Fofo by el Willy: a (not so) quick lunch

Shop Info:
Fofo by el Willy
中環威靈頓街2-8 號M88, 20樓
http://fofo.hk/home.php

20 December 2011, Lunch
~$290 per head

A (supposedly?) quick lunch with my dear Locust Tunghok on this troubled Tuesday.  The interior of the establishment was mainly light colour, with penguin decoration (both with and without red bow-tie!) signifying the approaching festive season and light colour all around.  With curtain wall on two sides essentially no lighting was needed as the entirety of the dining area was flooded with sunlight.

Unfortunately, the normal (and very reasonably priced, so I've heard) lunch menu was not unavailable and all we got was the $258 + 10% "Christmas and New Year Special Menu".  Fair enough given the day of year this is, but I do hope that more choice can be provided, since there are some items on the normal lunch menu that I wanted to try!

Confit duck leg cannelloni with wild mushrooms & black truffle sauce -- nice!

First to arrive was my confit duck leg cannelloni, dangerously balanced on a mis-sized plate.  Whilst luckily I didn't drop it, it was moving about all the while I was trying to eat it -- not very comforting!  The cannelloni itself though, was very nice.  The truffle sauce actually smelled of truffle (yay!) but I do find it to be more of a puree than a sauce.  Portion was big for a starter.  Add like 50% and it can easily pass for a main!

Traditional Christmas clear soup with "fideos", ham & truffle meatballs -- Not so good...

Unfortunately for Locust Tunghok, this "clear soup" wasn't as good as the cannelloni, and having tried it a bit I would say not by a small margin.  The curiously Chinese-looking clear soup and "fideos" seemed like some kind of 湯米 to me, and the unspecified ham, whilst looking somewhat similar to the Iberico ham they have on the a la carte menu, did not taste of anything like it.  The truffle meatballs... a more suitable name would be meatballs since I couldn't smell / taste the truffle at all.  What's the point actually?  putting truffle in the meatball and thoroughly cooking it would kill the delicate aroma of the truffle IMHO... Didn't like it...

Fresh turbot fillet with "trinxat", cabbage, potatoes, pork belly cake & seafood sauce -- Quite nice!

Not bad!  Frankly I've never tried turbot before and its texture was similar to my favourite "ying chong".  It was well cooked, tender and juicy.  Unfortunately I do feel that the "seafood sauce", whatever that might be, did not add much to the dish.  The "trinxat" (which took me until now to figure out from wikipedia that this actually means "cabbage, potatos & pork belly cake"), on the other hand, was decent even on its own.

Locust Tunghok ordered some "Iberico pork "pluma" with seasonal vegetables, goat cheese & port wine sauce", which I stole a bite.  Whilst the pork looked strangely like beef, it definitely tasted of pork, and the combination with goat cheese took the pork to another level, somewhat balancing the oiliness of the pork and providing added richness.  The cheese itself looked strangely similar to Brie to me, though I'm no cheese expert...

The dessert, however, took forever to arrive, and in the end, turned out to be forgotten.  After some 20 minutes of wait, we decided to ask the waiter where have our desserts gone... and he thought we were asking for the bill...

Anyway, here they are:

 

"Brazo de gitano" Traditional Christmas Spanish dessert (upper) and Christmas ice-cream pudding withi chocolate sauce (lower)

The "Brazo de gitano" was decent, somewhat similar to the chocolate rolls you can get from M&S (I might be mistaken though).  Moist and spongy that was a good dessert.  Did not like the sauce at the bottom though.  Personally I never liked the idea of drizzling berry sauce with chocolaty desserts.  Call me a chocolate purist but I tend to think the sourness of the sauce ruins the richness of the chocolate, especially if it's good chocolate!

The ice-cream pudding was actually some kind of rum-raisin ice-cream, with chocolate sauce on top.  The rum was strong enough to be felt (not too good for a work day!) and the thing was filled with raisins.  So much that I had to ditch half of them...  My favourite part was the biscuit at the bottom though.  Nice and buttery with a bit of crunch.  With ice-cream.  Yum!

A satisfactory and enjoyable lunch overall.  However, I do feel that the staff need to realised that this is Central and this was lunch time.  Some people might need to go back to work.  It is therefore a good idea not to keep the customers waiting (we waited quite a while for our starters to begin with, and needed to ask for our dessert to be served).  I ended up getting back to work quite late... so come on, speed it up!

Summary (rated 1-5)

Food:  (3.5/5)    Some rather nice dishes but not outstandingly good.  Penalized for the under-par "clear soup".

Service:  (4/5)    Missed our dessert and a bit slow in serving dishes.  Otherwise courteous and pleasant.

