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.