It might be Le French GourMay this month, but there’s lots of good and not so good Italian flavoured news in this week’s megabites.
Sadly at IFC Isola is to relocate and lose it’s gorgeous terrace and view across the harbour. Rumour has it that even after demanding that the restaurant renovate their interior a couple of years ago landlord IFC have decided they can make more money by taking the large space and splitting it into smaller shops, so there will three new restaurants opening soon… More details on those as we get them.
Isola will close in it’s current location (Shop 3071-75, Level 3, ifc mall) on the 31 May and reopen almost directly downstairs on the second floor on the 12 June with a little more upmarket feel and basically the same menu with some new dishes to reflect the slight change in the feel due to the new location. The reservation telephone number and website address will remain unchanged.
A recent Italian food tasting at Isola saw several local vendors showcasing their Italian sourced products. Among those offering sample tastes were Abrate whose imported Tratuf Langhetruffle and pesto crisps are big thick and delicious. There’s a technique to cooking pasta well and it exposes the taste and texture difference between the cheaper brands and the more artisan pasta. Budget is always a factor when shopping, but when you want to impress then choose a quality pasta or all your effort in creating a mind bending sauce will be for naught. As well as pastas Abrate’s web shop also features a good selection of truffle, mushrooms, spices, dried fruits, desserts and other Italian delights.
Vigne Vecchie produce a wide range of Italian products including pates, sauces, pickled vegetable, oils, and a bc favourite delicious cherry tomatoes stuffed with tuna. Many are available locally through an online store and regular pop-up events give them an email to find out about their upcoming events [email protected]
Pizza Express has launched a new menu for summer with many of the new dishes featuring seafood and seasonal fruits. We’ve yet to taste the new offerings but some of the more interesting sounding are: Crab Flatbread; Hawaiian ‘PizzaExpress – which features pineapple chutney and parma ham instead of the more traditional pineapple chunks and the new Lava pizza which has burrata mozzarella and basil torn over a baked pizza topped with olives and cherry tomatoes. All the new dishes are available at all 19 Pizza Express outlets across Hong Kong.
To celebrate the grand opening of their Citywalk store Emack & Bolio will be giving away 500 free scoops/cones on the 13 May from 2pm. The new store is located at Shop UG19, Citywalk, 1 Yeung Uk Road, Tsuen Mun
BrewDog Craft beer brewery BrewDog opens it’s second bar in Asia on the 4 February at 19 Hollywood Road, Central. The bar is the 45th for this fast expanding brewery which only tapped it’s first pint in 2007. BrewDog UK staff Neil and Lucy, in town to supervise the opening, are passionate craft beer advocates and the ethos of producing quality beers has – taste them yourself to see if you agree or not – survived the rapid scaling of volumes over the last eight years.
BrewDog Hong Kong has 14 beers on draft including regulars like their signatures Punk IPA (5.4%), Elvis Juice (6.7%) Jackhammer (7.2%) and experimentals like the delicious AB:19 (13.1%). The beers are served in UK pint, 2/3 pint, half pint and 1/3 pint glasses. A UK pint is 568ml compared to an American ‘pint’ which is 473ml and a Hong Kong ‘pint’ which can be as small as 335-385ml. When asked why the different serving sizes… it’s about keeping the quality of the beer. A customer won’t drink a glass of AB:19 at 13.1% in the same way as they’ll drink a pint of Punk…
There’s a range of food including delicious french dip sandwiches, lamb cheese fondue, jalapeno cheese bread and glazed donuts to be enjoyed with your beer. BrewDog: 19 Hollywood Road, Central. Tel: 2219 9905 www.facebook.com/BrewDogHK
Fei Jai Burger For Chinese New Year The Butchers Club have a new option on their ‘secret menu’ the Fei Jai burger. Stacked inside a classic pineapple bun the ‘Fei Jai’ consists of a five-spice pork belly burger patty with a char siu glaze, seared luncheon meat, a crispy wonton, Chinese cabbage and coriander salad, spring onion mayo and a fried egg.
A veritable feast of Hong Kong flavours the pineapple bun holds together well as a burger bun, for health safety reasons pork has to be cooked longer than beef so the meat comes out a little drier than a traditional beef patty but the fried egg and the mayo lubricate the burger well. Luncheon meat and wontons are not what you’d expect to find in a burger but the crispyness and flavour add well to create a unique and delicious burger.
