Pierre Hermé Harbour City (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★★☆

Holiday season has finally arrived at Pierre Hermé with the "Picasso of Pastry" launching the holiday macarons collection in recent weeks. Before heading to the Pierre Hermé boutique at Gateway, we decided to do a quick "market research" around Harbour City first. 

We stopped by the newly opened Fauchon and then Ladurée to check out the crowd and the verdict was clear - Pierre Hermé was by far the most popular one out of the three.



Out of the five new winter flavors, we have decided to ditch the Agape (Lemon and Gingerbread) and go with the remaining four new flavors - Truffle Blanche & Noisette (White truffle & roasted Piedmont hazelnut slivers), Chocolat & Foie Gras (self explanatory), Infiniment Marron Glaze (Candied chestnut) and lastly PX (Pedro Ximenez & Steeperd Sultanas).




The highly anticipated White Truffle was definitely worth the hype. Using some of the finest white truffles from Alba and blending them nicely with Piedmont hazelnut, that was heaven!

I thought the Chocolate & Foie Gras and Pedro Ximenez were also excellent choices. Less successful was the chestnut in my opinion.

Food Rating: 8/10

Price: $$$$

Address: Shop 2410, Level 2, Gateway Arcade, Harbour City, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Tsim Sha Tsui
Tel: +852 2155-3866
Website: www.pierreherme.com/hk

Wagyu Takumi (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★★☆

For the first time since the launch of the Michelin Guide in Hong Kong, there was no major surprise or controversy in the selection. As many expected, Caprice dropped out of the three-star selection following the departure of executive chef Vincent Thierry but the void was immediately filled by Demon Chef Alvin Leung's Bo Innovation and Chef Yoshitake's Sushi Shikon. 

Perhaps the lone surprise came from Wagyu Takumi, a new Japanese-French fusion restaurant who made its debut with 2 stars.



Wagyu Takumi is one of three restaurants opened by the Lai Sun Group on the ground floor of the Oakhill apartment complex, the other 2 being high-end Japanese restaurants with different specialties. Mitsuro Konishi, the executive chef of Wagyu Takumi, is a veteran in the business having worked in France at Taillevent as well as L'Atelier Joel Robuchon in Tokyo. He's particularly adept in incorporating Japanese ingredients into his French cooking.

Booking during the Christmas season was surprisingly trickier than expected. We were told by the reservation staff that they were closed on certain dates around Christmas. On other days where they were open, they couldn't guarantee our booking unless at least 1 group had already signed up and made an advance payment. That was odd but luckily we were able to find an afternoon with one confirmed booking.



Lunch started off brilliantly with a lovely barley risotto with seasonal mushrooms. It was a classy and well thought dish showing a lot of poise from Chef Konishi. The barley had great depth of flavors and it worked beautifully with the assorted mushrooms (8/10).




A crispy horsehead fish was our fish course and it reminded us of a similar dish we had at Liberty Private Works not too long ago. Again it was an excellent dish. The horsehead dish, pan fried to golden colors, was sitting on a parsnip purée with fresh tomato sauce sprinkled all over. The tomato sauce provided just enough to match the sweetness of the horsehead fish (7.5/10).



Charcoal grilled wagyu tenderloin and braised beef tongue were served with a port wine sauce. I haven't had such a tender and flavorful beef tongue for ages. It was pure joy! The charcoal grilled Japanese Hida-gyu beef tenderloin was equally mouthwatering. I could really see why charcoal grilled beef is a house specialty here (8/10).



Less flashy was dessert, a white chocolate mousse with strawberry and pistachio ice-cream. Nothing wrong with this dish at all but I guess we have set the bar a little higher now after the previous dishes (5/10). 



It was a wonderful display of talent by Chef Konishi but lunch cost a whopping $888 for 4-course (The only other at lunch was a 6-course tasting menu at $1380). Comparing to the lights of Caprice, Amber and L'Atelier Joel Robuchon, I thought it's totally overpriced.

Food Rating: 8/10
Price: $$$$$
Address: G/F The Oakhill, 28 Wood Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Wanchai
Tel: +852 2574-1299
Website: www.ginsai.com.hk/en/wagyu-takumi

Shang Palace 香宮 (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

My sister was in town for Christmas and following my struggles to find a decent western restaurant for lunch, we ended up picking a Chinese restaurant. A weird decision indeed considering that for a western holiday like Christmas, it just felt natural to have a western meal all the time. But this was not just any Chinese restaurant. The ageless Shang Palace (香宮) has been around for decades and in recent years, they've been one of the favorites of the Michelin guys.  



