Category Archives: Food

Vasco restaurant review – everyday I’m truffling…

Posted on November 24, 2014 | 5 comments

*UPDATE: Vasco, and its sister restaurant Isono, are now closed*

How do you make a fancy restaurant even fancier? With liberal sprinklings of truffle, of course!

Vasco in PMQ is the even more sophisticated upstairs sister of Isono Eatery & Bar, essentially taking many of that restaurant’s key elements and polishing them up into pure Michelin-bait refinement.

So we have the same interior designer Joyce Wang, except this time the exposed metals and marble surfaces are just that bit more luxe – a long dining room with plush banquette sofas and a striking circular dining room at its centre, with something of a train carriage vibe about it (we’re obviously talking first-class train carriages a la 2046 or Snowpiercer rather than the First Great Western to Slough).

Likewise, it’s the same head chef as Isono – Paolo Cassagrande from Michelin-starred restaurant Lasarte – but rather than a menu of rustic Mediterranean favourites, Vasco’s dishes are all about creative culinary flair with knowing nods towards Basque cooking. At high-end eateries like this, I always think you should try the degustation, a menu specifically designed to take you on a journey that showcases the restaurant’s raison d’etre… so that’s exactly what we did with their seasonal three-course white truffle menu.

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Tagged Basque cuisine, best restaurants Central, best restaurants in PMQ, best restaurants Sheung Wan, best restaurants Soho, contemporary fine dining Hong Kong, Drawing Room Concepts, fine dining, fine dining Hong Kong, fine dining restaurants Central, fine dining restaurants Sheung Wan, fine dining restaurants Soho, high-end restaurants Hong Kong, Modern European, Modern European cuisine Hong Kong, Modern European restaurants Hong Kong, Paolo Casagrande, PMQ, review, Tony Cheng, Vasco, Vasco Hong Kong, where to eat in Central, where to eat in PMQ, where to eat in Sheung Wan, where to eat in Soho

Gaucho restaurant review – don’t cry for me Argentina!

Posted on November 11, 2014 | Leave a comment

*UPDATE: Gaucho Hong Kong has now closed*

There’s something of a Brit invasion going on in Hong Kong’s restaurant scene right now – Gordon Ramsay’s Bread Street Kitchen, Jason Atherton’s Aberdeen Street Social, Tom Aikens at The Pawn, even Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s Italian. Well, here’s another one, except it’s not a famous chef but a famous restaurant – London’s award-winning Argentinian steakhouse, Gaucho.

Brought over to Hong Kong by Dining Concepts (yep, them again – importers of Ramsay, Laurent Tourondel, Michael White et al), Gaucho takes over the space of another of the group’s steakhouses, Mario Batalli’s Carnevino, at a super convenient location in LHT Tower next to Central MTR.

The space is unashamedly masculine, but in an almost metrosexual way – think sleek black surfaces, shiny mirrored accents and aeons of cow hide everywhere (I dare you to resist stroking it).

In case you’re wondering what makes an Argentinian steakhouse Argentinian, it’s that the cows are from Argentina… simple as that (and sadly not that they’re doing Argentine Tangos amidst the pampas; don’t worry, they’re free-range and fed on 17 types of pesticide-free grass in the most luscious grasslands in the world, so they’re probably not too bothered about missing their chance for Strictly Come Dancing fame). Elsewhere, the menu features further Argentine accents in the form of cooking techniques (hola open-fire asado grills), ingredients (hola chorizo and dulce de leche) and dishes (hola ceviche and empanadas).

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Tagged Argentinian, best desserts Hong Kong, Central, ceviche Hong Kong, chimichurri, chorizo, Dining Concepts Hong Kong, dulce de leche, empanadas Hong Kong, fine dining Central, fine dining Hong Kong, Gaucho, Gaucho HK, Gaucho Hong Kong, Lan Kwai Fong, LHT Tower, LKF, review, steak Hong Kong, steakhouses Central, steakhouses Hong Kong, where to eat in Central, where to get empanadas Hong Kong

Rummin’ Tings restaurant review – love that ting you do

Posted on October 30, 2014 | Leave a comment

“Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme! Get on up, it’s bobsled time!”

