Harbourside at Regent Hong Kong (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

After a few years of not really celebrating my birthday (during the pandemic), this year felt a little different already. I was greeted with my first birthday wish early in the morning by little nugget. It was nice to have my birthday on a Saturday for a change and although I still needed to go to my office, I finally gotta enjoy a birthday dinner set up by none other than Jelloman herself. Unlike the previous years, she's the one picking tonight’s dinner venue and not surprisingly, she decided to check Harbourside at Regent Hong Kong off her list.

As one of the most luxurious buffet restaurant in all of Hong Kong, Harbourside had a facelift during the hotel's year-long renovation and came back with an equally luxurious price tag. Though its name consistently came up, I have never had the urge to try this place out myself cuz I’ve never been a buffet kind of guy. I always prefer quality over quantity so to speak but since someone is picking up the bill tonight, I’m just going to enjoy the food and view this time.

Little nugget led us to our table which was hidden at the back of the restaurant. 

It didn’t have a harbour view, not even a partial one (we were kind of facing the museum) but at least we were not sitting next to the food counters like a few others. Let’s just say that the restaurant was a little cramped.

Like everybody else, we started things off at the seafood counter first. There were prawns, tourteau crabs and Japanese sashimi highlighted by the fresh scallops which were huge in size. 

I also liked the salmon gravlax which was absolutely dusted with dill (hidden behind the crab there).

The uni sushi was so small! And I thought the tuna with all those tendons was also disappointing. Only the scallop was worth an encore.

I didn’t really spend much time at the “Hot dish” counter myself. The braised abalone with cabbage and fish maw highlighted a few noteworthy Chinese dishes but none was good enough for a second dip.

Of course the highlight of the meal were the “made-to-order” lobsters. They're always a crowd pleaser in a buffet. 

There were also “made-to-order” Peking duck and we didn't even need to get our hands dirty. The chef did it all for you by diligently placing the duck skin and condiments onto the pancake, spray it with hoisin and wrap it up nice and clean. This was OK.

Like most upscale buffets, there’s a small section reserved for roasted beef and ham. I had the ham myself and it was pretty chewy. Not great.

Dessert probably deserves a bit of love. I decided to pass on all the nice looking pastries including tiramisu and matcha chiffon cakes, and put all my money on the mango pudding, egg tart and macarons. Sadly, the mango pudding was a little bland; the egg tart had a pretty nice, custardy egg custard but the pastry wasn’t nearly flaky enough.

As it turned out, my birthday chocolate tart was the best sweet treat of the evening.

It was rich in dark chocolate flavors with the raspberry ganache in the middle doing a nice job cutting through the richness.

When they said “Hong Kong style milk tea” on the drink menu, my first reaction was “Really?”. But after taking a flyer on it, I could now confirm that it’s indeed as strong and silky smooth as any pantyhose milk tea out there. I’m glad I made the right choice.

I had just enough room for one single item before calling it the night and decided to get myself some pan seared foie gras. This came with a ton of balsamic reduction on top. Pretty nice.

Many thanks to Jelloman for organizing this and special thanks to my little boy for singing the birthday song again for his old man. I would say, this was a pretty good birthday dinner albeit the poor value-for-money. 

   

Food Rating: 6.3/10

Price: $$$$$

Address: G/F, Regent Hong Kong, 18 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Tsim Sha Tsui / East Tsim Sha Tsui

Tel: +852 2313-2313

Opening Hours: 12:00pm – 2:30 pm, 5:30pm – 11:00 pm daily