrance. This appetizer reached that point.Foie Gras with Applesauce and ToastBetter. The raw materials were excellent - the liver was superbly creamy without any tendons. The apples were fresh and balanced the fat well. The only criticism is that the toast was soggy, and the chef could have made the skin of the foie gras more crispy.Crayfish in pea sauceNo pictures, a friend at the same table had this and did not like it. She said the crayfish looked like maggots in their presentation. I tried one and found it overcooked, and devoid of any flavor since the pea sauce overpowered it.SoupVegetable VelouteGiven that the waiter would pour the soup, it is a good sign that the kitchen spent effort on the presentation that I would only see for a few seconds.This was the best dish in terms of flavor. The slowly melting cheese gradually changed the taste of the soup as I drank it, but the cheese never became overpowering. There was some additional spices that I couldn't identify.MainsBeef cheek Sous-videAdmittedly, not a hard dish to mess up, but this was done very well. The meat was practically soft enough to cut with a spoon, and perfectly supported by the two sauces. The caramelized vegetables were a nice surprise - they provided a good lift.Soft-shell crab with risottoI tried the risotto off the plate of the friend sitting next to me. Putting Japanese crab roe on top of risotto was an inspired touch - the crab roe was very, very fresh and provided a texture that one would not normally find in risotto.Salmon Dish (replacing sea-bass)A friend had this and gave it two thumbs down.DessertCrepes SuzetteI get what they're trying to achieve with this. Crepes Suzette is often presented swimming in syrup and very heavy; they tried to use small portions so it would be lighter, and to balance it with sour blood oranges, crystallized peel, and chocolate mousse. The problem is, although the syrup problem is gone, the pancakes were still pretty soggy.Note: the chocolate mousse was misspelt as chocolate mouse on the menu. Minor error, but unprofessional.Tea and etcGood. Very hot tea and very hot milk. No petit fours, but there were damp java cakes that were as heavy as bricks.ConclusionHard to rate. There were high points and there were low points. I give the restaurant an OK because I expect more for my money and my time. Different standards apply to e.g. Chui Wah vs Robuchon.If you are looking for good solid French food, I would recommend Le Marron in Causeway Bay - much wider menu but great consistent quality, half the price, and much easier booking.…Read More

Set lunch: Ham with Autumn SaladPumpkin Ravioli($330)Honey Vanilla Cheese Cake.(+$60)好得。Excellent.The theme of my fantastic lunch is "balance". All three courses featured interesting flavors or textures which by themselves threaten to overpower you, but are swiftly brought back in line by the other components of the dish.I wasn't planning on writing a review, so there is only a photo of the dessert.Ham with Autumn SaladThe ham is some Spanish ham, not Iberico. Slightly damp and by itself, salty.The salad contains a profusion of ingredients which I assume are seasonal, including quite a few fungi/mushrooms, leaves, nuts, and other shavings that I didn't quite recognize. By themselves, a hopeless jumble that is soggy and crunchy.But when you take the ham with the salad, you find that the meat provides a solid foundation. Leaves are no longer bitter, fungi is no longer overpowering, the nuts are not as noticeable, and the ham is no longer just salty. I wish I could explain further but it just ...works.Pumpkin RavioliWhen I saw the subheading for this item in the set menu I was worried. "Butter and Parmesan". Wouldn't that make a super heavy pasta? Pumpkin is not known to be a light vegetable. The way the chef prepared the pumpkin was to beat it almost into a cream. I didn't notice the parmesan, but the butter made the pumpkin very smooth and yes, heavy. But when I started to find the pasta weighing down my tongue, some surprise herb (mint? not quite) emerged from the dish and uplifted the texture. It was gone in an instant, but it achieves the effect of making the ravioli creamy but not heavy.The portion is good.Honey Vanilla Cheese Cake with berry compote and mandarin sorbetAnother dazzler. The sorbet and berry compote were very sour. The cheese cake was solid and mildly sweet. If you are the type of person who eats their dessert part by part, this is a failure. But if you take the parts together, wow. There is that balance again - the cheese cake is the bass supporting the soprano berries and alto sorbet. Excellent value at $60 extra.DownsidesThere are, of course, negative aspects to be found in every restaurant. In Hong Kong, quite often the training of the staff is lacking. Otto e Mezzo is not an exception.While the staff are reasonably diligent in delivering courses, taking away dishes, and pointing you to the bathroom, they are not very attentive to other duties. Refilling water, for example. Also, simply because the wine glasses are large, does not mean you should pour a ton of wine into the glass. You should only pour up to the widest level of the glass at the very maximum. It is interesting how so many waiters fail this test. The staff should also look out for customers raising their hands to call for whatever.ConclusionCompared to the standard of the food though, my misgivings at the service are really quite minor. Do give this new restaurant a go. I might even return in the near future to try their degustation.…Read More