Environment:  (4/5)    Love the sunlight and penguin décor.  However the place was noisy (not surprised due to double curtain wall, lots of hard surfaces and rather crowded tables... won't be a place to sit and chat but quite comfy for a quick (?) lunch.

Big Locust's Recommendation:  (4/5)    Definitely a place I would like to come again for the normal lunch menu.

Sushi Chika: Simply Horrid

Shop Info:

Sushi Chika / 千賀燒 / Chikayaki

銅鑼灣耀華街3號百樂中心7樓

23 October 2011, Lunch

~$210

A casual lunch on a Sunday with Locust Tunghok.  In short not good but not bad enough to warrant an extended rant.  So a few comments:

1)  What the hell are they actually serving?  The Door says Sushi Chika.  The sign downstairs says Chikayaki, but the first item on the lunch menu is Sushi set... wtf...?

2)  Decor was weird at bast, despite being a comfortable place to sit.  Walls and window blinds were kind of Japanese, or purport to be.  However the tables and chairs are rather western... a strange combination if you ask me...

3)  Staff were rather incompetant.  And rude.  Especially that MK-girl waitress.  Politeness seemed not to exist in her dictionary.  AND she asked us, in Cha Chaan Teng tone, who wanted the coffee and who wanted the ice-cream, despite that the other waitress, who took the order, should have known.  And I heard that MK-girl swearing, loudly.  Now go back to the Cha Chaan Teng where you belong!  wtf...?

Pick-your-sushi set -- 10 pieces including the roll.  $188 + 10%

Eel

One had shell, one not.  If you are gonna remove the shell, go all the way please.  Such lack of care or standard.

4)  Sushi was not fresh.  Salmon Roe was watery.  Maguro was tasteless.  The other sushi we ordered in our pick-your-sushi set tasted pretty much the same, despite being different fishes.  Uni wasn't good either.  Eel tasted OK but from the temperature of the thing it was surely not freshly made -- the question being how long has that been sitting there.  Skill of the chef was questionable as well -- amount of rice varied and for me at least, too small.  Oh did I say the ama ebi fell off... plus the tails were missing whilst bits of shell remained... wtf...?

5)  Wasabi seemed to be grinded instead of toothpaste type, but the bottom of my wasabi mound was mushy... how long have it been sitting there like that?

6)  Miso soup was bland at best.  Gave up half way through.

7)  We should have known that it was not gonna be any good... because on the table was a pack of alcohol wipe for each of us... how Hong Kong style Jap restaurant is that?

8)  They don't seem to wash their spoons properly... the spoon I was given for the ice-cream had sticky orange matter on it... wtf?

9)  None of the staff ever bothered to refill our tea without us asking them to do so... and we were the ONLY TABLE of guests in the restaurant!  WTF???

10)  Finally, the chawanmushi tasted of... yup... M-bloody-SG... a.k.a. 味精 for you.  How much chicken powder did they use in it?  WTF?????

Summary (Rated 1-5)

Food:  (1.5)     Not the worst sushi I've had, but horrid nontheless.

Service:  (1)     The MK-girl waitress made us really quite uncomfortable.  Not proactive in serving at all.  And I heard her swearing, loudly.

Environment:  (3)     

Big Locust's Recommendation:  (1)      Enough said.  AVOID.

 

Mansa Organica: Mind your health...

Shop Info:

Mensa Organica 有機飯堂

銅鑼灣禮頓道95-97號星輝大廈地下B&C鋪

4 October 2011, Dinner

~$250

As my Locust Tunghok went girls dinner with her friends, the poor big locust (i.e. me XD) had to scavenge on the streets of Causeway Bay.  Wandering on Leighton Road I came across this new (?) restaurant called Mensa Organica.  It had no presence on Open Rice then (I think this place has been open for a while though… come on… update your database!) and since its theme of organic Italian cooking looked promising, I decided to give it a try after briefly looking at the menu at the door.

As usual, the suspicion that I was on to (yet) another disastrous mess of a dinner crept in after I was seated, since I realised that I was the only customer in the premise – and the guys sitting at the table next to me were the staff / owners, who were actually discussing business plans, right next to their customer!

Whilst there didn’t seem to be an a la carte menu (wtf?) or a drinks menu (wtf x 2??), the dinner set menu wasn’t bad at all.  With a choice of 2-course or 3-course dinner, 2 starters, 2 appetizers, 5 mains (spaghetti, risotto x 2, fish & steak) and an optional top up for dessert, I’d say it was well sized and should be easily manageable for any competent chef.  So I decided to risk it all and went for the 3-course:  Caesar Salad for starter, “Trio fish tartar” for appetizer and mixed mushroom with truffle risotto for main.

