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 per head

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.

Sushi Shota: Where are your standards?

Shop Info:
Sushi Shota
8/F Kyoto Plaza, 
491-499 Lockhart Road, Causeway Bay


1 May 2011, Lunch
$165 per head


(Photo courtesy 蝗蟲同學 @ locusttunghok.blogspot.com)


It was a hot Sunday when we visited Sushi Shota for lunch -- so hot that the only possible lunch that we could think of was sushi.  The shop was almost empty, with only a few tables occupied when we arrived, and at 12:40 that could only spell trouble.  Nonetheless, we decided to give it a try.


I've been keen to watch the chefs work lately, especially at sushi joints, so when the waitress (probably aware that Hong Kong customers tend to prefer tables instead of the "bar table", or am I mistaken?) shown us to one of the empty tables I asked for seats at the "bar table" so we can have a view of the chefs' work.  That, eventually, turned out to be revealing.


Choice of lunch, for us, was limited.  It was either the 8 sushi + small rolls pick-your-own set ($150) or the 16 sushi recommended set ($forgotten).  Seeing that salmon is listed as one of the pieces of the 16 sushi set it was a easy decision for us.  Interestingly, perhaps business has been tough, certain items has been crossed out on the pick-your-own sheet, as shown below.  We didn't bother to check what those items actually were, but as these forms goes the item above maguro is usually... chu toro.  That's somewhat disappointing.

Further signs of trouble appeared when we ordered.  I took quite a while to decide on the pieces I wanted but before I handed the form to the waitress, they have served the Japanese style steam egg (茶碗蒸し).  Now being born and bred in Hong Kong, I surely appreciate efficiency.  However at restaurants, especially at supposedly traditional Japanese sushi restaurants, I price freshness of food more than the speed it is served.  I immediately wondered -- how long has this steamed egg been sitting in the steamer, waiting to be served?  Way before lunch service, perhaps?  This surely shows in the quality of the steamed egg (which, as shown below, was served in a... "container" which I personally thinks resemble that for creme brulee than Japanese steamed egg.  But that's my opinion).  Whist the flavour was there, the texture of the egg shows that it has been overcooked.  The egg was nowhere near smooth.  I have no trouble with preparing food beforehand, since it is necessary for the kitchen to properly function.  But how difficult is it to push off the steaming until it has actually been ordered?  So us, as customers, can be served freshly steamed 茶碗蒸し?

Further signs of trouble came when the chefs started to make our sushi.  The Japanese chef (who I suppose is the head chef?) called out the items to be prepared and his team started work on it.  Then the Japanese chef immediately started work on the... Gunkanmaki (軍艦)... Now I don't really have any trouble on the order they make my sushi, but since they took so long to make the nigiri and the hosomaki the nori was soggy by the time it was served.  

The quality of the sushi in general was not bad (nowhere near good either!).  The fish were fresh-ish except for the plastic-like, fishy 小肌.  The rice for all the sushi were too big for my liking (look at the photo above -- the shrimp looks pathetic sitting on such a huge amount of rice) and the salmon roe sushi was so watery that in addition to soaking the rice, the "juice" overflowed on to the plate and soaked the rice of the eel sushi to the right.

The hosomaki wasn't much better either.  We asked for negitoro maki and it was sloppily made. As can be seen from the photo above the ends of the small roll looked pathetic.  The chopped spring onion was not mixed with the chopped toro (both were prepared early on and was sitting in containers in the desktop fridge) but was sprinkled on to the chopped toro before rolling (the chef was making that right in front of us).  The result?  Not only did the chopped spring onion not complemetn the negitoro, it was heavily to one side of the hosomaki, giving a strange experience -- one munch it's no spring onion and much again you'll get a mouthful.  Weird.  I certainly would expect better from a team headed by a Japanese chef!  These chefs probably have the skills to make sushi properly, they just couldn't be bothered to do so.


This lack of passion, standard and professionalism was obvious in other areas as well.  The bowl of salmon roe in the desktop fridge in front of us was about 30% full when we got there.  Its contents were used a bit to make the two salmon roe gunkan for us.  It wasn't used again during our lunch but before we left, we saw that the bowl has been refilled!  Now if they refill the bowl every time instead of using it up, cleaning the container and replacing with a new stock, how fresh are their salmon roe going to be?


To further show such lack of standard, half way through our lunch the Japanese chef called the manager (?) over and talked to him in Japanese.  The manager went out for a while then came back with... guess what... a packaged green tea pound cake.  To my horror the Japanese chef then picked a knife and opened the packaging right in front of us -- then cut the cake into pieces and into a plastic box, perhaps to be served later.  I do understand that at certain restaurants it is probably not feasible nor financially worthwhile to make their own dessert, but at least I would expect the chefs NOT to announce so blatantly their lack of standards in front of his customers!


