Cucina (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

Perched on the fifth floor of the Marco Polo Hotel, Cucina is a relaxing venue that offers a cross-over of Italian and Chinese dishes in the very same menu. Apart from the interesting mix of "East meets West" cuisine, the restaurant also boasts a nice view of the Victoria Harbour and Star Ferry Terminal. Those are enough reasons to lure us for a visit.



The set lunch starts off with a buffet-style salad bar highlighted by an impressive collection of Alaskan King Crab. That by itself already got us our money's worth. For main course, I had this giant spring roll with salmon fillet that was served with garnish of mixed vegetables and a potato purée. That was an excellent dish.



Dessert was a very simple tiramisu. 



Note: There's a 10% off discount for making your reservation online (see restaurant link below). 


Food Rating: 6/10

Price: $$$

Address: Level 6, Marco Polo Hongkong Hotel, Harbour City, 3 Canton Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Tsim Sha Tsui / Austin

Tel: +852 2113-0808
Website: www.cucinahk.com

Aqua (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★★☆

Most people came to Aqua at 1 Peking for the jaw-dropping view of the Victoria Harbour. But we had other reasons to come - the great vibe and most importantly, we couldn't decide whether to have Japanese or Italian food!



The restaurant is a crossover of 2 distinct dining concepts - Aqua Roma and Aqua Tokyo. We first started peppering ourselves with different sushi and hand rolls.




Then, with pizza, pasta and risotto.





and then a little bit of meat.....



But dessert stole the show. Apart from the warm chocolate cake, which was just average, the other two were solid.






Food Rating: 5.5/10

Price: $$$$

Address: 1 Peking Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Tsim Sha Tsui
Tel: +852 3427-2288
Website: http://aqua.com.hk

Bo Innovation (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

Wanchai's food scene is quietly witnessing a remarkable evolution and it all started with Ship Street being at the forefront of this movement. Meet Bo Innovation, a Chinese French fusion restaurant which has helped to create the buzz around the city.

Alvin Leung, self-taught engineer-turned-chef is the man behind Bo Innovation. He's mixing and matching ingredients from the Chinese and French cuisine to turn them into interesting fusion dishes that are exciting and mouthwatering.

Each set lunch comes with 2 interesting dim sum. On this afternoon, it was highlighted by this shrimp dumpling with black truffles sprinkled on top.



We had one of the signature dishes from the a la carte menu - an ice cream of Chinese preserved meat rice flavor. That was real slick!

Unfortunately the main courses paled in comparison to the starters - first up was this roasted chicken leg beggar style.

  
The pork lasagna simmered with Chinese vinegar was a tad too sour for my liking.



While I like the innovative "East Meets West" approach, it's still very much a work in progress.


Food Rating: 5/10

Price: $$$

Address: Shop 13, 2/F, J Residence, 60 Johnston Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Wanchai
Tel: +852 2850-8371
Website: www.boinnovation.com
S. Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants: 97th (2009)