(Apologies for the poor quality of the photos… taken with my iPhone 3Gs… )

The bread.  After a bit of waiting, the waitress served this pathetic piece of tasteless bread on a plate – yes, just like way they do it at Cha Chaan Tengs – and asked whether I want some butter, before handling me the olive oil & vinegar bottle.  Fine.  The bread was actually quite warm, possible freshly reheated in an oven, but any experienced bread-eater can tell with their first bite that this bread was likely a few days old.  With the oven (or possibly microwave oven) reheat it was warm, soggy and mushy inside with a dry shell.  Then the rock solid, freshly cut butter arrived.

I then gave up on the bread.

When the salad arrived I could barely tell that it was a Caesar salad.  The lettuce was roughly chopped (c.f. broken up by hand), the dressing was a vinaigrette (c.f. CAESAR dressing), the white powdery parmesan was basically tasteless and the croutons were small, tasteless cubes which looked rather like those you use to feed fishes.  I don’t think the lettuce was very fresh either.  Horrible.

I have up half way through.

The fish tartar was no salvation.  When it arrived in a small espresso cup I wished that the portion could be bigger, but with the first bite, I felt that the portion was too big.  The trio fish tartar was actually small cubes of salmon and tuna sashimi, the thickness of which strangely resembles those you get from packaged sashimi at Citysuper, and small dry fishes which looked somewhat like 脆脆銀魚s.  There was a sauce which taste I have forgotten.  The taste of the fish, however, was not forgotten, because it was quite fishy – not fresh at all.  It tasted like the fish has not been properly stored, like it has been warm for quite a while, like it has been bought 3 days ago.  

I genuinely feared for my health and bravely gave up on the fish tartar.

The risotto was marginally better.  In fact, the first half of the risotto was OK.  The smell of truffle was faintly detectable, a pleasant surprise since by this time I have given up all hope on the food here.  The risotto itself was only just slightly overcooked, and with the mushroom it was edible.  Until when I was 2/3 through the risotto and came across a very sour piece of mushroom, which I somehow swallowed but almost threw up afterwards.  I gave up on the risotto as well.

By the way, I found it utterly pointless to pile some raw veg that’s obviously not fresh on top of the risotto.

I asked for tea with milk.  Then I wondered what tea they gave me.  Flavour was weak.  Strangely, though, the milk the served with the tea was *quite* warm, which I saw the barista steam with the coffee machine… that’s peculiar.

Conclusion:

Usually $250 is not exactly considered expensive for an Italian dinner.  For this quality, however, even $80 is too much, especially given that I had to put my life at risk eating their food.  Despite their staff being quite friendly and welcoming (albeit a bit clumsy), I will not come again.

If the owner is reading this post, I have an advice for you:  stop thinking about opening new stores or your fancy business plans.  All you’re thinking about what the customers want is WRONG.  The minimum that we want is good food – at least make it fresh!

Summary (Rated 1-5)

Food:  (1)     I’m glad I survived.

Service:  (2.5)     Friendly staff, but quite a confusion asking whether I wanted butter… and I do not appreciate the owner / staff sitting right next to me loudly discussing their business plans when I was having my dinner.  Thank you.

Environment:  (3)     Pleasant enough setting, with strange music – if I remembered correctly, Lacrimosa from Mozart’s Requiem?  WTF?

Big Locust's Recommendation:  (1)      Don’t want to come again.  Thank you.

Aurora: we did expect better (Macau)

Shop Info:

Aurora

Altira Macau

15 October 2011, Lunch

$240 per head

The locusts have decided to go for a weekend trip to Macau to (again) sample some of its restaurants, recruiting two other locusts to join us on the trip.  The first stop -- Aurora @ Altira Macau.  We have seen posts by fellow bloggers praising the food to be worthy of its Michelin 1 star rating, expectations were high.  Unfortunate for us, however, our lunch did not go as smooth as we'd hope for.

To begin with, the staff certainly was courteous and friendly but somewhat lacking in ability (missed my primi piatti!  That’s for later.).  The default language is Putonghua but Cantonese or English was fine as well.  

Bread basket was not particularly outstanding, but OK.

Seeing that we were munching away the grissini... the sommelier / manager (?) got us some more...

Locust Tunghok's Appetizer: Buffalo mozzarella and roman tomato mille-feuille, deep-fried mozzarella and vegetables terrine.

The buffalo mozzarella and Roman tomato mille-feuille was quite nice. very refreshing but I do find the buffalo mozzarella a bit weak in flavour. 