The worst thing for our lunch was actually not the quality of the food, nor was it the service of the front-of-house team.  The worst bit was the attitude of the chefs.  Sitting at the "bar table" and watching them work, they gave me the impression they were not serious about what they're doing and didn't really give a damn:  the Japanese head chef was joking to the other two chefs when making our sushi and I saw one of the chefs playing with his iPhone.  That's definitely not something I would expect a professional chef to do when preparing food, even behind closed kitchen doors, not to say right in front of the customers!


Our dessert -- two scoops of ice-cream (I finished both since my locust friend wasn't feeling well), which were huge.  That, however, could not make up for the disappointment we've had.  The following photo summarizes our comments pretty well:

Summary (Rated 1-5)
Food:   (2) I'd penalize the restaurant for the lack of professionalism.
Service:  (3.5) not bad.  Not particularly rude nor inviting.  Quite typical of such restaurants.
Environment:  (3.5) typical setting of these restaurants
Big Locust's Recommendation:  (2) poor impression due to the attitude of the chefs and mediocre food.

Wooloomooloo Steahouse: Wooleimacha steak...

Shop Info:
Wooloomooloo Steakhouse
31/F, the Hennessy,
256 Hennessy Road,
Wan Chai


3 May 2011, Lunch
$163 per head


I have (rather unfortunately) stumbled upon this place when going for lunch with a friend Mr. PL.  I've heard from my locust friend about the Wooloomooloo steakhouse in Central and its bargain lunch but never realised that it has a branch here on the 31st floor of the Hennessy.  So when I discovered this Wooloomooloo when wandering in Wan Chai waiting for Mr. PL I decided to drag him along to try this place.


Trying to get to this restaurant was a bit of a challenge.  The lift which took us up to 31/F had two doors, and apparently the door which opens depend on the buttons on which side of the lift you pressed.  Unfortunate for us, those in the lift pressed the button on the wrong side and it took us minutes of going up and down before finally getting to the restaurant.


The view from such a height was amazing.  At 31/F this restaurant was located easily higher than the roof of a lot of buildings in Wan Chai and from where we sat we had an almost unobstructed view of Kowloon Bay.  Not the most gorgeous view in Hong Kong but not bad at all.


"Executive" Lunch set was for $148 + 10% so of course choices were limited.  There was a choice of appetizer or clam chowder, then a choice of three mains -- steak (sirloin), fish (salmon) or pasta (spaghetti bolognaise).  We both chose the clam chowder (the appetizer didn't sound tempting at all) and this being a steakhouse, we both chose the sirloin.  As usual (and as expected), the waiter tried to sell us bottled still / sparkling but we went for tap.

Before the chowder arrived we were served this HUGE bread which looked the same as the one in the Central Wooloomooloo.  Bread was hot when served and was soft inside.  Herb butter was served soft.  Thumbs up for the bread.

The plain-looking clam chowder was served in a small metal pot and looked rather uninspiring.  However, the chowder was full of flavour and was rather nice.  Hidden at the bottom of the pot were the (meat from) half a dozen (probably frozen) clams.  Not bad!

The steak, however, was a big disappointment.  This being a steakhouse I definitely would expect them to do better.  Unlike the clam chowder, presentation was lacking to begin with, and from its looks alone one could tell that the chef wasn't paying his full attention to making a good dish.  The sauce was all over the place and the steak was lazily slapped onto the mesh.  There was a choice of 4 mustard which was fair, but one would at least expect it to look a bit more refined.


All that would have been fine if the steak was good.  And it wasn't.  We asked for the steak to be made medium-rare and as shown in the photo above it was pink throughout -- closer to medium-welldone I'd say.  And I hate welldone steak.  Looking back I probably should have sent it back to the kitchen.  So from the rather nice bread and good clam chowder, the meal took a big plunge here.  The cut probably wasn't that good either, and when combined with it being overcooked, I found it tough to cut even with the steak knife.  The sauce (mushroom something... couldn't be asked to properly taste it by then... was too disappointed by the steak) did not add to the already weak flavour of the steak and instead almost covered it up.  The only explanation was that the chef was well aware that the steak wasn't any good and was trying to cover up the lack of quality and flavour with this rather strong sauce.  The mesh wasn't much better either.  It could have been smoother and better seasoned (its flavour was weak) but was by far the better part of this main course.  

For drinks I asked for hot coffee (Mr. PL ordered iced coffee, as can be seen in the background).  At the beginning it looked promising but the first sip revealed the truth -- it wasn't much good either.  Now I'm no expert in coffee, having just started drinking it a few months ago, but even I can tell this coffee was either cheap or poorly made -- even my daily breakfast coffee from DELIFRANCE taste much better.  It was strongly sour and bitter and devoid of the aroma I'd relate with coffee (sorry, no idea re. notes / aftertaste / texture etc...)


