Porterhouse by Laris (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

It's been a really busy month for me at work so I haven't got much time to try any of the new restaurants in town. Luckily, among all the newbies, they weren't that many of them that managed to catch my eyes anyways so at least I didn't get too depressed there.

Well, actually there was one that was on my radar screen for a while and I was constantly tracking their soft opening dates up until now. I am talking about Porterhouse by Laris at the new California Tower in Lan Kwai Fong. 



When Australian Chef David Laris opened his first restaurant in Hong Kong with partner Dining Concepts a few years ago, I was quite impressed with its contemporary cuisine and Mediterranean twist. Unfortunately that didn't work out very well at the end. But he has returned, this time with a modern steakhouse and I couldn't wait to check it out immediately during the opening week.



This is obviously not just a steakhouse. Look at all those fresh seafood at the seafood bar and you know, they are very serious about bringing the best ingredients to their customers.



And Chef Laris himself was here having a small party with his friends.



I can't wait to get started but first some bread served with two types of butter, salted and unsalted with XO sauce. I thought the bread was OK but the butter with XO sauce was quite an interesting experience.



First up for us, a seared diver scallops ($168) with corn purée, sesame and sweet ponzu sauce. While we were ordering, our server had explicitly told us that there was supposed to be just one piece of scallop there. Is the extra piece a special gift from Chef Laris on opening night?



Our server explained that their chef thought the scallops were a little small in size tonight so he decided to throw in an extra piece. Of course, we will gladly take it! But this was by no means small as it has the typical size of a Hokkaido scallop. 

I thought this was a pretty good dish. The scallop was lightly seared and then sprinkled with a little bit of salt. The corn purée, or I would much prefer to describe as corn porridge / polenta, worked very well with the scallop giving it some extra sweetness (5.5/10).



There are three kinds of beef served here, US prime beef, Cape Grim Tasmanian grass-fed from Australia and Japanese A4 wagyu. It was the Heritage Linz USDA Prime beef tenderloin (8oz) ($398) that we ended up ordering. Truffle butter was extra ($38).



It was served pink as promised.



Our server didn't waste any time bringing along different types of salt and mustard for us. I had the pink salt from Himalayas and it was a very good match with the tenderloin. I thought the meat had good flavor and was reasonably tender and juicy. And the grill has given it a little smokey flavor which was always welcomed (5/10).



More seafood to come, this time it was the lobster risotto with sage butter, fine herbs ($228). More butter!?

This was very creamy with lots of lobster in it. Thought they could have made the risotto a little more cheesy and with more herbs just to make it more flavorful but definitely not bad (5.5/10).

 

We had an afternoon tea about an hour ago so didn't have enough room to accommodate dessert at this point. So just a small marshmallow as petite four before we left.



I really like the ambiance here. Very modern and stylish. Service was excellent right from the start and despite totally outnumbering the number of customers (just 4 tables on this night), the staff did well to back off and gave everybody more privacy whenever they can. In terms of food, we didn't get the chance to sample many dishes and the ones that we did try were pretty good with generous portions. Needless to say, we would most definitely come back soon.


Food Rating: 5.5/10

Price: $$$

Address: 7/F California Tower, 30-36 D'Aguilar Street, Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Central
Tel: +852 2522-6366
Website: www.porterhousebylaris.com.hk