The Fei Jai burger ($88) is available until the 10th February at all three The Butchers Club Burgers outlets – Wanchai, Central and K11 in TST. www.thebutchers.club
Eat What You Want, Pay What You Want
Khana Khazana’s unique Chinese New Year “Eat What You Want, Pay What You Want” buffet promotion returns for the seventh year. Every Monday evening in February from 6-10pm the Wanchai Indian Vegetarian restaurant dinner buffet allows customers to pay what they want for the buffet via an empty red packet included with the bill. Drinks are not included and must be paid for in full. The buffet includes dishes like sprout bean salad, boondi raita, meduwada, pakoda, hariyali kebab, paneer butter masala, jeera aloo, dal punjabi, sevian kheer and roti’s and naan are served at the table. Khana Khazana: 1/F, Dannies House, 20 Luard Road, Wanchai. Tel: 81081070 www.khanakhazana.com.hk
Create Your Taste
Does McDonalds need a refresh? Hong Kong’s go-to 24hour answer for a cheap burger, fries and drink is experimenting. While there’s been a range of specialty burgers appearing and disappearing as special menu promotions for some year’s now as part of menu diversity. Some have been good, some interesting, some best forgotten but with the new ‘Create Your Taste’ (CYT) menu there’s only one person to blame if you don’t like your burger – yourself.
Although McDonalds in Hong Kong has always been a property play, globally Create Your Taste seems to fly directly in the face of McDonalds fast food ethos. It’s slow food cooked to order and delivered to your table, just as in a regular restaurant. So is this the potential new face of McDonalds? bc went along to try it out.
Leighton Centre and Festival Walk are trialling the new concept, where (in addition to the regular menu) a customer can build their own burger on a touch screen display. So how does it work… Disorganized and slowly when looking for a late lunch on a not very busy Saturday afternoon. The store is full of McDonalds staff, there’s one at every CYT screen.
The basic CYT burger is $48 dollars and ordering is multi-step process. First: chose your bun – traditional, brioche, bunless. Second: meat, one (supposedly angus) beef patty or more, each extra patty costs $15. Third: cheese, a choice of Classic Cheddar, Mozzarella, Pepper Jack or White Cheddar. Sadly your only allowed to choose one cheese and only one slice Fourth: free veggies – red onion rings, lettuce, sliced jalapenos, long sliced pickles, tomato. Choose as many as you want. Fifth: sauce (choose as many as you want) mustard, herb aioli, American BBQ, Big Mac special sauce, spicy smokey BBQ, truffle, mayonnaise, tomato jalapenos relish, ketchup, teriyaki Sixth: add extras guacamole ($8),fried egg ($6), applewood roasted bacon ($8), grilled mushrooms ($6), pineapple ($6), caramalised onions ($4).
You can then switch to meal, add drinks etc. The screens here are illogical and confusing with additions my burger was $68 yet making it a meal was according to the screen only cost $60.5… Some branches of the menu tree are unavailable – no coffee /iced tea for example as part of a meal.
Payment: at the machine with octopus or a credit card, if you want to pay cash you have to fiddle around and wait a few minutes before a bill is finally printed which you can then pay at the counter.
With all the money invested, the roughly 90x30cm screen is not intuitive, fast or even logical enough that a staff member is needed to guide each customer through the process and still mistakes occur. Why with such a large screen are the food images so big that scrolling is needed – idiotic! CYT was initially rolled out in the US a year ago – that they haven’t sorted the menu trees and smooth streamed the process is not a good sign.
After paying take a seat and wait and wait…. The restaurant is full of seated people waiting and people standing with trays of ‘regular’ McDonalds getting irritated that they cant find a seat…amidst the tables of people not eating but waiting.
My burger ($83 – extra patty, meal, tomato, pepper jack cheese, bacon, long sliced pickles and BBQ sauce) served on a wooden board took 35 minutes to arrive, with cold fries. This was a typical wait time among the people I asked about their CYT experience on Saturday, the average cost of their CYT’s $70-80. The fries come in a metal ‘fryer’ basket and portion size is that of a small fries. There’s no fries size upgrade for any meal. All the meal upgrade gets you is a larger drink.
