Blue Elephant Thai Brasserie (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

I finally got the chance to visit one of the newcomers to the local dining scene this weekend. Located in the Gateway Arcade of the bustling Harbour City, Blue Elephant Thai Brasserie is a modern Thai restaurant that has been very dedicated to promote Thai cuisine internationally. They already have a lot of overseas presence including London, Paris, Brussels and Copenhagen; and obviously they have no plans of slowing down. Apart from this business arm which offers their brand of Thai cuisine with a contemporary twist, they are also pretty strong with their cooking school and catering services.



Their exquisite interior design was a very impressive start and I was hoping that their East-Meets-West food menu could deliver the same pleasant surprise.



While I was waiting for my food to arrive, I took some time to check out the venue which was huge!



There's a dining area hidden at the back with a partial harbour view.



Stir fried baby cabbage with fried shrimps and fish sauce ($78) - The baby cabbage was nice and crisp and I like the fact that they were not oily or over-seasoned like we've seen from some Thai restaurants. Not bad.



Crispy garlic soft shell crab ($88) - Despite the less-than-attractive presentation, this was pretty tasty. The soft shell crab was deep fried with garlic, mixed herbs and served with a mildly spicy tamarind dipping sauce on the side.



Stir fried rice noodle with pork neck and vegetable ($138) - They have a fairly good stir-fried rice noodle too with just enough oil to make it mighty tasty yet not enough to be overly greasy. The "wok air" (鑊氣) was not bad so presumably it was fried under pretty high heat.



Thai Brasserie spare ribs ($138) - This came in a small package (4 pieces) so the three of us had to literally fight for that extra piece.

I thought these were very tender and juicy (Some might think it's a little too sweet but that's okay with me.). Looks like the marinated pork ribs were first slow-cooked before finishing on the grill. That should help to explain why the ribs were slightly crunchy outside but the flesh remained soft and moist inside. Love the sweet and spicy flavors from the Thai-style plum sauce providing the ribs something extra to work with. Very nice.



Blue Elephant has been fairly aggressive in expanding its territories over the past few years. I have seen them in a number of food festivals and also in pop-ups such as Commune A7 in Taipei most recently. And judging from what we tried at lunch today, they've got a nice restaurant here in Hong Kong offering some very good modern Thai dishes.

Food Rating: 5.5/10
Price: $$$
Address: Shop 3303, 3/F, Gateway Arcade, Harbour City, 17 Canton Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Tsim Sha Tsui
Tel: +852 2328-2328