Vi Cool (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

There has been a Spanish invasion to Hong Kong's culinary scene in recent months. Following the footsteps of fellow tapas bars BCN, Boqueria and 22 Ships, Vi Cool became the latest member to open at Harbour City in Tsim Sha Tsui last week.

At Vi Cool, Catalan Michelin-starred chef Sergi Arola teams up with local food and beverage company Dining Concepts to create a catalan influenced casual dining menu specializing in tapas, coca pizza and wine.

The interior takes on a colorful design reminiscing of a typical Spanish grocery store. Walls are nicely decorated with colorful antique metal cans and olive oils bottles creating a relaxed and fashionable environment perfect for casual dining.




Vi Cool's own Caesar Salad, 4/10
Signature dish included the Vi Cool's own Caesar Salad which looked like the twin brother of the duck lettuce wrap from the Chinese cuisine.

Lettuce was iced to preserve its freshness while the smoked chicken came with a separate bowl along with some parmesan snow and walnut bites.

This was quite a refreshing dish but definitely not something that I would write home about.




Arola style "Brava" potatoes, 6/10
This was Chef Arola's interpretation of the Spanish classical dish "patatas bravas". Potatoes were first filled with a spicy tomato sauce before getting deep fried and confitted. Finally they put the finishing touch on with a special homemade sauce on top. I liked this dish.




Fried chicken wings served with "mojo picon" sauce, 2/10
Very seldom did I see chicken wings at a tapas bar and it was a subpar performance overall.



Coca pizza - Iberico ham, 6/10
Coca pizza is a thin-crust Catalan-style pizza. Out of the 5-6 selections, we picked the Iberico ham which consisted of toppings like thinly sliced ham, marinated artichoke hearts, goat cheese, special in-house tomato and mozzarella. That was delicious and perfect for sharing among friends.

Food Rating: 4/10

Price: $$$

Address: Shop 2101, Level 2, Gateway Arcade, Harbour City, Canton Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong
Website: www.diningconcepts.com.hk/vi_cool/index.php

Chicha (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

South American cuisine has taken the culinary world by storm in recent years. If you are looking for evidence, simply look at this year's S. Pellegrino & Acqua Panna 50 Best Restaurant in the World. For the first time in history, five South American restaurants made it to the top 100 (3 from Brazil and 2 from Peru).

Unfortunately, there is only a handful of South American restaurants in Hong Kong with none serving authentic Peruivan cuisine. That was until Chicha bursts onto the scene a few months ago.

To me, tonight's dinner at Chicha was as much a history lesson as it was an culinary experience. I was really looking forward to it.



According to our server-turned-history teacher, Peru is an immigration country and a sufficient portion of their 30 million population came from different corners of the world. And because of that, Peruvian cuisine boasts a unique fusion of Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Japanese and Western African influences.

The restaurant was absolutely packed despite it's a Thursday night. The atmosphere was very lively with everyone looking very much entertained.

We started things off with a glass of Chicha Morada, their patented corn juice. I thought corn juice should be yellowish, no ?  Okay, it was made with purple maize and mixed spices.

Well, it was slightly too sour for me but nevertheless very thirst quenching!



With over a million immigrants from Japan, it's not difficult to understand the shadows of Japanese cuisine in some of these Peruvian fusion dishes.

First up for us was an Anticuchos platter. Anticuchos is often used to describe skewed meat (or food) originated from Peru. From the moment it arrived, we could immediately see the Japanese influence straight from the presentation. 

Peruvian Anticuchos are traditionally made with beef hearts and of course we had to try that (leftmost). Hm... I found the texture to be a little bit "sticky" and it didn't seem to mesh well with the aji amarillo (Peruvian yellow chili pepper) and walnut cream on top.



The best of the bunch was the Camote - a round piece of sweet potato topped with huancaina sauce and quail egg. Most skewers tended to be quite oily but this was not. In fact quite refreshing.

Here's another Japanese inspired dish - tiradito which is marinated sashimi style cut fish. We picked the king fish tiradito (other choices were scallops and tuna) since it's less common in other sushi places.

Too bad we found it to be a little bit disappointing. The sashimi just wasn't as rich flavored as we originally hoped. Instead the flavors mainly came from the sauce made with coriander, sweet potato and Peruvian yellow chili pepper.

