Saturday, August 10, 2013

Azure (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★☆☆☆

We have waited merely 7 years for our second visit to Azure but after this one, I am not sure if I'd be back after another 7 years. The combination of average food and poor service is never the prelude to success in attracting customers.

We didn't think of Azure out of the blue. It's the promotion from Restaurant Week that served as a reminder and to pay tribune to this annual festivity, we decided to give Azure another go.



Just like most restaurants did for Restaurant Week, they have prepared a specific lunch or dinner menu for us. Ironically, the dishes involved were more or less the same ones we had here 7 years ago. How crazy was that!?

Pan seared foie gras, 4/10
We started with a pan seared foie gras served on a home-made brioche with truffle and sherry soaked raisin velouté. It was a very small slice of foie gras and for a moment, we thought it was our amuse bouche!

In all honesty, the foie gras actually tasted fairly good. I thought it was seared almost perfectly to a point where it melted in our mouth. The raisin velouté provided some good complements to the taste as well but the portion was really embarrassing.



Lobster linguini, 7.5/10
Like the pan seared foie gras, I had the lobster linguini last time around too.

As the menu suggested, it was an "al dente" linguini with a lobster bisque cream sauce, parmesan cheese and rocket lettuce. The lobster bisque was very thick and flavorful, giving the linguini a great deal of depth and flavors. This was a very enjoyable dish.



Roasted duck "re-designed", 5/10
The "re-designed" roasted duck was really nothing new. It was a duck course served in two ways - first, as a duck confit and it came with two spring rolls of duck meat, foie gras and pineapple. It was finished with a plum foam and cucumber sweet relish.

The word "re-designed" suggested something far more innovative and unique but serving duck in a spring roll was nothing out of the ordinary. In fact we just had a similar dish 2 weeks ago at MC Kitchen (by Demon Chef Alvin Leung) that tasted much better.



Black and white sesame crème brûlée, 2/10 
I suggest them to get a new pastry chef because other than the petite four, the presentation of the two desserts didn't look professional at all.

Our first dessert was a black and white sesame crème brûlée served with mixed berries. I must confess that the crème brûlée did not taste badly but the presentation was way off!

How could they use two "soy sauce" dishes from Chinese restaurants for their crème brûlée?



Chocolate trio, 1.5/10
The second dessert was a trio of chocolate desserts consisting of milk chocolate, dark chocolate and amaretto terrine, served with a spoon of white chocolate. While the first two components of this dish were just average, the latter which was a spoon of white chocolate hugely disappointed me. I think it tasted more like a frosty coconut sorbet which has just melted. And it tasted awful.



They did okay with the main courses but the rest of this lunch was largely forgettable. The service team also gave me every impression that they were not well trained and not eager to serve. I really have trouble convincing myself to come back.


Food Rating: 4/10
Price: $$$
Address: 29/F & 30/F Hotel LKF, 33 Wyndham Street, Central, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Central
Website: www.azure.hk/



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