On the ground floor is a buzzy cocktail bar and cafe tailormade for casual dining and drinks while the first floor houses a more formal dining hall serving modern British cuisine.
I love the fact that they tried to keep almost everything intact here including the ceiling-to-floor windows, the rustic staircases etc. and they have done remarkable work in turning this colonial architecture into a modern space.
We got here slightly earlier than expected. Rather than rushing to the food menu, I decided to grab a pre-dinner drink first. Here's my "Get Lucky" which consisted of red berry shrub, cranberry juice, mint, ginger ale and $1000 dollar bill. Yes $1000 dollar bill, too bad it's not real!
Good luck must have really rubbed off on me. It turned out that on opening night, everything from the food menu was offered at 50% off!
First of all, a pair of nibbles to start our night off before dinner officially began. A crab doughnut and a biscuit with tomato and black olive on top. Two relatively light yet elegant amuse bouches (7/10).
After the simple amuse bouche, a loaf of homemade country bread was served. That had just the perfect texture we were looking for.
The talented kitchen wasted little time in showing us what they were capable of. Their first creation for us was a slow cooked hen's egg served with black pudding, crispy pig's ear and pickled king oyster mushrooms ($168).
The onsen egg worked extremely well with the black pudding and oyster mushrooms. Only if the crispy pig's ears could be a little less chewy, this dish would have been perfect (5/10).
Chef Atherton has always got a knack for surprising you with his combination of ingredients and this next dish was a classic example. Pieces of raw Hokkaido scallops ($228) were presented with dashi jelly, apple, shiso, avocado and wasabi purée atop.
All of the ingredients were complimenting each other so beautifully giving us an absolutely terrific dish (7.5/10).
I have seen this on the PMQ homepage so it has got to be a special dish here - roasted quail breast with confit leg, sautéed foie gras, peach chutney and Chinese almonds ($245).
While the presentation was not as good as shown on the website, it was another solid dish.I have particularly enjoyed the peach chutney that provided a balancing effect on the richness of the quail (7/10).
Last but not least, a braised ox cheek with roasted bone marrow, sourdough crumb, carrot and horseradish mash ($318) before we proceeded to our dessert.
I really liked the beef jus and red wine reduction to go with the ox cheek giving it a wonderful depth of flavors. But I had a little too many braised beef cheek in recent times and this was not nearly as good as the one I had at Upper Modern Bistro a little while ago (5.5/10).
Even the little pre-dessert, you could tell they have put a lot of thoughts into it.
Meet our homemade green apple and celery sorbet sprinkled with green tea crumble and finished with Japanese plum wine jelly on the bottom. That was brilliant.
The desserts here are designed by executive pastry chef Andres Lara, an award-winning pastry chef who has made his marks in the culinary world from his days at El Bulli and Noma. I am really looking forward to what lies ahead for us.
First up was the Jaal 75%, which came highly recommended to us by our server. Highlighted by a Madras curry ice-cream, this dessert also features chocolate cream, caramelized banana cubes and calamansi juice. Didn't expect the exotic taste of Madras curry could be so refreshing (7/10).
Less impressive was the other dessert, Chinese Almond. A chinese almond flavored ice-cream was served with preserved kumquat, roasted coffee, dates and Moroccan spices but the supporting cast seemed a little too dominant (5/10).
After dessert, two large vanilla marshmallow cubes with choco dust were presented before we settled our bill.
The ground-floor pastry store named "Sweet Social" is still under renovation but should be ready by the end of this month. Stay tuned.....
This meal reminded me a little of another modern British restaurant, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal in London; in the sense that both restaurants are very good with presenting their food in a contemporary manner.
And 6.5 out of 10 felt like a harsh score to give for a relatively enjoyable dinner but don't get me wrong. I have every confidence that this talented kitchen will iron things out by the time we pay them a second visit.
Food Rating: 6.5/10
Price: $$$
Address: PMQ, 1/F, JPC, 35 Aberdeen Street, Central, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Central / Hong Kong Station
Tel: +852 2866-0300Website: www.facebook.com/aberdeenstreetsocial
Post a Comment
Please tell us what you think