Executive SummaryIf all you care about is great sashimi and great sushi, Sushi Qube is outstanding. But if the dining experience and service are also important to you, then be very careful. The food is not supported by good customer infrastructure. The service should be improved.See pictures below.IntroductionSushi Qube is, as of the time of writing, in its soft opening stage. However, we were not informed of this when we made the reservation, and we went there armed only with an article from Next Magazine and very high expectations.The setting is a curious mix of Japan and Hong Kong. Qube adopts the spare wood decor that many native Japanese restaurants use. The simple placements are meant to focus your attention on the food and on the chefs. At the same time, dark or perhaps intimate lighting adds to the effect. But Qube also uses bright spotlights, which have the opposite effect of accentuating the harshness of the decor.But no matter. The food.Set Menu: $1200We decided to order the same $1200 set menu that was featured in Next Magazine. We were slightly disappointed that the dessert was to be ice cream instead of Japanese Honeydew melon, though.The first two courses were sashimi (fish) and sashimi (shellfish). They were amazing. Possibly the best sashimi I've had in Hong Kong, in all respects: freshness, temperature, texture, taste, and cut.The rest was downhill from there.You're supposed to serve pickles at the end with the rice. Our pickles came after the sashimi and before the sushi. The sushi itself was good, but they served the 4th dish, grilled fish, while we were eating the sushi. Not only were they hurrying us, but by the time we got to the fish (which was grilled very well), it had already become cold. We called the waitress to tell her to go slow. Soon after, the tempura came when we were halfway through the grilled fish. Some manager came over to apologize for the speed, and would we like our miso soup now or later? Uh, too late ma'am, (1) the manager shouldn't have to ask about the miso soup, and (2) soft opening is too late to re-train your staff (more on service later). The tempura was...crap. I'm sorry. Look at the pictures at the end of the review. Contrast the fatty tuna with the tempura, where the batter is so chunky it's like 2 shrimp stuck together. This is obviously not Inagiku. Also, the shrimp used in the tempura was NOT the shrimp used in the sashimi. One of our party also ordered tempura udon on the side. She regretted the choice. Don't make the same mistake.Lastly, the miso soup was very good. Great temperature. Not too much miso. But where was my rice? No rice and no noodles in the set menu, very weird.ServiceSimply put: Paying Caprice level prices ($1200 per set) leads to an expectation that the service will also be of very high quality. Even if it is the soft opening, after I pay the bill, you should not forget to give me back my credit card. I shouldn't have to ask you to go grab it from the machine. I mentioned in the headline that this is low-class service. Let me put it this way. I would be very happy with the same level of service at a family restaurant or a typical HK Japanese restaurant in TST or CWB. You shouldn't make all these common mistakes1) Keep pouring tea the entire meal without changing the cups. This means after the first refill, your tea is permanently warm, never hot.(2) Only take away the used dishes when the next course arrives.(3) Use a white plate with a faint red center for sushi, it looks like the fish is bleeding(4) Bring the courses one after the other without breaks, it feels like you want me to leave asap.ConclusionMake no mistake: The sashimi is top class. I have tried sushi made by Sase in Sapporo (the same guy who was lured to HK this year to open his own ship), and it is comparable. Try the salmon roe at Qube; it is immensely fresh without any saltiness.But the food is severely (but not fatally) undercut by the service. Granted, it is still during the soft opening and there is still some time to get rid of the bad habits. I sincerely hope Qube will train its staff better. It would be a shame to lose a sashimi itamae of this caliber.Also, get a new tempura chef.…Read More

Short Review:Sashimi > Tempura > Cooked food (煮物) > Skewers > Rice Long ReviewEstablished almost forty years, Kotobuki is one of a handful of homely Japanese restaurants along the same street in Tsim Sha Tsui. It's patterned after the ubiquitous neighborhood style restaurants you'd find in back alleys in any city in Japan. Friendly but not pushy, serving homestyle cooking, where patrons sit and chat for hours over a long dinner.We started with sashimi, well worth the price. Shimaaji, salmon, kanpachi, saba (mackerel) and hamachi were all extremely fresh and served at the right temperature - chilled but not icy. The Uni Sushi was a standout; at $30 a pop it is definitely worth a try.Skewers were fine but nothing special; I suspect they were put out for a while, instead of being brought to our table straight after roasting. The opposite was true for the vegetable tempura platter. The tempura was piping hot, and more importantly, filled with vegetable juice. This is very hard to do, especially for carrot or pumpkin; Kotobuki managed this and more. Recommended.We tried some of their cooked dishes - small yams were delicate and tasty, but cooked fatty pork was merely ok. That dish featured a good sauce but the pork was too lean, and had been stewed for too short a time.Like all good Japanese meals, we finished with a rice dish. This time, curry pork cutlets. This was a total disappointment. They didn't use Japanese sticky rice, just normal Chinese rice, but they used far too much water. Combined with the curry, it felt like paste. The cutlets had zero fat, and consequently very tough. And the miso soup had too much miso. That said, this was the low point in an otherwise very pleasant meal.(Place can be noisy. There was unfortunately one drinking party a few tables over which spewed profanity almost constantly)…Read More