Things finally turned around with our main course - suckling pig and roasted pork belly with deep fried potato balls served with a rocoto maple sauce. The meat was super tender and the crispy skin was almost as good as those from the Chinese style suckling pig.

 

And lastly, we picked this fried sweet potato donut with orange spiced syrup from the dessert menu. The donut, made with sweet potato flavored flour was soft like sponges. Partnering it with an orange spiced syrup was simply perfect. 

We really enjoyed this history lesson. The food itself offered something different and unique. Although I won't rate it as brilliant, it was something worth trying for sure.

Food Rating: 5/10
Price: $$$
Address: G/F, 26 Peel Street, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Central

St George (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★★☆

Finally I have realized that I have run out of dining ideas. So rather than bringing mom to the same old Chinese restaurants again, I decided to introduce her to her first ever authentic French meal at St. George today.

St George is a Michelin one-star restaurant at Heritage 1881, a restored historic site which used to be our navy police headquarters back in the late 1800's. It is now one of the very few pieces of history left from our colonial days. From the moment we stepped into Heritage 1881, it felt like stepping into a time machine and travelling back in time where Hong Kong was still a British colony.

Head chef Philippe Orrico is a protégé of Pierre Gagnaire and from what we have been told, he specializes in contemporary French cooking with emphasis on preserving the natural flavors of ingredients.

Amuse bouche consisted of a crispy parma ham toast, a tomato biscuit and a tiny cup of tomato salad with parmesan cheese topped with a rice biscuit (3/10).

None of these three items could be considered mind blowing but if I had to pick one, I would take the tomato biscuit. That simply because of its popping candy like sensation that kind of "exploded" in my mouth.

Our second amuse bouche was a chestnut velouté with a bacon foam that was a whole lot better (7/10).



Foie gras terrine marinated with aged port wine, 4/10

Our lunch officially started with a foie gras terrine that was marinated with aged port wine and served with dry figs and brioche toast.

This terrine came with a silky smooth texture but unfortunately not enough of the rich foie gras flavor. There was also no sign of any aged port wine in this at all.

Zucchini and crab meat rolls with herring roe, 6/10

I looked at this appetizer that mom was having and started to wonder if this was really edible. And it was.

This was an absolutely picture-perfect dish of zucchini and crab meat roll decorated with herring roe, cherry tomatoes that were stuffed with avocado and cress. Although the taste was less impressive than its look, it was still considered a great dish that was tantalizing for our taste bud.

Roasted US Scallops, 9/10

We moved onto our main courses now and first up was a roasted scallops from the States that were sitting on a pool of sautéed mushrooms. The scallops were roasted to perfection and the celery and porcini emulsion on top was an amazing complement.

That was heaven!

Milk fed veal with oyster butter "Maitre d'Hotel", 3/10

The roller coaster ride continued here with my milk fed veal that was served with French beans "Mimosa" and celeriac with miso and nuts. I have ordered this dish mainly because the Restaurant Manager here hinted to me that his chef was absolutely phenomenal in preparing meat dishes.

Well, perhaps not this time. I had asked for my veal to be medium but it arrived exactly close to medium well. Apart from that miscue, I also didn't like the spring onion and egg on top of the veal. They just didn't feel right together.

Pur caraibe chocolate bar, 5/10

Finally our dessert arrived in the form of a pur caraibe chocolate bar with chocolate cream, passion fruit, salted caramel, hazelnut cremeux and popcorn ice cream. Not bad but not overwhelmingly delicate.

I really enjoyed the ambiance of this historic dining room. And so did mom. The cuisine, well, let's just say it's been a roller coaster ride from start to finish. There were flashes of brilliance seen from the crab meat roll and scallops that reminded us of its one-star status but there were also times that they fell flat on their face with some of their less successful dishes (veal?).

Despite that inconsistency, I would still recommend this place based on the history, ambiance, service and of course, the highly innovative haute cuisine. 

Food Rating: 6/10

Price: $$$

Address: 2A Canton Road (Hullett House), Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Tsim Sha Tsui

Website: http://hulletthouse.com/#/stgeorge/concept

22 Ships (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★★☆

Our first meeting with Jason Atherton had to go way back to 2007 when the talented chef was still working under Gordon Ramsay at Maze in London. During that time, Atherton was one of the rising stars in the business having just guided Maze to their first-ever Michelin star.

