Mirage Bar and Restaurant (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★☆☆☆

When Mirage, a new restaurant and bar concept at the Renaissance Harbour View Hotel, first launched late last year, I was fortunate enough to be invited for their grand opening party with the media. But unluckily, I was away in Tokyo at the time so didn't get the chance to attend their launch event.



I was interested in checking out some of their creative cocktails and all-day dining options and managed to recruit M (no, not the one from the 007 sequel) to be my partner-in-crime today.



The 2-course express lunch menu offers a decent selection with a mix of soup, salad, pasta, seafood and meat rotating on a regular basis. I started thing off with what they called the "Mirage Caesar Salad".

This is more or less your typical Caesar with romaine lettuce, anchovies, croutons and crispy (more like chewy) bacon. It wasn't drawing rave reviews from me mainly due to the gluey dressing which was way too thick for anyone's liking.



The penne arrabiatta with tiger prawns was so much better. Thought the spicy tomato sauce was fairly decent and same goes for the grilled tiger prawns.



I thought the service wasn't particularly good especially for a hotel restaurant. They messed up my booking and as a result, the hostess didn't let me in because the two bookings they found under the same family name were made by two ladies. I tried to be patient with her and told her I made the booking myself so they must have made a mistake there. Quite honestly, I didn't see a point of arguing there coz for one, they still had tables available and secondly, my friend M has already been seated without a booking! Anyways, it took a while but I finally convinced her to let me in.

Perhaps the bars were set a little too high to start? This is a lounge restaurant (just happen to be inside a hotel!) but nothing more...

Food Rating: 3.5/10
Price: $$$
Address: 1/F Renaissance Harbour View Hotel, 1 Harbour Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Wanchai
Tel: +852 2802-8888