Morton's of Chicago is dim. Possibly one of the darkest restaurants in town. Some may find it romantic; your reviewer simply found it difficult to read the menus by flickering candlelight. Morton's does feature waiters who recite the daily specials together with the different cuts of beef you might order, but strangely many of the waiters are not locals and speak English with such a heavy accent as to render them totally unintelligible.But no matter. You visit Morton's for the steaks, and they are excellent.We started off with soup. The lobster bisque is recommended, strong but not overpowering, with just the right amount of cognac accent. Baked onion soup was sub-par, with so much cheese and so little onion that it might as well have been baked cheese soup with the occasional vegetable.The trademark onion bread, however, was delicious. Crispy and warm, although the lack of butter knives was unusual. Side dishes were prepared well. Our Morton's house salad featured extremely crisp greens sprinkled with blue cheese sauce, while the grilled asparagus and sauteed onions were both done just right, shot through evenly with flavor.The steaks. Better than Lawry's (HK), and certainly better than Morton's (CT, USA). My New York strip steak, cooked medium rare, was slightly charred on the outside, but red and full of jus on the inside - a combination managed only by a few steakhouses. Portions are massive, so do take a second look at the "smaller cut" selections offered. Take note that a lot of the cuts are aged for a few weeks, so they are that much more heavy.Like the soups, the desserts were a little hit-and-miss. The Grand Marnier souffle is huge, fluffy and sparkling. The cream deserves a special mention - whipped smooth and shaded with vanilla. But the apple pie was a disappointment, a tiny mushy circle of crust carelessly splattered with a plateful of cooked apple. Morton's, as well as the Steakhouse across the street, serve some of the best steaks in Hong Kong. The Steakhouse can be noisy, and is suitable for a larger party (4+). For smaller groups, especially couples who would do well to request a window seat, Morton's fits the bill nicely.…Read More

Decor - Excellent lighting. Music is a bit loud - OK for 2-4 people, but larger groups might find it difficult to talk. We did notice some private rooms where rich men seemed to be entertaining young ladies with a lot of makeup.The type of Japanese restaurant where waiters yell out your order. Their Japanese is good but it can lead to some problems (see below)Food - Sushi is very fresh, at just the right temperature.Possibly the best robatayaki (skewers) we've had in Hong Kong. The vegetable options deserve praise. Even the more difficult options e.g. green peppers are done very well - full of juice. Eggplant, onion, cherry tomatoes, shiitake were all excellent.The two types of beef (Australian / Japanese Wagyu) are seasoned just right; the meat is high quality. The Wagyu is especially marbled.ServiceExtremely responsive and understanding (at the end we ordered 1 rice and 1 noodle for 4 people and the waitress offered to separate the portions without complaint)Calling out orders out loud can lead to some problems. They have a dual system - when we ordered the Australian Beef Skewer, they made a computer record and also yelled out the order - but they yelled out Japanese Wagyu instead. It caused confusion with the chef as the written order and the yelled order did not match. This was easily corrected, however. The staff understand that robatayaki can be a long meal (ordering skewers one by one) and will serve up hot tea whenever.OtherEither their suppliers had problems or the store is too popular - we started our meal at 8 pm, but many things were out of stock: Sea Urchin (uni), beef tongue, asparagus, pork, spring onion (tamanegi).ConclusionAs noted, very expensive, but the quality is very high. …Read More

SummaryNot worth the price.Decor茶樓. Ample use of glass, concrete and hard woods make the restaurant very noisy. Lighting is minimal, meaning that if you are over 50, remember to bring reading glasses as the menu is printed in very small letters.FoodWe ordered a la carte as the set menu ($320, antipasti / dessert buffet + main course) seemed lacking - nothing special compared to other hotel buffets at the same price point.Starters - The lobster bisque is all right; very flavorful.The parma ham with melon starter is deceiving - only 25% of the ham on the plate is parma; the other kinds are cold cut, salami, and Parknshop ham. There is only enough melon for the parma.Mains - Crispy ham linguini is quite good, with minimal oil. The same cannot be said for almost every other main. Ma Po Tofu is chock full of chili with no other flavor. Ribeye cubes are smothered in a very heavy sauce. Tea-smoked ribs have a good flavor, but the chef seems to have a fascination with salt. Lastly, the Hainan chicken was obviously brought straight from the freezer - the meat collapses in your mouth (not in a good way).Note that the kitchen does not really use MSG, but there is so much salt and spices that the end result is the same - keep drinking water.Desserts - did not order.ServiceLacking. The waitress was not familiar with the menu and kept checking her own copy to see what we were talking about. She was also not familiar with English (despite the menu printed in the language); we had to switch to Cantonese.GeneralGood luck finding the toilets; the wash basins have a very interesting design where you have to, shall we say, stretch your arms far.The take away bag is badly designed. Made of brittle cardboard- suffice it to say that if you do make use of this service, don't hold onto it or it will rip apart.ConclusionCannot justify $300 per person for a dinner.…Read More