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2014-08-04
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First impression? It's BIG HIT! A long queue was can be seen miles away on Tang Lung Street.But luckily I didn't have to wait for hours to dine at the recently opened, long-awaited Jamie's Italian Hong Kong, because I was smart enough to book a table online the moment its Facebook page announced its opening a few days ago.The second thing you can see is the mini-store, with abundance of Jamie's cookbooks, Jamie's pesto, Jamie's tea towels... You get the idea, a Jamie's shrine.Up the escalators,
But luckily I didn't have to wait for hours to dine at the recently opened, long-awaited Jamie's Italian Hong Kong, because I was smart enough to book a table online the moment its Facebook page announced its opening a few days ago.
The second thing you can see is the mini-store, with abundance of Jamie's cookbooks, Jamie's pesto, Jamie's tea towels... You get the idea, a Jamie's shrine. Up the escalators, you will be greeted by a giant mural with an Asian mermaid and a Chinese phrase "Pearl on the island", presumably paying homage to the island city of Hong Kong. Enough with the ado, let's get to the food.
The starters certainly started the meal with a bang.
Sweet mini chili peppers looks like cherry tomatoes but they were much tastier. They were slightly hot and pretty salty, but the sweet balsamic reduction balanced it off nicely. The anchovies and tuna mash inside gave a nice kick, making each mouthfuls exciting. Extremely appetizing. Then comes the cheese croquettes. Think they will be heavy, oily, greasy? Wrong! The fried case outside was crispy. The spinach, Taleggio cheese and potato mash was very light, not cheesy at all. The best part was the basil mayo underneath the fried heavens. It made the whole dish surprisingly refreshing. After the two bangs, expectations became very high going into the mains.
The first main was the "Our famous Prawn Linguini". Maybe because of the flavorful starters, this dish became somewhat blend. The fresh made pasta itself was good, chewy and rich. But the sauce was a bit too runny for me. The cherry tomatoes were very sweet. The prawns were slightly overcooked, hence the heavy shrinking in size. When I ordered this dish, the waitress warned that the pasta would be a bit spicy. It was very kind of her, but spiciness was the furthest flavor I could taste. A disappointment. And then there was the Burger Italiano. It was so big you have to deconstruct it to eat it. The buns were great, soft and buttery, and not soggy at all. The fried onions on the second layer were really good, crispy and full of flavors. The small pieces of bacon were absolutely delightful, very thin, almost pork-sheets-thin. But the main event, the patty, was a downfall. It was too well done, dry and tough. There was zero fat in it and no other stuff was mixed into it, which many burgers do. It's such a shame. It could have been an awesome burger. I particularly like the fact that there was no sauce in the burger. Most burger sauce has the sole function of greasing up the dish. For the chips, there were a few options, I chose the one with fresh garlic and parsley. Again, it had the potential of being a great chips. But there was a fatal mistake on the presentation. The chips served in a cup means that all the lovely chunks of slightly raw garlic all slipped down to the bottom. So those on top were very blend when the great flavors got flushed down. Such a shame. After two slight misses, the desert was a chance of Jamie's Italian to redeem itself. And it did. The Pavlova, served with limoncello-soaked berries and a generous portion of citrusy sauce. The limoncello definitely did the magic. Its sour note greatly balanced the sweet meringue. The meringue itself was not soggy at all, and crumbling.
As Jamie said in an SCMP interview, this restaurant aims at the least-tapped mid-market in Hong Kong, and it did just that. It gives Hong Kong foodies an affordable chance to taste casual Italian cuisine, and of course to make a pilgrimage to the celebrity chef. It was not a perfect meal, but it's still PLATE-LICKING GOOD. Looking forward to trying other dishes on the big menu.
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