Atherton left Maze in 2010 and quickly established his presence in Asia. By working closely with his business partner in Asia, he opened his own restaurants in Singapore and Shanghai in the following year. His latest venture, 22 Ships in Hong Kong, is already his fourth restaurant in the Asia Pacific region.

22 Ships was not the fine dining restaurant you would expect from a serious culinary talent like Jason Atherton. Instead it serves up modern Spanish tapas in a casual and unpretentious setting.

Although it was only the second day since the restaurant launched its soft opening, the place was already packed way before the start of lunch hour.  Luckily, we were well prepared enough to arrive early and got ourselves a table at the bar area.

The best part about sitting at the bar was the ability to watch the chefs working behind the scene adding great entertainment values to this already interesting lunch.





Scallop ceviche, yuzu dressing, soy, cucumber and apple, 6/10

Lunch started brilliantly with a nicely executed scallop ceviche. The sweet taste of the scallop carpaccio was further enhanced by a refreshing yuzu dressing, pea purée and soy sauce.

Apart from its delicate taste, we also had high praise for the presentation of the dish. It was nicely decorated with slices of Japanese radish, cucumber and green apple. That was the perfect start we were looking for.

Marinated hamachi, gazpacho dressing and garnish, 6/10

Almost equally impressive was the marinated hamachi. Our server put the finishing touch in by pouring a tomato gazpacho dressing onto the hamachi. Another refreshing dish.



Seared tuna, miso aubergine, sherry dressing, 7/10
Perhaps all good things must come in threes. This was already our third sashimi-style starter in a roll.

The rich flavor and buttery texture of the seared tuna was perfectly complemented by the miso aubergine and a sherry dressing.



Smoked salmon, scrambled eggs and caviar, 7/10

What...another fish dish!? Oh yes. Next up was a smoked salmon served with scrambed eggs and caviar.

Our server recommended that we took a little bit of every ingredient and mix them well before eating.

We followed the instructions carefully and the result was brilliant. Smoked salmon, egg, caviar and pea purée each contributed to a combination of contradicting taste and texture making this simple dish extra savory.

Squid paella, parsley dressing, 4/10

I liked the chopped squid and parsley dressing but the sauce was too flavorful and overpowering for the paella to handle. This was one of the weaker dish from an otherwise wonderful lunch.

Char grilled Ibérico pork and foie gras burgers, avocado and pickled cucumber, 7/10
House specialty, char grilled Iberico pork and foie gras mini-burgers was one of the can't-miss items here.

The extra juicy and tender ibérico pork with crispy buns, flavorful foie gras and a creamy avocado sauce combined to create an absolutely irresistible mini-burger.

It would have been perfect if the taste of foie gras was made a bit stronger.

Suckling pig, roasted apple with spices, piquillo pepper jus, 6/10

The Spanish style suckling pig did not have the crispy skin one would expect from the Chinese version of suckling pig but the meat itself proved to be as juicy and tender. The addition of apple and piquillo pepper juice helped to balance the greasiness.

"PBJ" peanut ice-cream, blue fruit, salted pea-nut caramel, 5/10

22 Ships' own signature dessert, PBJ, however did not live up to expectation. Although the dish was beautifully presented, the peanut ice-cream looked completely outshadowed by an overpowering blue fruit sorbet.

Goat cheese sorbet, honey comb, sweet walnuts, 7/10
On the other hand, the next dessert, goat cheese sorbet, turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Not cheesy as we originally suspected, this goat cheese flavored sorbet tasted surprisingly refreshing and cleansing. Honey comb and sweer walnuts successfully provided an extra dimension.



22 Ships has been the talk of the town ever since its soft opening. In all honesty, there was not a whole lot of cooking techniques displayed from some of these dishes. They were mostly presentation techniques and mix-and-matching of ingredients. Nevertheless, this was a unique dining experience which was genuinely exciting to be a part of.

Food Rating: 7/10

Price: $$$$

Address: 22 Ship Street, Wanchai, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Wanchai
Tel: +852 2555-0722

Website: www.22ships.hk