Chef from Nadaman. Worked at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. With those credentials, how can one resist.
The restaurant is in a slightly off beat location in Happy Valley. Simple and straight forward to find it. No problem.
On this particular Sunday, we came to this beautiful little restaurant that is not typical of Happy Valley. Very modern Japanese, clean and subdued. Wonderful.
We ordered the $588 lunch Kaiseki. And also a 180ml of cold sake.
Uni, seaweed with Edamamae bean cream. A nice and refreshing start.
Steamed egg custard with foie gras and crab meat. Frankly, we cannot see the foie gras inside but there was a distinct taste of foie gras. Very happy with this simple course.
Sashimi - Nice small samplying. Hirame fin meat, toro and shimaji. Nice touch.
Fried chicken with a yellow mayo. Not bad.
A dumpling in clear soup. The dumpling was wrapped in a piece of cherry blossom leaf, to commemorate the cherry blossom season. Inside, is a piece of fish on top of a rice ball of sticky rice. Very tasty.
Large pot of rice cooked with tiny shrimps. Nice finish.
A funny looking dessert of a fruit syrup on top of a sticky mess of granola. Not my favorite.
They don't serve coffee.
Sake recommended to us was very reasonably priced and adequate for this meal. Not the best but acceptable.
The overall quality of the food was good, because they do use quality ingredients. And the kaiseki, judging from the lunch version, has dishes that were given careful thought to both taste and presentation, befitting of the kaiseki label. The food seems carefully prepared and definitely reminds me of the Nadaman clean execution. Would be nice to know what other sort of dishes he can make which is less formal and may be more fun. This is classical stuff and has its place.
Service was nice and attentive. But then unfortunately we were the only customers there.
The price for the lunch kaiseki set is not that different from that of Nadaman. I prefer to be here because of the more intimate setting. We have booked another return lunch for this month.
The young looking chef is very professional but definitely not snooty. Married to a local Hong Kong girl and they have young kids. I hope they will do well.
Apparently they must have miscalculated, and later to find out kaiseki and at these prices may not enjoy enthusiastic support from the local population at Happy Valley. I really hope they can make it through to some good times.
题外话/补充资料：
Nice wine list. Don't bother to bring your own.
(以上食记乃用户个人意见 , 并不代表OpenRice之观点。)
影片