The biscuit that come with the coffee was an annoyance, to say the least.  I was trying to break it in half when moaning about the poor quality of the coffee, and before I knew it, I've showered myself in crumbs of the biscuit.  It was so powdery and dry that I broke it in to the many pieces shown in the photo above, in one go.  A bite of the remaining pieces confirmed that the biscuit was dry, powdery and mostly tasteless.  Frankly, if you can't be asked to make the coffee and biscuit properly as a part of the "executive lunch", don't bother to include it.  I'd rather have to pay for a cup of coffee instead of being served something like this.


At this price and environment, and had it not for such a poorly made steak, this would have been a bargin.  Obviously those working in Wan Chai are aware of the quality of food here -- the place was never completely full when we had lunch.  Mind you, we ate from 12:30 to 13:40 which should cross the lunch hour of most office workers here and the restaurant was almost empty at the beginning and around 1/3 full when we left.  It is quite a shame because given the bargain steak lunch price, good location, comfy environment and a lack of steakhouses in the area, this could easily be a restaurant fully booked for every lunch service.


What I can say is, if you really, desperately want to eat in a Wooloomooloo steakhouse, go to the one in Central.


Summary (Rated 1-5)
Food:   (2) would have been 1 had it not been for the bread and chowder
Service:  (4) efficient and courteous.  The waiter didn't even stutter introducing the mustards to us.  Good front of house team.
Environment:  (4) comfy, good view
Big Locust's Recommendation:  (2) let down by the food... 

Uosen Japanese Restaurant: Lost Identity

Shop info:

Uosen Japanese Restaurant

銅鑼灣霎東街33號快捷假日酒店1樓

Locusts Visited:  25 April 2011

Before we decided to try this Japanese restaurant, my locust friend and I have done our homework (yup, that's OR research). We were wow-ed by the overwhelming majority of smilies over crying faces and by some of the comments of our fellow OR-ers. Unfortunately, as is sometimes the case, OR popularity can prove to be delusional. This was certainly one of those times.

Now before I'm mistakenly understood to be saying this restaurant is bad -- it isn't. It's MEDIOCRE and LOST. The problem is, at this price and location, being mediocre isn't good enough. FYI we spent about $230 per head. Not much provided that it was dinner, but that was because we decided to try its cooked food for our first visit (which has proven to be a wise move... more on that later). If the restaurant couldn't convince me that its food is very good, there's no way I'd cough up $998 for that set-for-two. Also, it's located in a hotel. A budget hotel, but I'd still take that as a hotel nonetheless.

Anyway, my doubts started when we entered the restaurant. Before letting us in, the manager (?) picked up the stick and drummed (well he hit it only once, but I'd take that as drumming) on the Taiko at the entrance to welcome us (photo below). My thoughts were immediately split -- it's either that they have perfected their food and service to such a degree that they want to make the diner feel special, or they're just another restaurant trying to stand out from the crowd with such gimmick.

And gimmick it was. I started sensing trouble once we were sat down and started looking around and at the menu. The setting was modern Japanese with wooden shelves showcasing its sake and wine collection but on the other side it shows traditional prints of caught fishes. The menu covers sushi, sashimi, "deep fried", "Japanese special cooked", "grilled", "cooked" (ranging from clams in sake to hotpot), noodle (udon, tempura, etc), salad, "Japanese cooked" (which is somehow different from "cooked" and includes fried rice to congee), soup and dessert. The dessert page was by far the most non-Japanese: featuring France panna cotta, France creme brulee, Europe cheese cake, France warm chocolate cake and Italy chocolate mose. Not to say that some of the other items in the menu are highly westernised / hongkongised. (the items above are the spelling and wordings they've used in the menu, by the way). The executive $998 set dinner for 2 include items from most of the categories above.

All these screams at me that this is a restaurant which has lost its focus. With its small kitchen (guessed from the position of the restaurant and the size of the building) it is just impossible that it can cook all the food in its menu well. The worst thing is: whilst some of the items seem to be authentic, most are obviously localised. Combine that with the strange combination of décor inside, one can only conclude that by trying to please everybody by providing something in all the areas they can think of, they've turned the restaurant into a Hongkong-Japanese style we've-got-em-all restaurant that is unlikely to be worthy of any premium price.

To be on the safe side, we decided to order cooked food only. We decided to try the "seafood in tea pot"(which was a seafood soup), grilled ox tongue (just because I like it), "clams in sake" (coz the other locust likes it... :P), "Eel fried rice with white truffle pate" (since I've seen recommendations here on OR) and a"cold udon with seaweed". The manager was certainly not pleased -- his annoyance with us ordering "cheap" food was obvious on his face. He asked whether we wanted some drinks (showing a pricy sake + wine menu, but unfortunately neither of us really drinks), and when we turned that down asked whether we wanted some sashimi. Without recommending anything that's fresh. Now it's fine if you have some freshly caught fish with good quality which you sincerely would like to recommend to us, and if that was the case we might even have ordered. But trying to push us to order sashimi because it's more pricy? Get lost. It was fortunate that he didn't recommend salmon sashimi to us... or we'd have walked out right away.