Locust Tunghok's Primi Piatti: Cavatelli pasta with Manila clams and lobster, vine ripe Sicilian cherry tomato and parsley -- only tried a mouthful. Impression was good (couldn't remember any details) but not particular impressive.

My Secondi: Red snapper in saffron broth, sous-vide fennel, basil tomato, squid and mussel. Not bad, but in my opinion nowhere near as good as those at Robuchon a Galera or Amber.

Now of course the fish was different, this being a red snapper and that being a cod, so was the method of cooking. However, as a dish I certainly enjoyed the others more than this one.

The problems: 1) texture was almost rubbery but not really"smooth", 2) I didn't realise there is saffron on the broth until looking at the menu again to type this up, 3) the fish itself tasted a bit... "fishy" (not that fresh? that would be unthinkable at such a restaurant), 4) I couldn't recall eating any squid at all, and 5) somehow I find the the dish to be a collection of unrelated bits -- they just didn't work together for me. I couldn't remember a thing about the fennel, or the mussel. All the flavours somehow didn't "work" into the fish itself, and physically, those bits and pieces in the broth isn't that brilliant an idea, since I ended up having to scoop them up after finishing the fish.

To conclude... need improvement.  (see the texture of the fish on the right... I might go as far as to suggest that it's overcooked?)

Mushroom consomme and truffle ravioli, hazelnut emulsion

My primi piatti -- which came AFTER my secondi. Apparently the waitress who took my order missed this and I had to ask about it to get it back. Their follow up was fine though, getting the dish ready within minutes and served after seeing my finishing the fish.

Couldn't quite taste the hazelnut...

The mushroom consomme was good though, very strong in flavour and worked well with the truffle ravioli, the flavour of which bursts into your mouth when you bite through that skin. I think Locust Tunghok liked it too?

Hot chocolate fondant with caramelized banana and Italian pistachio, Sicilian cream and saffron ice cream.

Call me conservative but I didn't like the saffron ice cream -- for me a good scoop of vanilla ice-cream would have worked better.

I think I might not be alone in thinking that "plate" looks strangely similar to those we see on the wall... XD

Summary (Rated 1-5)

Food:  (4) Food was good albeit with minor hiccups (e.g. the fish…).

Service:  (4.5) Courteous & friendly.  Despite missing my primi piatti they made us feel comfortable eating there.

Environment:  (4) Internal décor was decent without being intimidating.  Windows provided sufficient light making the premise feel bright.  The outdoor area, however, was a bit of an eye-sore and could have been better.  Penalised for that.

Big Locust's Recommendation:  (4) Good for the price.  Probably not good enough to warrant a return, but must try.

Linguini Fini... "cheap and cheerful"... and only that.

Shop Info:
Linguini Fini
1/F, the L place,
139 Queens Road, Central

9 July 2011, Lunch
$127 per head

It was a hot summer day... and my locust friend and I decided to try this new Italian restaurant in Central.  As with my usual horror food stories, the signs of trouble began early on, except that we didn't notice at the time.  Located on the 1st floor of the quasi-newly-opened L Place, Linguini Fini is right above 港土茶記.  Whilst the place was easy to find, it was nonetheless difficult to get to...

== Warning Engineering Rant Below ==

The problem was... despite claiming to be located on the 1st floor, this restaurant is actually located one something like an attic -- you can see the restaurant by looking up from the lobby of the building -- but annoyingly you can't get to it!  That attic only extends half way into the lobby, meaning that of the three available lifts, the outermost lift couldn't possibly reach this 1st floor (or it can open its door to... well... empty space).  Yet, when you press the button for the lift (whichever button you use, even if you press the one for the innermost lift)... the doors of the outermost, and only the outermost, lift will open.  To get the other two lifts to work for you, you'd need to drive the outermost lift up... and press the button again... It's not like it's an easy thing to do either, since almost all the floor buttons inside that problematic outermost lift is disabled.

What kind of genius of an engineer does it take to make such a stupid, thoughtless lift system?  If you wanna have lifts that serve different floors, bloody separate their call buttons!  Such blatant lack of design reminds me  of some of the firms I've met in my previous job... where the trainee engineer does all the job.  Jeez.

== Back to Normal ==

Anyway, we managed to get to the restaurant eventually.  The setting was of a modern, casual dining environment.  That's when the second problem popped up.  The wait-staff, whilst mostly friendly and welcoming, were using English to all their customers -- except the manager.  Now obviously the two of us are Chinese, and so were the waitresses.  Come on... this is a casual dining place... can we be made to feel at home?  some Cantonese, please?

