Located on the 4th floor of OTE (Ocean Terminal Extension), à nu retrouvez-vous is the sister restaurant of à nu retrouvez-vous Tokyo, a Japanese-French fine dining restaurant in Hiroo opened by owner-chef Shohei Shimono (下野 昌平) in 2009. Chef Shimono and his team went on to capture their first Michelin star in 2011 and that's where they've been for the past 6 years.
It would be too much to expect Shimono-san to be here for the day-to-day operation so that's where head chef Yusuke Kitade (北出 佑介) comes in. Chef Kitade has been working alongside Shimono-san since 2013 so we knew we will be in very capable hands tonight.
While we were offered some bread to start the meal, our server decided to give us a pop quiz on the name of the restaurant. The question was whether we knew how it translates into English (from French obviously). Well, that's a tough one for someone who flunked high school French and ended up taking Español to fulfill the second-language requirements.
After a little bit of dead air, he finally had the answer for us (Thank you!). "Just as it is", the wise man said. He went onto explain that it's the mojo of the restaurant - to let the natural flavors of the ingredients shine the way they should.
Now that we got our little French lesson out of the way, it's time for more bread. This time, some homemade brioche served with butter and sour cream.
Almost at the same time, we got ourselves some amuse bouche. This was a really nice collection of small nibbles (from top to bottom), Hokkaido uni with bonito jelly, marinated tuna and artichoke purée with caviar all performing admirably for us.
Before we even started picking apart our amuse bouche, we were handed the first course of our tasting menu. This was a very big piece of hamaguri clam which was served lukewarm with two distinctly different sauces - a wild vegetable vinaigrette (left) and lobster sauce (right). I thought the clam was very fresh and sweet, and personally I found it working much better with the umami-rich lobster sauce.
Next up was poached Japanese egg served with in-season white asparagus that has been deep fried with a paper-thin batter. The egg was obviously a very special breed which could only be found somewhere to the south of Mount Fuji and because of what the hen ate, the flavors of the egg tended to be a little spicy (according to our server).
I actually thought the egg tasted a bit like burrata cheese. A little cheesy but without the promised spiciness. While I like the texture of the poached egg, the star of this dish was clearly the deep-fried white asparagus. It was a pretty nice match with the saffron Hollandaise sauce that came with a hint of lemon.
It was followed by charcoal grilled lobster with yuzu vinaigrette and lemongrass foam. There was a scoop of lobster tartare on the side to give us some contrasting texture and flavor.
* From this point on, all photos were taken with my iPhone after the battery of my camera went dead..... *
Smoked eel was mixed with silky foie gras terrine and pan seared slightly. What really made this dish extra special was the generous portion of sansho flower (花山椒) laying on top of the sea eel and foie gras terrine. These sansho flowers are only available for a few weeks every year and their season is wrapping up soon.
There were a lot of flavors in this elegant dish (though not a lot of textures), with the smoky eel, velvety foie gras and aromatic sansho flower all doing its part in this symphony of flavors which was very enjoyable for our palates.
Our fish course was pan fried kinmadai (金目鯛), a fish I'm more familiar as a sushi or sashimi.
This had surprisingly nice texture. Perfectly moist and succulent, both signs of a beautifully cooked dish. Even the simplest finishing touches with seaweed beurre blanc, choy sum and fennel already did the trick.
Finally the dish I have been long waiting for, the restaurant's A5 sirloin from Saga Prefecture.
This was very tender with nice marbling all around. Again, two distinctly different sauces were provided to match the wagyu - beetroot purée and green pepper sauce. This wasn't even close. The beetroot purée was way better in neutralizing the richness of the wagyu.
After our main dish, we had a nice pink guava granita with candied kiwi as our palate cleanser.
Dessert was à nu retrouvez-vous's signature mango fleur d’été, with slices of fresh mango making up the shape of a rose.
On the bottom were diplomat cream and crispy sable biscuit. Not bad but it definitely looked better than it tasted.
A small petite four to wrap up this surprisingly impressive meal that lasted almost 3 hours (3 enjoyable hours).
Million thanks to my food buddy who treated me to this wonderful birthday dinner tonight. I have just a few more birthday celebration meals to go so hopefully, I can go on a diet in time for my annual body check scheduled for early May.
Food Rating: 7/10
Price: $$$$
Address: Shop OTE 402, 4/F, Ocean Terminal, Harbour City, 3-27 Canton Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Tsim Sha Tsui
Tel: +852 2770-6222
Website: www.anu.com.hk
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