Tag: Elite Dining Week 2017

Murasaki’s Elite Dining Week tasting menu a multisensory feast

With DiningCity’s Elite Dining Week 2017 in full swing, fine dining fans are likely already in a state of food-induced catatonia across the city. But don’t throw in the towel just yet, because there are more gastronomic treats to be had. In the final instalment of our EDW restaurant reviews, we spotlight Japanese-French fusion restaurant Dining at MURASAKI.

The tasting menu began with a surprisingly subtle Crab Miso and Prawn Cracker amouse-bouche and a flute of Murasaki Royale. The restaurant’s signature cocktail gets its delightful purple shade from a dash of butterfly pea flower essence dropped into sparkling wine.

We opted to try the beautifully plated Sashimi Platter (an extra HK$248) and were well rewarded with three choice cuts of akamutsu fish, white shrimp with caviar and fatty toro tuna. The star was definitely the generously portioned toro. Flown in chilled, not frozen, the result is a creamy melt-in-your-mouth experience that leaves you wanting more.

Next up was a bowl of slightly sweet Maitake Mushroom Consomme followed by a perfectly seasoned and sauced Simmered Abalone paired with a glass of fruity Henri Bourgeois Sancerre Blanc 2015.

The main entrée was a choice between a succulent Smoked US Beef and the restaurant’s signature Smoked Pork Pluma paired with a medium-bodied Louis Jadot Cote de Beaune Villages 2013. While portions were a tad small, both dishes were mouth-wateringly tender and packed with enough flavours to satisfy even the most discerning steak aficionados.  

This brings us to the last savoury dish of the meal: the Sea Urchin Ice-cold Inaniwa Udon. Served on a hand-chiselled ice bowl, the buttery sea urchin, salmon roe and udon were the perfect counterpoint to the richness of the preceding dish. Add some of the sake pairing to your bowl for an added dimension to your final slurp.

The final Curry Rice dessert is a love-it-or-hate-it affair. Some may struggle with the dish’s distinct curry flavours, but intrepid foodies will enjoy its experimental mix of tastes and textures.

From start to finish, every dish on Murasaki’s EDW tasting menu showcases an impressive ability to draw out every iota of flavour from its ingredients without overwhelming it with unnecessary seasoning or side dishes. What you see is what you get, and what you get is a gastronomic and visual treat.

Murasaki’s Elite Dining Week tasting menu is HK$888 per person, the sashimi platter and wine and sake pairing are both an additional HK$248 each, all with 10% service charge. Online reservations may be made via the DiningCity app and EDW website.

Text: Tenzing Thondup
Photos: Gigi Ip

Le Rêve’s new 8-course menu a mix of unusual flavours

For part three of our Elite Dining Week coverage, we head to Japanese-French fusion restaurant Le Rêve (‘The Dream’) in the heart of Causeway Bay. Although it opened a year ago, diners have been slow to embrace its distinctive dishes.

At a recent media tasting to unveil the restaurant’s new fall menu, many of the tables were empty – and undeservedly so. While not everyone will love Le Rêve’s conceptual cuisine and interesting (if not unusual) flavour combinations, it’s the kind of food that starts a conversation. And as one of the featured restaurants for EDW 2017, it may finally be getting the attention it deserves – for better or worse.

The intrigue begins with the amuse-bouche, a sweet and creamy stracciatella di burrata (cheese!) presented in a glass, egg-shaped capsule. The raspberry gazpacho pudding pairs effortlessly with the burrata, offering a sweet taste of what’s to come.

Indeed, fruity flavours – some subtler than others – can be detected in most of the dishes on Le Rêve’s eight-course dinner menu (HK$1,150). The Japanese octopus is artfully plated and served alongside pomegranate jelly, abalone sauce and mayonnaise that has been blackened with squid ink. The snow crab is served in a warm, citrusy broth, and one of the main entrées – the 30-day dry-aged ‘master beef’ – is paired with cranberry mustard sauce.

The Sicily flying squid dish with coriander crumble and anchovy foam has been executed to perfection, and so has the cod filet. A coriander broth is poured over the flaky fish, served alongside a delightful beer meringue that melts on the tongue.

The venison, offered as alternative to the striploin, is perhaps the most divisive dish. This hunter’s cut is often disparaged for its gamey taste, but here it packs the tenderness and flavour of a nice, juicy steak. A Stornoway black pudding sauce and chewy dark chocolate ‘rock’ enrich the dish, but it all goes awry when spinach crumble is sprinkled into the mix. Both the texture (think matcha powder) and the flavour (in a word: overpowering) seem out of place. After one bite, the green stuff was relegated to the side of the plate.

However, a partial recovery is made with the arrival of dessert. Here, diners are treated to not one, but two sweet treats.  

The first is an inventive medley of disparate elements: hot flourless chocolate cake, thyme ice cream, pistachio crumble and turmeric sauce. Swap out any one of these ingredients and the dessert might well be a mess, but to the credit of the chef, they all pair impeccably.

The second dessert, however, makes it clear why the first one was needed. Taking a form over function approach, the dessert – dubbed ‘Ride On!”– is meant to be Instagrammed but not particularly enjoyed. A smattering of ingredients are plated to look like illicit drugs: a syringe filled with raspberry coulis, chocolatey buds, a spoon of jelly ‘pills’ and three lines of mystery powder (To pair with what? Who knows). The raspberry coulis is meant to be squirted directly into the mouth, but the plunger doesn’t plunge perfectly, making it awkward to operate and, frankly, a bit of a choking hazard. The dish is provocative, to be sure, but others might label it gimmicky.