So was it any good, presentation was ok – far more care had gone into making the burger than your regular McDonalds sandwich which (at least in the Wanchai outlets) often looks like roadkill. The sandwich was warm, not hot, the bun fresh. The burger patty tasted and looked no different from the regular 1/4 pounder (a double quarter pounder costs about $2 more than a single). bc specifically asked McDonalds about the patty weight and they chose to ignore the question in their email reply. The bacon was non-existent, as was the taste of cheese. The tomato while fresh was cut so thick it overpowered the sandwich.
CYT is a pretty good burger, but not an $80 burger! At $45, yes it’s a very viable and tasty alternative to McD’s regular items if you dont mind the wait. Asking around,the consensus was that if you’re paying $70-80 for a burger you can find a much better burger in a nicer environment with faster service in many locations across Hong Kong.
If you can, why not! An American CYT burger with maximum of everything!
Free Sliders As it gets ready to celebrate its ‘Grand Opening’ Wanchai’s Burger Joys (42-50 Lockhart Road, Wanchai) is offering free sliders on the 21-23 July between 6-8pm. 300 each day, one per person first come first served.
News Australia’s largest family owned winery has a new distributor in Hong Kong. Taylors who have been producing wine in the Clara Valley since 1973 are the third biggest vineyard by volume downunder and have been releasing some very well regarded wines over the last 40 years. Taylor’s new distributor for Hong Kong and China are ASC Fine Wines.
Cecconi’s have moved from Soho to a larger more airy location on the 2/F of 77 Wyndham Street (Tel: 2565 5300). There’s a new chef Michael Fox, a new menu with a slightly higher price point, a healthy buffet lunch option…
Another outlet that’s moved is Flying Pan in Wanchai, the new address is 1/F 37-39 Lockhart Road (Tel: 2528 9997), although the entrance is actually on Fenwick Street. The decor of the new location is similar to the old one but new and fresh. Hopefully the move will also freshen up the food quality which had become very average in recent years. Good reports so far.
Fast Food Pizza Napoli’s Pizza & Caffe which opened at 40-46 Carnarvon Road in Tsim Sha Tsui last week, see’s Italy’s traditional staple re-worked Japanese style as fast food. In a traditional pizza restaurant the pie often takes about 20-30 minutes to arrive. Using a 400+ degree oven the pizza at Napoli’s is cooked in 90 seconds! Yes, we found that hard to believe as well but it’s true. From order to table/ take-away was around 5 minutes.
Is it any good? Surprisingly so, and not expensive. The basic 25cm Margherita is just $35 and there’s a wide range of flavours available including prosciutto rucola ($78). Quattro Formaggi ($58), this four cheese classic, is given a Japanese twist with the addition of a side of maple syrup which adds little sweetness to a savoury dish – and very popular with Japanese women. One the most popular topping’s in Japan, and sure to be here too, is the cheese less Cicinielli ($68, baby sardines, clams,). A pizza with no cheese, as a cheese lover the idea seemed sacrilege. But it’s very tasty, add a splash of Tabasco to make the flavours sing
For those with a sweet tooth Napoli’s has some very tasty desserts including panzerotti (pizza dough deep fried and coated in sugar and other flavours $8-15) and chocolate banana pizza ($35)
Fresh Pizza as a ‘fast food’ is something different, but it tastes good at a price that’s hard to beat. Does it survive the cold pizza next day reheat test? Definitely – not that’s there’s much chance it’ll make the fridge, unless you buy and extra pie.
Waitrose @ Great Food Hall Through the end of April, Great Food Hall in the basement of Pacific Place is featuring British supermarket chain Waitrose’s own brand basic food products including the Love Life ‘Quick Cook’ grains range which features various combinations of whole grains, beans and pulses that only requiresa ten-minute boil before using. There’s also the Duchy Originals’ (produced in partnership with Prince Charles) range of organic products.
Free Sandwiches Free give-aways seem to be the promo-de-jour as Caribbean themed bar Rummin’ Tings (G/F, 28 Hollywood Road, 2523 7070) picks up where a sexually discriminating burger joint left-off when on Saturday 18 April between 2-5pm they’re looking give away 500 sandwiches.
There’s three types to choose from Jerk Chicken, Grilled BBQ Beef & The Cubano. There’s also cold slushies and beer to enjoy with your sandwich while getting your grooves on as DJ Noel spins the tunes.
Advertising v Reality
Pizza Hut recently launched a ‘new’ pizza the Golden Lava Pizza and it looks gorgeous on the posters and on the front of the menus… The reality is somewhat different, so different that we cheese lovers decided to pass and order from another pizza outlet.
