Avobar (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

Founded in London back in 2017, Avobar is an all-day superfood restaurant with an all avocado casual dining concept. An instant hit in UK's capital, it didn't take long for the concept to find its way to Hong Kong.



Their first overseas outpost is situated at the recently opened K11 Musea, serving up all kinds of avocado-based dishes.



The 60-seat restaurant features a small bar area with heavy industrial feel.



What would an avocado-laden menu be without these babies, right?



Superfood Salad ($118) - Our health-conscious meal kicked off with a couple of salad bowls, first the superfood salad. This came with curly kale, quinoa, beetroot, pickled carrot, red cabbage, tofu and half of an avocado with parsley drizzle.



The ultimate avo toast ($138) - A deconstructed sourdough avocado toast featuring a melange of sliced avocado, guacamole, poached egg and avocado chilli lime jam. I thought the most interesting part of this dish was the avo lime jam, which tasted a lot like a pate marinated with avocado and chilli, working well with the sourdough toast.



Avo bun Lobster ($198) - The restaurant's signature dish and easily, the most instagrammable one. The burger came in their patented avocado bun with passion fruit, mango and Tabasco mayo drizzled all over the lobster meat. Not bad but there's certainly enough space for more lobster meat if you ask me.



Mushroom risotto with miso-marinated black cod, avocado foam and truffle oil ($178) - The risotto was pretty nice but the avocado foam did very little to enhance the flavors of the dish.



Miso and black sesame grilled salmon ($148) - Less successful was the grilled salmon (comparing to the miso glazed black cod). It was served with baby spinach and avo salsa on the side (the avo connection a little bit weak too).



I was looking forward to their lone dessert on the menu, avocado chocolate brownie but everyone signaled they had enough so I gladly asked for the bill instead.


Food Rating: 5/10
Price: $$$
Address: Shop B201-4, B2/F, K11 Musea, Victoria Dockside, 18 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: East Tsim Sha Tsui
Opening Hours: 12:00pm - 6:00pm (Weekdays), 11:00am - 9:00pm (Weekend)

Caprice (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★★☆

For months, I have been looking for a place to celebrate our wedding anniversary with Jelloman. My better half has previously banned my suggestion of Petrus, Epure, Gaddi’s and Popinjays while VEA Dining was fully booked throughout the week. Could we be having our candlelight dinner at home instead?

After striking out so many times over the past two weeks, I thought there’s no harm that I give Caprice a call. The chance is less than slim but perhaps they might have a table for us?

To my pleasant surprise, they have tables available at 12, 12:30 and 1. Now, I can finally breathe a sigh of relief.

This is my second visit since the French fine-dining restaurant re-captured their third star earlier this year. The last time I was here, there was a big storm hitting the city so I didn’t get to enjoy this amazing harbour view by the window. But on our wedding anniversary day, the guys from high above finally got it right.

Caprice’s weekend brunch is its usual 3-course ($645), 4-course ($790) or 5-course ($895) affair. One gets to choose his/her desired number of courses from four sections of the menu - Appetizer, Soup, Fish, Meat and Dessert.

We were first greeted with a small amuse, an appetite-pleasing small bite with seaweed and smoked eel on the bottom, topped nicely with a layer of potato foam, onion, celeriac and fresh chives. A remarkably palatable and refreshing dish to kick off the meal.

The first course of the menu was Hokkaido scallop carpaccio beautifully plated with red and yellow beetroot. There were dabs of lemon yogurt cream there to provide some acidity to the dish but unfortunately, not nearly enough to bring out the sweetness of the scallop.

Next up was creamy artichoke velouté served with diced artichoke, goat cheese ravioli and mint oil.

The combination of flavors wasn't a bad one but it was a bit too rich, complex and intense with the soup and ravioli working more individually rather than harmonizing each other.

For our fish course, everyone including myself picked the roasted Canadian lobster served with fig marmalade and wild mushrooms.

It was an interesting move pairing the roasted lobster with fig chutney and a fig marmalade made of fresh figs and beetroot, matching sweetness with sweetness but I thought they pulled it off nicely (without shooting themselves on the foot).

The lobster dish was immediately followed by roasted pigeon, with variations of chestnut and savory cabbage stuffed with leg confit and foie gras served on the side.

This was really well executed with the pigeon breast roasted to absolute perfection. Looooove the pink and tender flesh with the crispy skin perfectly crusted with crushed nuts. Easily the most impressive dish of the afternoon.

Ever since Executive pastry chef Nicholas Lambert left for Russia, I have been giving Caprice a hard time on their desserts. This wasn't totally bad like the cheesecake I had last time.

In fact, the hazelnut cream looked like it's working relatively well with caramel passion fruit sauce and oat crumble.

Lastly, some migrandises to send us home happy campers.

Food Rating: 7.5/10
Price: $$$$
Address: 6/F, 8 Finance Street, Four Seasons Hotel, Central, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Hong Kong Station
Tel: +852 3196-8860
Website: www.fourseasons.com/hongkong/dining/restaurants/caprice
Opening Hours: 12:00pm - 2:30pm, 6:30pm - 10:30pm daily

J.S. Foodies x Flipper's at Festival Walk (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★★☆

After dropping off little guy at school today, I invited mom to join me for a late lunch at Festival Walk. I was keen to go back to J.S. Foodies since I had such a great time there last month.



My lunch started off with a small bowl of sweet corn veloute.



My first time having their spaghetti dish. This was tossed in a creamy sauce made with mentaiko (I love mentaiko!).



The sauce got even better when I mixed the seaweed flakes and fresh salmon roes together. Yum~



Mom didn't come for the savory dishes of course. She's here for this - Flipper's souffle pancakes.



I had a tough time deciding whether this was better than the one we had at A Happy Pancake (or vice versa). I am leaning towards a draw.




Food Rating: 6/10
Price: $$$
Address: i.t blue block, Shop 30, LG2/F, Festival Walk, 80 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Kowloon Tong
Tel: +852 2265-8019
Opening Hours: 11:00am - 10:00pm daily