I've always picked Summer Palace (夏宮) over Shang Palace due to convenience from work so it's been a while since I last came here. Still looked very much the same with very minor tinkering here and there.



Steamed shrimp dumplings ($68) - the four of us shared a nice steamed shrimp dumpling to kick things off. This was a pretty good start (6/10).



Steamed rice flour rolls with shrimp ($80) - I thought it was OK but for that price, it gotta have a little more shrimps in there (5/10).



Steamed scallop dumplings ($68) - The diced scallops were fine but the wrapper had a bit too much spinach or asparagus flavor which was taking something away from the sweetness of the scallops. I could definitely do without this dish (4/10).



Baked abalone puff with minced chicken ($72 per piece) - A house specialty here but again failed to impress me. The pastry was a little too thick for my liking (4.5/10).



Baked barbecued pork buns ($48) - This was a decent dish. The baked buns were soft and spongy with a nice and warm BBQ pork filling but still not overly impressive (5.5/10).



Smoked bean curd skin rolls filled with carrots and black mushrooms ($80) - It actually tasted a little better than it looked (some of the bean curd skins were burnt). Forget about the presentation, it was another alright choice (5.5/10).



Braised E-fu noodles and lobster with black truffle ($388) - We had trouble picking a fried rice and fried noodle from the bunch and since most of us like lobster, we went with this choice.

Unfortunately, the noodles were a lot more soupy than we expected. Quite honestly, I didn't like the fact that they've thrown in all the expensive ingredients like lobster and black truffle just to make it more "premium". The flavors were fine but again nothing spectacular (4.5/10).



Summer Palace's chilled sago cream with mango and pomelo ($48) has always been my personal favorite so of course I had to check out this one here. Very refreshing. Not bad (6.5/10).



I have to say, this was one of the more disappointing lunch I've had in recent memory. So much for the two Michelin stars.


Food Rating: 5.5/10
Price: $$$$
Address: 64 Mody Road, Lower Level I Kowloon Shangrila Hotel, Tsim Sha Tsui East, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Tsim Sha Tsui East
Tel: +852 2733-8754
Website: www.shangri-la.com/hongkong/kowloonshangrila/dining/restaurants/shang-palace/

Le Salon de Thé de Joël Robuchon - Elements (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

What exactly was taking them so long!? 

With all the success Le Salon de Thé de Joël Robuchon and L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon have enjoyed over the years, one would think that they would be opening branches all over Hong Kong like 7-11s but they have chosen to stay put all these years. Until the end of 2013, they finally exploded for two brand new locations, doubling their number of branches in Hong Kong.




Unlike the IFC branch which was just opened 3 months ago, the Elements branch is a lot more spacious. Taking over the space previously occupied by H&M, the restaurant boasts a similar "Robuchon" color tone with lush red leather chairs and black marble tables.

Instead of the usual haute cuisine which has made Joël Robuchon establishments famous, the menu here is largely composed of comfort food including salad, burger, sandwich and pasta. 

 

First up was my cheese burger with homemade French fries. The beef patty was made with Kagoshima beef and it was so juicy.



I was really looking forward to their crepes. Out of the 5-6 different crepes, we ordered the seafood crepe with crab meat, mussels, squid and egg with a small green salad on the side.

But as it turned out, it was our most disappointing dish. Our crepe was very dry and I thought it desperately needed a sauce to hold everything together.

Our final dish was supposed to be a black cod fish but our server came back and told us they were "out of stock" so we had to scramble for an alternative. 

At the end, we opted for the fried rice cake with creamy taleggio cheese, baby spinach and Parma ham. It was beautifully presented and I thought it was a solid pick as well.

Many years ago, this "casual dining" concept by Joël Robuchon was already available in Japan and I liked it a lot. It's a nice change of pace from the fine dining we got so used to seeing from the master chef but they had to improve on the design of some of these dishes to be successful in Hong Kong.


Food Rating: 5/10

Price: $$$

Address: Shop 1020B, First Level Elements, 1 Austin Road West, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Kowloon
Tel: +852 2351-6678
Website: http://robuchon.hk/
 


View Larger Map

Ladurée (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★★☆

Holiday season around Christmas and new year is often the best time for patisserie to showcase their latest creations. This year, the team from Ladurée is bringing us four new flavors including chestnut, chocolate kalamansi, milk chocolate passion fruit coconut and praline just in time for Christmas.

Of course, I had to get myself a small box just to satisfy my curiosity. 