Me shoehorning this Cool Runnings reference into a review isn’t a sign that Hong Kong’s first bobsled-themed restaurant has opened (alas!), but that its first Caribbean-Jamaican themed bar and restaurant has arrived instead – Rummin’ Tings in Central. OK, it’s a pretty tenuous connection, but what piece of writing wasn’t improved with a spurious Cool Runnings reference, eh? (And it’s about the only thing I can say with a passable Jamaican accent.)

Located by the escalator on Hollywood Road, Rummin’ Tings has some legit cool credentials behind it; it’s founded by two sets of brothers, Harsh and Rohit Roopchand (who brought NYC it-resto Fatty Crab to HK) and Manoj and Manesh Chelleram (the hip party and event planners behind The Edge), whilst its gorgeous beach shack-style décor is courtesy of Candace Campos (whose similarly inspired interiors can be found at Fatty Crab, BEP and Tate).

As you know, I don’t drink, so Rummin’ Tings “yo ho ho and a bottle of rum” sensibilities are rather lost on me. What I can get behind, however, is some bang tidy Caribbean street food servings that are way superior to most bar bites in town. The portions are designed for sharing – small but not ant-sized and reasonably priced too – meaning you can get your fair share of different tings to try without breaking either the bank or your gut in the process.

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Tagged best bars for rum Hong Kong, best bars in Central, best carrot cake Hong Kong, best ribs Hong Kong, Caribbean bar Hong Kong, Caribbean cuisine Hong Kong, Caribbean food Hong Kong, Harsh and Rohit Roopchand, Hollywood Road, Jamaican bar Hong Kong, Jamaican cuisine Hong Kong, jerk chicken Hong Kong, Kris Olbrich, Manoj and Manesh Chelleram, review, Rummin' Tings, Rummin' Tings HK, Rummin' Tings Hong Kong, Trinidadian cuisine Hong Kong, where to eat in Central

Dessert of the day: let’s twist again… the Churros Twist, that is!

Posted on October 23, 2014 | 1 comment

UPDATE: Churros Twist is now closed.

Time for another trip down dessert lane – and this time it’s by way of Spain and Australia (errr… the scenic route?) with Churros Twist.

Churros Twist is a small takeaway dessert shop in Wan Chai that offers freshly-cooked Spanish churros paired with Australian frozen yoghurt or vanilla soft-serve ice-cream, which is then sprinkled and drizzled with toppings and sauces of your choice. Since churros are not only desserts but deep-fried desserts, you can see why a trip here was nothing short of a necessity.

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Tagged Causeway Bay, churros HK, churros Hong Kong, Churros Twist, Churros Twist HK, Churros Twist Hong Kong, dessert, dessert hong kong, fro-yo hk, fro-yo hong kong, frozen yoghurt, frozen yoghurt Hong Kong, review, soft-serve ice-cream, soft-serve ice-cream Hong Kong, takeaway dessert shop Hong Kong, takeaway dessert shop Wan Chai, Wan Chai, where to buy churros Hong Kong

Dazzling Café restaurant review – the toast of the town

Posted on October 13, 2014 | Leave a comment

You learn something new every day… and in the case of the day where Mirander and I visited Dazzling Café, it was how to eat a piece of the toast the size of your face.

Giant bricks of toast filled with yet more baby cubes of toast sound like a strange carb-loaded monster from Dr Atkins’ worst nightmares, but these bread-head desserts have become a bona fide “thing” in Hong Kong, alongside the recent influx of cutesy Taiwanese cafés with queues almost as long at the restaurants’ daily bread orders.

Dazzling Café – the latest Taiwanese café import to hit Hong Kong, hot on the heels of Coffee Alley and Teawood except with a much cushier location in Tsim Sha Tsui’s The One mall – definitely delivers on the cute factor. Eggshell blue walls, chairs with bunny ears, waitresses dressed as French maids, a logo featuring lace, baby pink AND pearls… it all feels like you’ve entered a real-life doll’s house.

