Vamos a tapear

Despite the outstandingly eclectic food offerings boasted by Hong Kong restaurants, there's a few gaps in the dining scene. Middle-eastern and North-African food is hard to come by (I can probably think of only a couple of so-so places covering that space), so is a good Argentinian steak, and authentic-ish Mexican food is impossible to find. Decent Spanish food was also glaringly absent until very recently, when Fofo by El Willy (20/F M88, 2-8 Wellington Street, Central, Hong Kong) opened its doors last year. After a period of initial scepticism, and encouraged by my friend T.'s enthusiastic review of the place, I finally decided to pay it a visit. I have to admit I liked the place at first sight - the dining room is dotted with cute chubby white plastic penguins and piggies and looks nothing  like your traditional Spanish eatery. The service was laughably amateuristic but the place has a friendly and relaxed feeling about it which, combined with a couple of glasses of some of the excellent Riojas on offer, will make you forget about it quite quickly.
The food itself is generally tasty and flavourful, and quite carefully prepared, and the Bib Gourmand granted by Michelin in its 2011 edition is IMHO very well deserved. Their 36-months aged Iberico ham deserves a special mention. The place will not perform well by any value-for-money criterion, but if all you are after is a few tasty morcels of sunshine in casual and friendly surroundings, then this might just be the place...

Grilled Australian eggplant with a tomato dressing, spinach and manchego cheese

The eggplant was delicious, cooked until creamy but not noticeably fatty. The veggie topping had very fresh and clean flavours, the manchego cheese being pretty discreet. Yummy.

36-month aged acorn-fed Iberian ham with toasted tomato bread

The ham was excellent and the tasty tomato bread came with a drizzle of very good olive oil on top. Very nice but I wish the ham were hand-cut and thick rather than sliced paper-thin with a machine...

Crispy suckling pig with potato and mojo picon

A nice surprise. The pig was moist and fatty, very tender with some decent crackling, and the slice of potato on top was cooked fondant and coated in the drippings of the pork. Very tasty.

El Willy's Boston lobster and seafood paella

This dish regained on flavours the points it lost on the texture... the sweet Boston lobster and the seafood was (very) overcooked and the rice a bit mushy, but the saffron/seafood flavours were very, very nice. It would not take too much work to make this dish truly awesome (cooking to order would seem a good place to start - I, like most foodies, would wait 30mn for a good paella...)

Churros, warm chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream

I found the vanilla ice cream quite unnecessary, but the churros were pretty good with just a touch of cinnamon in the dough, and so was the dark chocolate sauce. I wish these came in adult size :o)




Vanilla parfait with chocolate and chilli sauce

This is a fail - the chilli kick in the chocolate sauce was not powerful or fragrant enough to balance the bland taste of the vanilla parfait, which was too thick and creamy (rather than airy and mousse-like). I left more than half of it on my plate. The biscotti were nice though, as was the fresh raspberry coulis on the plate.



 

Kudos to my partner-in-crime T. for picking this exceptional Rioja. Life looked noticeably better after we shared a couple of bottles among us 4 :o)