22 Ships is located on 22 Ship Street, hence the name I guess. This is my first time to go to Ship Street as prior to this trip, I had not known there was a Ship Street in Hong Kong. Little did I know that this was simply the "other side street" where The Pawn is. This street is shaping up to be an interesting collection of restaurants catering to the expat professional living in Wan Chai, or more specifically, J Residence...

Lots of my gwai lo friends had been here already and were raving about this place. Despite that, I did not come with high expectations, despite the reviews and culinary acclaim of Jason Atherton, as I am not a big fan of traditional Spanish tapas. The good news was that this is not really Spanish tapas at all.

Cheers!

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Although the food and ownership are completely unrelated, I believe 22 Ships will end up on a similar journey as one of my local favourites, Yardbird. I say this because 22 Ships is yet another rare gem in Hong Kong which reminds me of my days in New York or London. Either way, coming here, if I was not to look out the window, the ambience and crowd are squarely "non-Hong Kong" locals meaning few "Cantonese" and certainly no "Mainlanders". Not that I have any "ill feeling" towards either being Chinese myself. What I am trying to depict is the type of "vibe" that 22 Ships carries. And until Yardbird came around, there were no such places I knew of in Hong Kong which exude this kind of vibe. Now, there is a second place. This is probably in part because such "no reservations" and "no service charge" concepts are generally more welcomed by the foreigner.

Scallop Ceviche: Fresh taste with citrus in a classic ceviche setting, scallop always has wonderful texture, a recommended dish.

Tuna Tartare: A+ for presentation and creativity, flavour could be better, not one that I would personally order again given the great amount of better choices at 22 Ships.

Kanpachi: It is "marinated", but basically another ceviche type dish; interesting and will order again any day of the week and twice on Sundays (during summer).

Salt and Pepper Squid

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Salt and Pepper Squid: Basically the best calamari I have had in Hong Kong for a while.

Great ambience aside, the most important quality of any restaurant is the quality of the food. 22 Ships scores well in this regard. Probably not a Michelin star worthy story at this point, but a very solid score across the Taste, Presentation and Good Value criteria. If this were a restaurant in New York, the Food would probably get a solid 24 for Food.

The only thing stopping me from coming back more often is that it is quite crowded and I am not sure I would be eager to wait in the street coming into Winter for a quick meal. That said, I will be back and will recommend 22 Ships to any visitor or local "gwai lo" looking for a casual dining experience which is classy, yet good value, stylish, yet practical.