Much hoo-ha but no wow

An ex-colleague was in town tonight and when he suggested having dinner at Whisk (5/F The Mira hotel, 118 Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong), I had to oblige - not only because I had long wanted to try out the place, but also because I was really surprised by the request. The gentleman in question is not exactly a foodie or even remotely curious about food, and prefers to stay in a pretty narrow comfort zone, generally located between the rib and the flank: in over a year of working together and some 6 or 7 visits to HK, the only restaurants I remember visiting with him are Ruth Chris' Steakhouse, Wooloomooloo, The Intercontinental Steakhouse and Bistecca! The experience was far from pleasant and I will not be looking forward to going back anytime soon - not that the company was bad, but I found the place overall pretentious and overpriced, the service was horrendous, and the food was only so-so, with a total lack of wow-factor. Also as a keen food photographer, I need to complain about the absolutely crap lighting conditions in the restaurant - not only is it dark for shooting (even with a fast lens...) but you cannot even see your food properly. Part of the enjoyment of eating also comes from your sight, and I find it most unpleasant to have to eat my dinner in the lighting equivalent of a cave.

I arrived first and was unceremoniously handed a couple of menus (by which I mean I had to move my nose away from the trajectory of the menu to avoid a regrettable incident) and I ordered some sparkling water. One point for them, they have Badoit. Minus one point - the chick waiting my table proceeded to drop a wedge of lime in my glass without even asking, and I rushed to fish it out... Not a very good start, I had been there for like 3 minutes and I was already mildly irritated by the strange mixture of incompetent yet incredibly haughty service.

My guest arrived and we ordered a bottle of white wine from the list of "promotions"; the bottle turned up at our table at room temperature(!!) and was promptly whisked away (no cheap pun intended) by the staff and dunk into an ice bucket. Now come on people, what kind of service is that? It's bad enough that you don't think of keeping white wine in the fridge, but when it's one of those you are pushing as the choice du jour, that just compounds the incompetence.

AB: seafood custard, crab, bisque sauce

This was a complete failure. The custard was overcooked and the bisque sauce so strong it killed any flavour or sweetness the crab may have had.

The bread basket was remarkably uninteresting - the mini-baguettes, although cutely shaped, had completely the wrong texture, more like a stiff Japanese milk bun than proper French bread. The black bamboo bread tasted of almonds and... not much else. What that black colour was supposed to deliver taste-wise, I haven't quite figured out yet...

Japanese Scallop Sashimi Avocado, Yuzu, Oscietra Caviar

I had a hard time picking my courses. Not that I was spoilt for choice, it was actually quite the opposite - none of the dishes on offer actually caught my attention more than the others, and the flavour pairings were all giving an impression of déjà vu... I ended up picking scallops for starters as I thought you couldn't go wrong with Japanese seafood - turned out I was wrong. The scallops that turned out on my plate looked nothing like the friendly Hokkaido giants I was expecting - even though they were obviously very fresh, this was disappointing. The caviar was ok but I was annoyed that so many of the grains had burst. I could not really detect the characteristic flavour of yuzu, and they could as well have used ordinary lemon for all I could tell. The avocado cream wasn't particularly interesting and did not have any of the good nutty flavour a ripe avocado has. And why would one think that pairing guacamole with raw scallops is a good idea escapes me... But I have to admit that the droplets of beetroot puree on the plate were sweet and particularly delicious.

Australian lamb loin
Crispy ratatouille, eggplant, piquillos

The "crispy" ratatouille came in the form of a fried spring roll filled with a slightly undercooked ratatouille-ish mixture of veggies (with way too much bay leaf) and was oily and not very good at all; neither was the aubergine, which was done as a warm dollop of babaganoush-like texture (and quite oily too, like it had stayed under a lamp for too long). The lamb was nicely cooked but did not have the gamey flavour that I like so much. A very disappointing dish. And where are the piquillos?? (answer: see those red blobs on the plate?)

Flaky apple tart
Roasted almond, vanilla ice cream

This is supposed to be The Dessert you must have when dining here, so was it worth waiting 20mn for...?

Flaky apple tart - close up

Well... not really. First, I have very conventional tastes, and I like apples on my apple tart - too few of those on this one, and too much almonds and confectioner's sugar (plus a drizzle of a pretty artificial-smelling vanilla sauce). The pastry was very flaky indeed, but more like a superposition of many filo sheets than a proper puff pastry, and was too oily for my taste. But the vanilla ice cream was delicious - I am not much of an ice cream person, but I have to admit this was possibly the best vanilla ice cream I had had in a long time. Creamy, with plenty of vanilla seeds, and not eggy at all - really nice. We ordered some Tokaji to help the tart glide down, taking the pain to specify we wanted it with the dessert (read between the lines: not before or after). One waitress delivered the right glasses to the table, another took them away, replaced them with completely the wrong ones, and we still had to ask for our wine when the tart turned up...

Petits-fours

Mediocre. These were served to us as we were right in the middle of munching on our apple tart (!!). The little white chocolate cup contained an orange liquor-flavoured cream (overpowering) and the cream puff was soggy and bland. The other 2 remained untouched.