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2013-01-28
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We, two couples, went to Whisk to celebrate three birthdays; this was not our first time there but our first dinner. Upon arriving, we were shown to a table next to the stairs that lead to the kitchen, and asked right away if we could have a different table—too much kitchen smell, too close to the stairs, and too much traffic from the waiters. The restaurant was not full, and we were accommodated right away, with a table of the same size (rather large for four persons, which was nice), by the ca
While we were handed the menus, the waiter said “The chef has created a set menu especially for you!” We were a bit surprised, and when we asked, he said that, of course, no menu had been created *just for us* but that he was simply trying to recommend the set menu. The actual awkward part was that we asked him if any of the dishes contained poultry, as one of us is allergic to it; the waiter went back to the kitchen to ask, and came back to say that none of the dishes in the menu contained poultry … and he failed to notice that foie gras was part of the set. He did not seem concerned (or embarrassed) about this.
Following this, we asked for the sommelier, to get some advice on which wines would go well with the set menu (which we all decided to have). When we had been to Whisk before, the sommelier was a very knowledgeable and friendly Scotsman, but we were out of luck that evening. The Cantonese waiter’s way of recommending wine was as follows: “Do you like Chablis? [pointing at the wine list] There we have a Chablis. Or do you like Bordeaux? [pointing at the wine list again] Here we have a Bordeaux wine. It contains Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc.” I’m really not sure who needs this kind of recommendations from a sommelier… very disappointing.
We all ordered the set menu (called Voyage, with every dish representing one European country); two of us all seven courses, one six-course set, and I only had five courses. Bread was brought—Whisk has a wonderful bread basket with white rolls, grainy whole wheat sticks, a spikey white bread, and two thin sheets of crispy goodness, plus pink cream cheese, chili butter, and yummy smoked butter. It was a bit odd that we first got one bread basket with two pieces of each bread on one side of the table, and a bit later another basket with one piece of each kind on the other side of the table.
There was an amuse-bouche; a deep yellow soup in an espresso cup: water cress and maroons, supposedly, which it really did not taste like, but it was great in both flavor and texture.
The first course, “Scotland,” was a big disappointment. The oysters were fishy in all three servings, really low quality; the foie gras just some paté squeezed onto the oyster, in the shape of an earth worm. It tasted as bad as it looked. For the non-poultry person among us, it was just the oyster.
The second course was much better. “Germany” had a good-sized portion of *the* perfect beef tartare (chopped! not ground), with dark bread dust and truffle shavings on top, as well as plenty of cute and tasty flowers and some interesting seaweed sponge cake next to it. Extremely tasty, beautiful, and balanced; a wonderful dish.
“Italy” was next: deep fried calamari (nice batter, but it covered the taste of the calamari) with smoked red bell pepper puree, squid ink stains on the plate (it took some effort to scratch them off; they were very dried-on) and some weird puffed rice stuff that had too much chili on it. Overall tasty, though one of us really disliked the dish.
“Spain” was great again: a large prawn with quinoa, an emulsion of milk, and pearls of olive oil. Lots of different tastes and textures that complemented each other wonderfully; the prawn was heavenly.
Then came “Norway”: the mussels were cut up into small pieces and rolled into a cannelloni made of milk (yum!). On top were crumbs of smoked salmon and caramelized red onion, and a dot of very intense lemon sauce. Incredibly tasty, and also well balanced. One of us had barely any mussels in her cannelloni, and had no lemon on top, which we only noticed after we had all finished.
“England” was maybe the oddest dish of them all. The lamb rack was more of a lamb fillet (not that I mind, but it’s rather odd … I only notice this while writing the review and looking at the menu again); a bit bland but a very nice piece of meat and cooked perfectly, still minimally bloody yet extremely tender. It was surrounded by pureed vegetables (carrots I assume—bland and overcooked), tasty mint oil that went well with the puffed sago on the plate, and with the interesting white stuff of which even the waiter was not able to find out what it was (initially, he said something about a particular kind of bean, then went to the kitchen to ask, and then said something completely different which I forgot, but like which it also didn’t taste). There was a stick of tomato jelly (*green* tomatoes was what it tasted like) decorated with flowers and thin slices of bean, and there were two or three sliced of lamb tongue underneath the vegetable puree. All of these were quite tasty, but there were so many different things on the plate that it was rather confusing. Two in our party found this dish extremely bland.
Before “France”, the dessert, arrived, we got a pre-dessert treat: chocolate-covered ice cream, with some curry powder dusted on top. They went really well together (though not everybody in our party agreed with me). We had the last piece after the actual dessert and by then the ice cream inside had gotten a bit softer, which made it much tastier than when it arrived; it was also not rock solid anymore.Dessert: “France” came in a large bowl and was a handful of very nice cake crumbles, some custard (a bit unexciting), two sticks of apple, a snake-shaped piece of apple gum, two somewhat soggy small macarons and a scoop of pear ice cream. The ice cream was the best part of the dish: refreshing, with tiny crunchy bits of pear and a very intense taste. I am not sure why there would be pear ice cream in a dish that’s called “apple tart,” but maybe someone just grabbed the wrong container from the freezer; the waiter told us it was apple ice cream…
With coffee came another dessert: a small dish of crème brulée, a small pile of chocolate-covered hazelnuts, and a tiny lemon pie with a kind of soft meringue on top. All absolutely wonderful, though it was a lot of dessert.And then they brought birthday cake! Which we did not manage to eat that evening; we took it home and had it the next day, and it was delicious. They seemed to have forgotten that we were celebrating *three* birthdays; they put the cake in front of one of us and wished her happy birthday.
Overall, our opinions about the evening were a bit divided. Two of us (including myself) found the food very good, creative, and nicely diverse; we loved the different textures and unexpected combinations. The other two found it too diverse, confusing, and without focus. Except for the oysters, though, the quality of the food was excellent, and except for some not-quite-ripe tomatoes, everything was very flavorful.
We all agreed on the fact that the service really needed some serious improvement. In addition to the sommelier story and the fact that one of the waiters poured way too much wine into two glasses just to finish the bottle, there was an overall lack of knowledge. Also, we sat for a while after we had finished our food and wine and coffee, and found the re-arranging of chairs and tables—preparing for the next day already—quite irritating.
Conclusion: great food, but very expensive; very disappointing service. Lunch was much better value for money.
张贴
