SAMA HK (中環)

SAMA is small restaurant at the end of Gough Street. Very casual with just a few tables.

The specialty of the house is “soup curry” – basically a spicy soup with vegetables and some meats to choose from (or just veggie). The restaurant offers three soup bases (tomato, shrimp, coconut). As a standard they are served with rice (on an extra plate) which can be exchanged for udon noodles (at a small charge). The interesting part is that they serve the curry in not less than 30 levels of spiciness.

On my first visit I went for the coconut-veggie-udon and then asked which level of spice is appropriate for someone who can eat fairly spicy. The waiter recommend level 20, so I went. What I got was a fairly large bowl with something that had a lot of similarity with a red Thai curry due to the coconut base. Flavorful, spicy (but not very) and very rich, lots of vegetables in quite big chunks – potato, eggplant, lots of cabbage (including some hard to eat parts from the stalk) and half an egg. I also liked the combination with the udon noodles, which added some extra chewiness. Overall quite enjoyable. The coconut bases makes it very tasty, but also quite heavy.

After that experience I came back for a tomato-veggie-udon, level 30. And what should I say – this is easiest the spiciest dish I have ever eaten in my life (and I have been – among other things – to Chongqing’s spiciest hotpot). This was so overpowering that I am not able to write much about the taste of the tomato-soup. Still finished the bowl, but didn't feel very good afterwards, serious challenge, even for an experienced spicy food eater.

L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon (中環)

L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon carries three of the prestigious Michelin stars and is therefore member of an exclusive group that consists of little more than 100 Restaurants globally. On this level you should expect absolute perfection and my review should be red under that perspective.

The restaurant is located on the 4th floor of the Landmark, we were sitting in the l'atelier area, i.e. on high chairs around the open kitchen. I like watching the chefs preparing the food, but being served over the counter is a bit unusual (however the staff was very attentive and friendly). The interior of the restaurant is using the same black and red design that you can find at Joel Robuchon’s salon de the.

The evening starts with an impressive bread basket, containing more than 10 different kinds of breads which is made in-house. While the taste is generally good while some of the textures are very chewy.

The menu is surprisingly long, containing three different set-menus as well as an extensive à la carte section. As this is our first visit we opt for the long, 8 course “menu decouverte” (2080 HDK per person plus 10%).

The wine list is thick as a phone book, mostly French and contains hardly any bottle below 1000 HKD. As a wasn't sure what to pick which an 8 course menu (and didn't want to go full pairing) the friendly sommelier recommended three wines by the glass (one champagne, one white, one red) to accompany two courses each which generally worked quite well (price per glass between 250 and 500 HKD).

First to arrive was an amuse-bouche of white asparagus mouse with tomato puree and a fried bread stick (or something like that). Asparagus mouse was very light andhad a nice flavor, the stick a nice crunch.

First dish was “surprise of imperial caviar with egg mimosa”. This is a cold, hard boiled chicken egg, yolk removed and replaced with caviar and topped with a mayonnaise-like sauce made from the yolk. First of all I have to say that I am not a big fan of cold, boiled eggs and this one even had a bit of the sulfuric smell that is that is making hard boiled eggs particularly unpleasant. Also the whole things was quite cold. Overall this dish seems quite old-fashioned and I didn’t find it very enjoyable.

Next up “white asparagus with miso emulsion, espelette pepper and sea urchin”. Long plate with a couple a pieces of asparagus, around 5 sea urchin pieces and drops of a brown miso emulsion. We were told to eat all ingredient together. The sea urchin tasted great, the asparagus was good, but has a very inconsistent texture – some pieces were overcooked while others were very firm, the miso emulsion was quite salty and I decided not to use it after two bites. Good ingredients, but execution a bit sloppy.
Next “girolles mushroom, and iberico ham raviolis with celeriac foam” (which is grammatically wrong the ravioli is already the plural of ravioli, but that's the way they put it on the menu). The ravioli(s) are fried on one side like Japanese gyoza, but the stuffing is very European – ham and mushrooms, always a winning combination and the Japanese inspired texture works well. In addition there are a couple of very small and very tasty girolles mushrooms and a quite unnecessary celery foam. Best dish so far.

After that “grilled main lobster” with green peas and baby bak choy”. A very classical French dish - grilled lobster of good quality, served with a “bisque” style sauce of strong saffron flavor. Perfect texture of the lobster (the claw not so much) and very enjoyable sauce. Green peas and baby bak choy didn't add much. Good dish, but lacking creativity.

Second seafood dish was “John dory fried with shiso tempura, cuttlefish ink risotto”. Good fish, but clearly fried for too long and therefore dry – I am sure every specialized tempura restaurant would make that better. Served on a little bit of black risotto, which was good, but didn't form a logical combination with the fish.