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Tagged best cafes Hong Kong, best cafes Tsim Sha Tsui, best desserts Tsim Sha Tsui, best honey toast Hong Kong, Dazzling Cafe, Dazzling Cafe HK, Dazzling Cafe Hong Kong, dessert, dessert hong kong, honey toast, review, Taiwanese cafes Hong Kong, The One, upstairs cafe Hong Kong, waffles, where to eat honey toast Hong Kong

Bread Street Kitchen & Bar restaurant review – Gordon Ramsay hits Hong Kong

Posted on September 23, 2014 | 3 comments

In case you’ve been hiding under a rock (in which case I’d quite like to join you, as I’m sick of seeing his face all over my social media!), Brit celeb chef Gordon Ramsay has opened his first restaurant in Hong Kong – Bread Street Kitchen & Bar in Central.

I’m not going to bore you with comparisons to fellow Brit celeb chef Jamie Oliver, as with the recent opening of Hong Kong’s first Jamie’s Italian restaurant, nearly every other publication is doing that for you. If you know your TV chefs, you should already be well aware that the two are very different propositions – both as TV personalities and as chefs – and that Bread Street Kitchen was always going to be a somewhat fancier affair than the much more casual Jamie’s Italian chain.

Ramsay’s cuisine has been brought over to Hong Kong thanks to restaurant group behemoth Dining Concepts, who have form transporting famous chef eateries to our shores with the likes of Laurent Tourondel’s BLT Burger, Mario Batali’s Lupa, Will Meyrick’s Mama San and Michael White’s Al Molo. They’ve also managed to transplant Bread Street Kitchen’s original London décor almost exactly to Hong Kong – that curiously anonymous blend of “vintage and modern” which feels like it was dreamed up by a committee. Think a bustling brasserie vibe with tiled floors, leather banquettes and clusters of antique-style lamps in the massive space formerly occupied by LKF ice bar favourite, Balalaika.

Ramsay won’t actually be cooking here himself (does he ever anywhere these days?!) so sadly, you won’t be getting your scallops with a side order of swearwords. Instead, the cuisine at Bread Street is posh British gastropub fare, with a menu that’s currently near identical to London’s – and having checked said menu, the Hong Kong prices are pretty spot on too.

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Tagged best British restaurants Hong Kong, best restaurants Lan Kwai Fong, Bread Street Kitchen & Bar, Bread Street Kitchen & Bar Hong Kong, Bread Street Kitchen Hong Kong, British cuisine Central, British cuisine Hong Kong, British restaurants Central, British restaurants Hong Kong, Dining Concepts, gastropub Hong Kong, Gordon Ramsay, Gordon Ramsay Hong Kong, Gordon Ramsay restaurant Hong Kong, LKF, review, shepherd's pie Hong Kong, where to eat in Central, where to eat in Lan Kwai Fong

Isono Eatery & Bar restaurant review – casual Mediterranean glamour at PMQ

Posted on September 17, 2014 | Leave a comment

*UPDATE: Isono has now closed*

Isono – on paper, it looks like the results of a particularly unproductive Countdown round (especially when combined with its location, PMQ). In reality, it’s the latest restaurant from Tony Cheng’s Drawing Room Concepts, the brains behind places as varied as AMMO (Italian), Hainan Shaoye (Singaporean) and Made In HK (do I really have to tell you?). This time round, the cuisine is casual Mediterranean with a slight tapas slant, the chef the esteemed Paolo Casagrande of two Michelin-starred Restaurante Lasarte in Barcelona, and the interiors courtesy of the acclaimed Joyce Wang.

Casagrande has saved most of the culinary fireworks for Isono’s sister restaurant upstairs, Vasco, which is more of a fancy fine-dining kind of joint. Instead, Isono’s menu is full of familiar European classics – charcuterie platters, paella, pasta – the kind that make us start happily reminiscing about that great cod stew in the Basque/those delicious rillettes in South France/the best carbonara ever in Rome that we once enjoyed.

That being said, it’s unlikely that any of those happy foodie memories played out in an environment quite as majestic as Isono’s. Wang’s interiors always bring a sense of cinematic grandeur to proceedings (literally – there’s a black and white film screened on loop on the wall here); with its copper surfaces, intricate metal structures and exposed bulb lighting, it has an almost steampunk vibe. Classy steampunk mind, not any of that Sucker Punch nonsense.

