Amore di Tubino
25-26/F, L'hart, 487-489 Lockhart Road, Causeway Bay
29 April 2012, Lunch
$120 per head
Locust tunghok and I were wandering on the streets on Causeway Bay trying to decide on somewhere for lunch. The suddenly hot weather has affected our appetite quite a bit but somehow we wanted pasta. So we decided to try our luck at Ana Oyster & Grill in the restaurant building "Kyoto Plaza". On our way there, we noticed this seemingly new (to me at least!) restaurant called Amore di Tubino, and decided to give it a go. Of course, we later realised that this is in fact the same restaurant we've been to and didn't really care much about, with the name changed.
Now I do not have any knowledge of Italian, but Google translate has taught me that the name of the restaurant means "love of sheath". Eh? Chinese translation is even worse... "愛護套"... hmm... interesting. Can someone enlighten me on what the name actually means?
Anyway, when we arrived and asked for the menu to test the water, the waitress shown us a budget lunch menu and the full menu. Whilst the lunch menu seemed pretty standard, the full menu was rather attractive. Which is why we decided try.
However, when we were seated, we were told that only the items on the lunch menu is available. Now, the lunch menu was a tiny menu with a pasta, a lamb, a beef, a chicken and a fish to choose from, or something along those lines. The crab and king prawn linguini in the main menu and the pizza in the main menu, which were the reasons why I decided to risk it, were of course not on this lunch set list. Why, for crying out loud, did you not tell us we can only order from the lunch menu? Or rather, why did you show us a menu which we cannot order from??
I settled for the fish, but unfortunately this extreme disappointment has pretty much set the tone for the meal.
Don't be fooled. Whilst this bread basket looks reasonable its looks were merely a bluff. The bread is only just considered warm. We weren't given any olive oil and balsamic vinegar, nor were we given any butter. Worse, the bread was of CX-flight quality. That is, the upper crust was slightly crispy slightly hard. The bottom was rather solid and the core was rather dry. Now of course this is a cheap lunch set (although I still wanted that linguini...) but how hard can it be to ensure that the bread is suitable for human consumption? The photo on the right shows how much was left behind.
"Creme of pumpkin soup"
According to the waitress this was "creme of pumpkin soup". That pathetic blob on top was likely some kind of cream. The soup itself was quite light (read: somewhat bland) and not overly filling (read: thin). Flavour does somewhat tell that it is a pumpkin soup but was not very vocal about it...
"Talipa" fish
"butter sauce"
That's what the menu says anyway. I suspect they mean tilapia, which is actually a common name for a group of some 100 species of freshwater fishes from the tilapiine cichlid tribe. Really should have looked it up before ordering, since according to some website (yea, homework done too late) the fish is rather tasteless itself and usually it's taken as a blank slate for the sauce to shine. And the sauce in this dish? A stupid butter sauce. Which was not a very good sauce at all... didn't even taste of butter. The photo above, taken immediately after the dish was served, shows the layer forming on top of the sauce -- a tell-tale sign of how long ago that has sat somewhere in the kitchen before it was brought to the table...
Damn... did I mention the fish was overcooked? And part of it was so thin that the "crust" was thicker than the fish?
"Cheesecake"
Again, this is "dessert of the day", which according to the waitress was a cheesecake. Cheesecake my arse. To me that was a poorly made, tasteless sponge cake with some gelatinous stuff on top purporting to be a cheese cake. Only had one bite.
The verdict
Coffee was very sour, lacks aroma... and in general not suitable for consumption.
So, as a summary:
1) Misleading us into thinking that the full menu is available, whilst it wasn't.
2) Bread was cold and of CX quality.
3) Pumpkin soup was bland.
4) Fish was horrid.
5) Coffee sucked.
Enough said.
Summary (rated 1-5):
Food: (1/5)
Service: (2/5) For misleading us to think that the full menu would be available. And for not providing much service anyway -- see the butter sauce...
Environment: (3/5) Not bad actually, but the background music was quite weird and not suitable for the decor at all...
Big Locust's Recommendation: (2/5) Don't bother, really. It's lunch sets are not pricey, but the quality is horrible.