The food:

Seafood in tea pot ($55)

We suspected that the seafood used to make this soup was not fresh the moment the waiter provided us with a tiny piece of lemon and recommended us to squeeze its juice into the soup. As far as my minimal knowledge of Japanese food tells me, clear seafood soup doesn't go with lemon juice. (In any case, how on Earth am I supposed to squeeze juice from such a small piece of lemon? with my hand?) Unless, of course, there is some unwanted flavour to cover up. And yes there was. The soup was slightly bland for my liking, and if you smell at it closely you can sense a slight unfresh, fishy smell in it. That was partly because we refused to use the lemon, but good job covering that up. Only that I prefer fresh ingredients are used so that there isn't any unfresh fishy smell to begin with.

Grilled ox tongue ($48 per 2 skewers)

The ox tongue, surprisingly, was good. The pieces are bite-sized and well seasoned, without covering up the flavour of the ox tongue itself. And cooked just right -- juicy in the middle and not overly "bouncy". I personally like grilled ox tongue and this was good enough to make me order a second round. 

Clams in sake ($88)

The clams in sake was a major disappointment. Normally this is a dish that is difficult to screw up. However, in this case when it was served the clams were bland, with the taste of sake only in the sauce and almost not in the clams at all. It took us some 10-15 minutes of leaving it there soaking in the sake for the clams to gain some of the flavour it's meant to have. Again, although the clams were quite big, I don't think the were anywhere near fresh. We didn't detect any strange flavour, but when we tried to pick the clams out from their shells they broke up easily under the chopsticks. I don't think they were properly cleaned either, since we ate quite a bit of sand from some of them.

Eel fried rice with white truffle pate ($98)

My feelings are mixed on this dish. If you completely ignore the name of the dish, it is a decent fried rice -- the grains a evenly coloured and did not lump together. It was served very hot and smelled enticing. However, if you consider the name of the dish, it really didn't live up to what it claimed to be. To begin with, the "white truffle pate" seemed like the type you can get in bottles from citysuper (I wouldn't expect otherwise, actually), which was fragrant when you smell it closely when the fried rice was served but once we've mixed it in as recommended by the waiter, the fragrance was completely killed. The eel pieces in the fried rice weren't big, which is fine, but I found it difficult to taste the eel, which isn't fine. In fact, the way the dish was presented is my biggest disagreement with it. Truffles, as far as I can tell, don't like high temperatures. Which is why when you make e.g. pasta with truffle the truffle is always added at the very last moment. By serving the fried rice in such a hot Korean-style rock bowl and recommending mixing the truffle pate with the rice you would be doing the equivalent of adding the truffle to the fried rice in a wok. You couldn't not mix it actually, unless you wanna scoop it up and eat it with a spoonful of rice, which might be the better idea anyway.


Cold udon with seaweed ($52)

Udon has never been my favourite noodle, but in this case the texture was reasonably good. The sauce was a bit tasteless for me, but I'm not to judge that. Again I disagree with the presentation of the dish, as can be seen in photo above. At first site that would be impressive, but it's actually not a good idea. When you eat cold udon, you'd normally like to have a separate container for the sauce which you mix with the side ingredients of your liking before dipping the udon into it by the mouthful. In this case all of the udon were hanging on the chopsticks, with the ends already soaking in the sauce. If you want to use the chopsticks to eat the udon, you inevitably will have to pull them out, dropping all the udon into the sauce...

So IMHO, the food we had here wasn't all bad, only mediocre and for this price, not good enough. If it's priced at 70% of current price I'd be satisfied and if it's priced at 50% I'd be pleased with its quality. However, at this price and location, there are surely plenty of room for improvement. The bottom line is always quality -- $230 for this as dinner was expensive, contrary to 8000 yen for lunch at Sushi Iwa being a bargain. Quality is everything.

Finally, we've overheard an interesting conversation during our dinner. Apparently a group of some 4-5 people having dinner nearby had actually booked a table and ensured that there would be uni sashimi when they arrive -- and there wasn't enough for a portion. They were obviously annoyed because it was a request they've made. In any case there was nothing they could do and after some arguments ended up ordering something else. YET after some 15-20 minutes "fresh uni" suddenly arrived from their supplier... I truly wonder what supplier they use, since normally I'd expect fresh ingredients should arrive for the preparation of dinner, not DURING dinner? Oh wait... isn't there a citysuper in Times Square nearby...