Out of the four new flavors, I only got the chocolate Kalamansi which I thought was okay but not exciting comparing to the Christmas creations by Pierre Hermé. The rest are some of my favorite flavors from Ladurée such as Pink pepper, gingerbread, pistachio, soft caramel with sea salt and marshmallow chocolate coconut.

With the opening of the Ladurée tea room in Causeway, the lineup here at the Gateway seemed to thin out considerably.


Food Rating: 6.5/10

Price: $$$

Address: Shop 3224, 3/F, Gateway Arcade, Harbour City, 17 Canton Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Tsim Sha Tsui
Tel: +852 2175-5028



View Larger Map

A la Folie Pâtisserie (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★☆☆☆

December has been a real busy month for us. A lot of friends and family are in town and we have been so busy catching up. Tonight is really one of the few nights we are not heading out for dinner. Instead we are just having family dinner at home and as a self-proclaimed foodie, I decided to get a little dessert for everybody as a treat.

All of a sudden, A la Folie Patisserie came to mind.

I read about this place from the web a while ago and the buzz largely came from their executive pastry chef Kato Tomohiko who used to work for the Roppongi Grand Hyatt hotel in Japan at a similar position. He's a highly regarded talent who is famous for combining French pastries with his Japanese roots.

"A la Folie" stands for "Madness" and if my very limited French serves me well enough, it's often used to describe the most intense love (almost to a point of madness?). Unfortunately, out of the 20 different pastries that were freshly made, we could not find one which we were madly in love with.

At the end, we had to randomly pick a few. Meet Rhapsody - a dome shaped white chocolate mousse cake embedded with slow-cooked orange and raspberry in the middle. I thought it was very average.



Lovers' Concerto is a layered peach cake made using three different types of peaches and fluffy sponge cake.

 

Mousse au Chocolat-banane is probably the only one with a passing grade. I liked the caramel coating hugging around the soft hazelnut chocolate mousse and banana bits. This was easily the best of the three.



Despite the disappointing cakes, the macarons were surprisingly good. This earl grey tea flavor was my personal favorite.



If you plan on making a special trip to Mongkok East for A la Folie Patisserie, I say forget about it (Harlan's cake shop at The One is also under the same group and they have almost the same collection.).


Food Rating: 3.5/10

Price: $$$

Address: 2/F Grand Century Place, 193 Prince Edward Road West, Mong Kok, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Mongkok East
Tel: +852 2327-9090
Website: www.jcgroup.hk/restaurants/alafolie/‎

The Principal (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★★☆

Christmas is again just around the corner and we were itching for a nice meal just before the festival season. Picking out the restaurant initially gave me some headache but it didn't take long before we settled on The Principal on Star Street. 

The Principal remains one of my favorite restaurants in town as Executive Chef Jonay Armas continues to dazzle with his innovative flair. I have to admit, this is my first experience with their dinner menu as I have only had the pleasure of enjoying a few lunch here with my previous visits.

 

A pretty quiet night with only a handful of diners on hand.

Kicking off the tasting menu for us was our amuse bouche. This consisted of a few snacks
including some passion campari, trapped inside a "ping pong ball" that pops in the mouth. 



Followed by some mimetic peanut, sesame biscuits and pate bonbon. Pretty nice start.



Uni - Our night kicked off in style with an uni dish. The briny sea urchin was served on a bed of Japanese steamed egg custard (chawanmushi). It was wonderfully matched with a creamy emulsion made with sake and dates.



Egg - Next up, more eggs. Our second dish featured free range onsen egg, served with Iberico ham, parmentier and chanterelle. Very nice and clean flavors capped off by the savory kick of the Spanish ham.



Blue Lobster - The roasted blue lobster was stuck with a patch of gluey Béarnaise sauce, along with wild rice and tarragon. This was served with some butternut squash purée on the side. For me, one of the least satisfying dish of the night.



Cod - We got back on track with our fish course, a beautifully cooked cod fish paired with a "black and white" sauce.



Suckling pig - Equally successful was the superbly executed suckling pig, served with baby endives, lemon purée, cabbage and pomegranate. There was an incredible balance of flavors in the dish, from the bitterness of the endives, acidity from the lemon to of course, the savory flavors and richness of the pork.  



Black tea - Black tea ice-cream on a disk of bergamot jelly with honey crumbs, lavender and cardamon. Not sure if this was a palate cleanser or our first dessert.



Gianduja - A final dessert of chocolate mousse, praline, sweet potato and brown butter ice-cream helped to send us home happy. 


 

Some petite fours to end our night on a sweet note.





Food Rating: 7/10
Price: $$$
Address: 9 Star Street, Wanchai, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Wanchai
Tel: +852 2563-3444
Website: www.pressroomgroup.com