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

Earlier this week, my youngest cousin pinged me about this website called Eatigo that offers incredible discounts on affiliated restaurants. I wasn't ready to check it out at the time but later that week, I heard this name again from another source. It was from a newsletter of some sort from Upper Modern Bistro, one of my favorite French restaurants in town. I began to get a little curious and decided to google it up during the weekend.

As it turns out, Eatigo operates very much like The Fork, which is a restaurant booking system that offers online restaurant reviews (mostly just ratings), restaurant information (such as menu) and most importantly, discounts. The discount rate varies by reservation time and if you're booking less popular hours of the day, chances are that you'll be awarded huge rewards such as 30 to 50% off. The Fork has been pretty popular in countries like Spain, Italy and France; and personally, I did have some success booking through their system before.

Anyways, I got more and more curious about Eatigo. So, I started checking out their affiliated restaurants and to my pleasant surprise, there are quite a number of interesting names there including AMMO, The Continental, Upper Modern Bistro, Blue Butcher and Fish & Meat. This little discovery couldn't come at a better time as we were fishing for a place for a gathering in less than 24 hours! As the one delegated to make the final call again, I ended up picking The Continental at Pacific Place.




It's been a while since I last visited The Continental so I was really anxious about coming here again. Of course, there's another driving force behind too, a whopping 50% discount was offered when I made this booking at Eatigo. The catch? We had to arrive at 11am.....(the offer drops to 30% for 11:30am booking and I think 10% for noon).



Believe it or not, we actually managed to arrive not at 11am but 10:45am before the restaurant was even open. That's from someone who can't even wake up in time for breakfast (me!). Huge accomplishment there!



Continental Caesar ($145) - Starting things off was a nice plate of Caesar salad featuring
gem lettuce, croutons, parmesan and smoked sardine.



Escargot and chanterelles fricasee ($190) - I was missing the escargot fricasee from Seasons by Olivier E so this was an easy choice for me. This was pretty tasty having mouthwatering escargot served up with chanterelles, tomato, asparagus flan and some chorizo butter.



Sea Scallop Carpaccio ($180) - I saw this in a number of places including Eatigo's website so I figured this had to be one of the restaurant's most recent recommendation from the chef. The scallop was really fresh and sweet and they have its sweetness backed up nicely with some mustard oil, dried cherry and smoked tomato fondue. I also like the strips of fresh pear there to complement the richness of the scallop. Easily the best of the four starters.



Spicy Tuna Tartare ($180) - Marinated tuna tartare served with pickled pepper, jicama, coriander and avocado puree. I thought not bad but slightly overshadowed by the scallop carpaccio right before it.



Maine Lobster Spaghetti ($298) - Our main courses started off slowly with a slightly underwhelming lobster spaghetti served with roasted pepper, Sicilian pink shrimps and rocket. Personally, I'd like to see the sauce to be a little more tangy (and rich) and perhaps a bit more bite in the spaghetti.



Jeju Pork Ragu Paccheri ($195) - Slightly better was the paccheri which was a little firmer working well with the Jeju pork ragu, san marzano tomato and cream cheese.



Roasted Greenland Halibut ($240) - I thought our fish and meat dishes were both solid. The Greenland halibut was roasted to perfection. It was supported nicely by a cast that included lentil, zucchini, tomato, purple onion and turmeric.



Free Range Chicken ($160) - We only ordered half bird since everyone wanted some room for dessert. The chicken was surprisingly tender and some simple garnish with grilled broccoli and crispy garlic already helped it bag some rave reviews from the four of us.



Peach Melba ($95) - I was hoping they would throw in a chilled peach soup but that wasn't happening. Still it was way better than the second dessert with the peach, almonds and amaretto ice cream all meshing well together.



Valrhona Three Chocolates ($110) - Just different textures of chocolate served with some fresh berries. That was alright.



I did the quick math and was later confirmed (when the bill came) that we actually saved almost $1,000 with this Eatigo booking. Of course, we had to arrive a little earlier than usual for lunch but the extra saved definitely got a smile on everyone's face.



My first visit since former executive Joey Sergentakis left for Singapore and looks like they haven't missed a beat.

Food Rating: 6/10
Price: $$$
Address: Unit 406, L4, Pacific Place, 88 Queensway, Admiralty, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Admiralty
Tel: +852 2704-5211 
Website: www.thecontinentalhongkong.com