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Tagged best restaurants in Central, best restaurants in HK, best restaurants PMQ, best tapas Hong Kong, Drawing Room Concepts, fine dining Hong Kong, Isono, Isono Eatery & Bar, Isono HK, Isono Hong Kong, Joyce Wang, Mediterranean cuisine Hong Kong, Mediterranean restaurants Hong Kong, Paolo Casagrande, PMQ, review, Spanish cuisine Hong Kong, Spanish restaurants Central, Spanish restaurants Hong Kong, tapas, tapas restaurants Central, tapas restaurants Hong Kong, Tony Cheng, Vasco, where to eat in Central, where to eat in PMQ, where to eat in Soho

Summer ice-creams at The Lounge, Four Seasons Hong Kong review – live in dreams, sundae girl

Posted on September 8, 2014 | Leave a comment

I have never needed an excuse to eat ice-cream… but if you’re the kind of person that does, then consider this:

a) Hong Kong’s hot and humid weather means that ice-cream is just the kind of delicious cool-down that the doctor ordered

b) If it isn’t hot and humid, then there’s most probably a torrential thunderstorm – in which case, ice-cream is the perfect rainy day pick-me-up instead!

However, not all ice-creams are created equal and sometimes a 99 from Mr Whippy just doesn’t cut the soft-serve. Instead, may I present you with the King Of The Sundaes, the Gelato VIP – Chef Ringo Chan of the Four Seasons Hong Kong, who has created some of the most beautiful, creative and downright delicious ice-creams I’ve ever had the pleasure of getting brain-freeze from.

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Tagged best desserts Hong Kong, best ice-cream Hong Kong, dessert, dessert hong kong, fine dining Hong Kong, Four Seasons Hong Kong, Four Seasons Hong Kong ice-cream, Four Seasons Hong Kong Summer 2014, Four Seasons Hong Kong sundaes, gelato Hong Kong, ice-cream Hong Kong, restaurant, review, The Lounge, where to eat in Central, where to eat in IFC

ATUM Desserant restaurant review – getting our just desserts

Posted on August 21, 2014 | 3 comments

Some days, I just have dessert for lunch (#sorrynotsorry). So if you’re as unhealthy as me and believe dessert is good enough to be a meal in itself, then ATUM Desserant might be your next sugar rush enabler.

Nestled on the 16^th floor of a newly built commercial building in Causeway Bay, ATUM Desserant isn’t exactly the kind of location you just stumble upon – these are destination desserts, people! It’s basically a dessert bar set-up; although there are a couple of separate tables, most of the seats are arranged around the open kitchen, so you can watch the action table-side. And forget your humble Spotted Dick or sticky toffee pudding – this is some space-age dessert wizardry… Think The Jetsons crossed with Harry Potter by way of Heston Blumenthal and you’re somewhere in the right galaxy.

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Tagged Atum Desserant, Atum Desserant Hong Kong, Atum HK, Atum Hong Kong, best desserts Hong Kong, best restaurants in Causeway Bay, Causeway Bay, dessert, dessert bar Hong Kong, dessert hong kong, fine dining Hong Kong, molecular gastronomy Hong Kong, restaurant, review, where to eat in Causeway Bay

Chez Patrick Deli restaurant review – a French favourite

Posted on August 4, 2014 | 3 comments

*UPDATE: Chez Patrick Deli is now closed*

Fancy food ain’t exactly hard to come by in Hong Kong. Dim sum sprinkled with truffles, degustation menus surrounded by artwork worth millions, long queues for small sharing plates… forget never being five metres away from a rat, you’re probably never five metres from a dish involving foie gras here either! But whilst this food is usually delicious, these restaurants aren’t exactly where you’re going to be stacking up many Frequent Flier miles – yes, they’re great for a special occasion or treat, but they’re unlikely to become your regular week-after-week mainstays either.

Which is where somewhere like Chez Patrick Deli comes in. This casual bistro spin-off from French fine dining restaurant Chez Patrick serves up rustic, traditional Gallic favourites at not wallet-busting prices… And sometimes not wallet-busting is exactly what the bank manager ordered!