For the main dish I went for the “pan seared Japanese Wagyu”. Consists of three stripes of (very, very good) beef, a fried pepper and a bit of sauce. This is served with Joel Robuchon’s famous mashed potatoes (which contains insane amounts of butter). What should I say – it is a very simple dish, but beef and mashed potatoes are heavenly.
First desert is “pineapple compote with yoghurt ice and greed chartreuse jelly”, very fresh and light. Interestingly served with some herbs (tarragon?), more a palate cleanser, but nice.

Finally “mascarpone with fine chocolate tuile and coffee ice cream”. These a basically mascarpone squares covered with a very thin layer of some kind of biscuit, quite flavorless. Al least the coffee ice cream added a nice bold flavor.

Overall this left me a bit puzzled. L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon uses outstandingly good ingredients, the preparations are mostly very classic while I would expect a bit more creativity for three stars (and more than 2000 HKD for that matter), lots of the combinations seem a bit random (lobster with pees, tempura fish with black risotto) and there are a couple of technical errors (overcooked fish, sulfur smelling egg, overcooked asparagus) that should not happen at this level.

So overall I could see one star, the second one is already hard to argue (e.g. compared to Amber, which is in my view significantly better) and the third clearly underserved.

Torimen (中環)

This is a casual little basement restaurant. Community table, bar with high chairs, manga drawings on the wall.

Came for lunch on a Sunday and the restaurant was relatively empty.

Went for the spicy beef rice bowl (HKD 128 plus service) which consists of the rice bowl, a small salat, a miso soup m, the choice of three skewers and a drink.

Salad came first - small bowl of mixed greens, sweet corn with a light dressing. ok

Then the rest of the set. The rice bowl is similar to a Yoshinoya-bowl, but freshly made, the beef is quite lean and tasty and the onions still have a bit of bite, lots of sauce that is by no means spicy (so the name is a bit misleading), overall quite good. The miso soup is pretty standard and a bit on the salty side. For the skewers I went for sweet potato, mushrooms and green peppers. The sweet potato was in deed quite sweet and had an interesting mushy texture, the shiitake mushrooms had a good taste and texture, but was unfortunately almost cold, the peppers where three little slightly spicy peppers (similar to Spanish padrons) topped with bonito flakes- the best of the three skewers.

Overall a satisfying and good value meal in an realized environment - will be back.

Aberdeen Street Social (中環)

restaurant occupies two levels in PMQ including a nice terrace.

Went for Sunday brunch and sitting on that terrace. Place was fully booked (luckily we had a reservation). Apparently the place is very popular with ExPats, I didn't see a single Hongkonger.

We started with drinks - the mediocre and very small Americano costs a whopping 41 HKD on which they charge 10 service - so 45 HKD for a small coffee. The menu only lists detox juice (for 75 HKD), but they where able to get me some OJ (which I have to admit was good).

For food we ordered the mushrooms on bread on the the berry pancakes.

The mushrooms came as a hand-size pice of bread, topped with some sort of mashed mushrooms and topped with fried mushrooms, a bit of arugula on the side. Mushrooms where quite dry, but tasted good. Overall not bad, but nothing to write home about.

The pancakes came has three palm-sized pancakes, layered with vanilla cream and a few sliced berries - probably 2 strawberries, 2 raspberries in total. The pancakes where kind off Central European style - thicker than a crepe, thinner than a US pancake. Vanilla cream was thick and tasty, but a bit heavy. Again an ok dish, but not nearly worth the 128 HKD (plus service - so 140). I should mention that this usually includes one scoop of ice cream, but as I find ice cream for brunch a bit strange I asked to serve them without.

So on the plus side they have a nice terrace, on the minus sides we paid more than 400 HKD for two (very small) coffee, two juices and two small and mediocre dishes.

I think there are some significantly better places for a brunch in HK.

Foxtail & Broomcorn (灣仔)

One of the many new hip, casual restaurants on Landale Street. Bistro-style tables, some high chairs – you get the picture.

I came for dinner and the place was quite empty (I assume it must be packed for lunch), so no wait time.

The menu features mainly fusion-style noodle dishes. I went for the “Taipei” for HDK 78 (plus service), which is “fresh Shanghai la mian with 5-spice slow cooked pork in Taiwanese sauce”.

The noodles where good, put I don't think they are hand-pulled (what I would expect from la mian). The pork wasn't tender enough to be seriously slow cooked, taste however was good. So what is Taiwanese sauce? Turns out its some kind of a dark stock, which was very salty, had a strong taste of 5-spice (maybe that came from the pork) and had some reconstituted dried mushrooms in it. The bowl was topped with some shredded cucumber and coriander, which added some welcoming freshness and crunch.

Overall I found this dish a bit confusing – some elements where good (flavor of the pork, cucumber), some were a bit sloppy in execution (texture of the pork, salt level of the sauce) and the overall combination of the elements wasn't really working.

As I like the “noodle with the twist” idea I made come back to try another one, the “Taipei” however didn't convince me.

Service was fast and efficient.