While Le Rêve is certainly not the place for comfort food, daring diners looking for imaginative pairings might want to give it a try. If nothing else, it will challenge your perception of flavour profiles and proffer lots of food for thought.

Address: 10/F, ZING!, 38 Yiu Wa Street, Causeway Bay
Phone: 2866 1010
Hours: Mon-Sat 12pm-3am; Closed Sundays

Elite Dining Week reservations may be made via the DiningCity app and EDW website. Stay tuned for the final instalment of our EDW restaurant review series!

Text: Emily Petsko

PIERRE delights the epicurious for Elite Dining Week 2017

Polish the Laguiole and dust off the decanters! It’s time for the second instalment of our EDW restaurant review series! Running from 9-19 November, DiningCity’s popular Elite Dining Week is a by-invitation culinary extravaganza showcasing over 30 new menus from the cream of Hong Kong’s restaurant crop. The resulting menus reflect each participant’s signature often alongside uniquely themed culinary experiences. Nowhere is this more apparent than at PIERRE – a bastion of refined French cuisine at The Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong.

For EDW 2017, Pierre Chef de Cuisine Jacky Tauvry has curated a six-course menu under the watchful eye of mentor Pierre Gagnaire. These dishes champion seasonal French produce (80 percent of the restaurant’s ingredients are sourced from French locales) and the molecular wizardry which Gagnaire finesses in his Parisian flagship on Rue Balzac.  Seasoned diners will be excited to (re)acquaint themselves with some of the Ligérien master chef’s classic creations. The Mimolette, Parmesan and Comté shavings elegantly subvert clichés associated with the ubiquitous cheese platter. The Grand Dessert is a sextet of diminutive sweets – some light others decadent – each a universe of flavour in its own right.

Gagnaire’s creative fingerprint is an undeniable part of the menu’s allure, but Tauvry injects his own insight into the proceedings with an assured and harmonious touch. Autumn is renowned for its bold hearty flavours; and the young Chef de Cuisine channels the season throughout 2017’s EDW menu. Snails persillade are perched atop a watercress velouté: evoking the imagery of a brilliantine green forest in Fall. Autumn leaves are replaced by caramelised salsifies (a root vegetable belonging to the dandelion genus) and the snails themselves – wonderfully unctuous, fragrant and moreish – would not seem out of place amidst a bounty of foraged delicacies.

Equally, wild game is now in season: traditionally sought after for its suitability to stewing and roasting. Tauvry’s take is the Grouse fillet with white bacon. Game fowl is roasted with thyme before being finished with a hint of peaty whisky; accompanied by what Tauvry somewhat self-effacingly dubs “sauerkraut” – cabbage minced until tender with fresh barely-acidic grapes. Paired with a Bordeaux from PIERRE’s monumental cellar (Gafencu recommends the Domaine de Chevalier 2000), this course is enough to convert even the staunchest steak lover into a gun toting plaid wearing hunter – eager for their next bounty of grouse from the moor.

The PIERRE EDW menu is tightly edited and self-assured. It’s a bravura display: balancing perennial favourites, crafted by its legendary namesake, with imaginative (yet completely comprehensible) seasonal cooking. It’s the sort of menu that suffers no mediocrity. Then again, at PIERRE, even the breadbasket deserves its own standing ovation.     

PIERRE (MANDARIN ORIENTAL)
5 Connaught Road Central
www.mandarinoriental.com

Reservations at Pierre during Elite Dining Week may be made via the DiningCity app and EDW website. Prices start at HK$1,998 (plus 10 percent gratuity). Stay tuned for the next instalment of our EDW restaurant review series!

Text: Randalph Lai

HK’s most prestigious restaurants open their doors for Elite Dining Week 2017

From 9-19 November, DiningCity, in partnership with American Express, is collaborating with 30 of the city’s finest restaurants to hold its Elite Dining Week 2017. Top chefs were exclusively invited to participate by creating special tasting menus for the event, featuring their signature dishes plus optional wine pairings. Without further adieu, let’s dive into the first instalment of Gafencu’s Elite Dining Week reviews.

Themed meals and extraordinary dishes have been the challenge for this season’s edition of Elite Dining Week. The discerning foodie’s demands for flawless plating and palate pleasing concoctions are sure to be met. Take Bibo for example, whose HK$488 lunch showcases a playful yet thoughtful experiment: a deconstructed Carambar, which the pastry chef used to love as a child. He reinterpreted the candy in the form of cacao crumble, salted caramel, chocolate Chantilly and house made Carambar ice cream.

For dinner, we’re eyeing fine dining at Conrad, whose three renowned gastronomy brands are participating in different capacities. There’s the Italian Nicholini’s featuring the white truffle turbot, the Cantonese Golden Leaf highlighting their signature crabmeat fried rice with homemade X.O. sauce and the French Brasserie on the Eighth, whose HK$790 dégustation dinner wouldn’t dent the wallet quite as much as the first two.

After trying a few of the participating establishments, the Gafencu team would definitely recommend these once-in-a-lifetime tastings the likes of which will never be seen again! Stay tuned for more Elite Dining Week coverage. 

Text: Julienne C. Raboca

Online reservations for Elite Dining Week 2017 can be made at www.elitediningweek.diningcity.hk