I was hopeful when I saw the menu -- a two page, no faff menu.  Normally new restaurant + big menu = trouble.  But if the menu is reasonably sized, things should usually go fine.  The view of the semi-open kitchen gave hope as well -- I could continuously hear the head chef calling out orders and the rest answering and cooking -- a vibrant, lively kitchen buzzing with energy.  Food from such a kitchen should be good, right?

Unfortunately, no.  I don't pretend to be an expert on Italian cuisine, and in fact, I don't know anywhere near enough of Italian cooking.  However, there are two things which I do know, and that is 1) freshness is very important; and 2) Italians love their coffee.  Linguini Fini, I'm reluctant to say, spectacularly failed on both front.

To begin with, the bread.  The eagle eyed might spot from this rubbish iPhone photo that this piece of bread (interestingly served in an anchovy tin) is nowhere near fresh.  Look at the compressed air pockets near the edge...  My take, having tried to chew through that bread, is that their bread was made (perhaps in house, perhaps not.  Couldn't tell), left to cool, left in storage for maybe a few days, then chopped up, slightly reheated and served.  The 6-7mm near the edge was rock solid, whereas the rest was rather stiff.  That reminds me of that baguette I bought and forgotten about for a few days... then reheated in a microwave... Now has it occurred to the owners that leftover bread should probably be discarded?  Or maybe plan the amount made so their customers won't be served over-2 to 3-night bread?  Freshness, come on...

Then came the mussels.  I didn't really bother to photo that, since the mussels were rather... what's the opposite of fat... lean?  And perhaps not that fresh either -- difficult to tell since the flavour of the mussels was largely masked by the rather strong tomato and onion sauce...  Anyway, my focus was the garlic toast... which was rather severely burnt.  My complaints: 1) the bread used was the same as the one we had for the bread tin, and just as well aged, just as stiff; 2) garlic is a difficult thing to miss, but I couldn't taste it at all; and 3) all I tasted was charcoal, carbon, whatever you call it -- the taste of burnt toast.  That begs the question of "what the hell are the chefs doing?".  Don't they check their food before sending?  BURNT TOAST is rather difficult to not see, especially when served burnt-side-up!

Their signature "Linguini Fini, alio olio", as pictured half-eaten above, was no salvation.  Now as a side note, alio olio, along with a pomodoro something, were the two normal styles of Linguini Fini on the menu... the rest were "localised", with what I consider interesting combinations.  It doesn't seem I should go back and try though!  This Linguini Fini, which the waitress claimed to be house-made, had a texture resembling the "chau mien" of the dai pai dongs in HK... It was pointless trying to tell whether it was cooked al dente or not, or whether it's really house made.  The flavour was strange as well -- the herb used didn't really complement the garlic... this was a really strange pasta...

The ravioli... supposedly with ricotta cheese, herb and tomato.  Tasted only of tomato.  Enough said...

As for drinks?  We didn't order anything in the end, but it was quite an experience trying to figure out what to order -- the menu was again a two-page affair, with a selection of cocktails, wine, beer and draught.  Unfortunately, since we were not feeling like having anything alcoholic, we asked the head waitress / manager whether they have anything non-alcoholic, her answer... "well we have the cocktails" (yes I know, but they're alcoholic) and "we can make them virgin if you want to".  That's very accommodating, and I do appreciate that, but come on... it's not about whether I want to make a cocktail bloody virgin, or that you're willing to offer to make it virgin for me.  It's about catering for the need of your customers.  What if there're pregnant women? kids?  Couldn't they just have, say, good old simple hot chocolate, if they couldn't care enough to make coffee?  or tea?

And it's an Italian restaurant, right?  NO COFFEE?!?!!

P.S.  According to an unverified report from a friend, she spent some 60 minutes at this place during a weekday lunch service, and ended up having to take her pasta out.  And somehow she had coffee, which wasn't on the menu when we went...

P.P.S.  Its website claims that its food "Let bold flavor roll off your tongue, as ‘cheap n cheerful’ gives way to ‘marvellous and meaningful’".  Well... cheap n cheerful, maybe.  At least their food aren't exactly expensive and their staff are indeed rather friendly.  But "marvellous and meaningful"?  Unfortunately not... and "casual is not careless"?  What about my burnt toast?

Summary (Rated 1-5)
Food:  (2) Not exactly appalling yet, but I hate being served food that is so obviously not fresh.
Service:  (4) Friendly and welcoming, very good for this price range.
Environment:  (3.5) Good casual dining environment, although I'd appreciate some more space.
Big Locust's Recommendation:  (2.5) The whole experience was let down by the food.  What a shame.