Asia Flavours

Magnolia (7/10)

Magnolia was such a great private kitchen experience. I was expecting to be a bit underwhelmed having heard some slightly negative reports but we had a great time - the service was warm but unobtrusive, the food tasty and the rooms perfect in size and shape for a dinner party. At HK$450 a head plus wine, its not cheap but you do get quite a lot for your money. 

The pre-dinner drinks are served in an area over-looking the kitchen. Fear not, this was not a noisy / smelly experience - judging by the activity level in the kitchen, Creole is a cuisine that can be prepared in advance. The individual dining rooms are all upstairs, dramatic because of a combination of low light, dark paint, high ceilings and a cunning use of mirrors. The food that flowed unobtrusively and at a good relaxed pace was full of flavour (if not exactly light and healthy!). There was a starter of Gumbo Soup, followed by shared mains including a pile of ribs which the boys were most excited about and then pecan pie to finish. One of the nice touches was that the owner came to talk about the menu before the meal which made it more of a "private kitchen" experience. 

The only complaint I'd have was with the toilets that were quite gross, the problem being that they were unisex ... and not cleaned or checked regularly enough. 

Shop 5, G/F, 
No. 17 Po Yan Street, 
Sheung Wan

Tel: 2530 9880

Gong Guan (9/10)

Yet another excellent meal at Gong Guan, the Shanghainese private kitchen in Sheung Wan. The menu wasn't vastly different from last time (Gong Guan: First Visit) but was still fantastic, with great flavours and presentation. A couple of photos for you to savour: 

La Fête - Private Kitchen (6/10)

I went to dinner at La Fête with a little bit of hesitation. We only went there because I couldn’t get a table at Gong Guan and we wanted to go to a conveniently located private kitchen. The review in the HK Magazine had been a bit ambivalent and while the occasion was fun, the food at the only other French private kitchen I’d been to, Le Blanc, was pretty poor.

My little bit of hesitation turned into quite serious regret when we arrived at the stated address and completely failed to find the entrance. The address was advertised as being St Francis Street but the door to the apartment block was locked and the intercom not working. All in all, not a good start. Anyway, eventually, after walking through a park to see if there was another entrance, we found the main entrance which was round the back of the building, nowhere near St Francis Street. Quite serious regret was now turning to abject fear of impending disaster.

With trepidation we walked into the dining room. The décor is quite similar to Le Blanc in terms of the obsession with household clutter and the enthusiasm for twigs attached to the ceiling but, unlike the private dining rooms of Le Blanc, La Fête has more of a bistro feel to it with good sized tables spread around the room. The tables were beautifully laid out in a rustic fashion with a large cold platter of shellfish as the centrepiece. As the attentive waiting staff hurriedly put our bottles of white into chill and brought us bread and pâté to start, my fears of culinary disaster started to subside.

Don’t get me wrong, the meal was not perfect but it was pretty good. The mountain of shellfish with the accompanying dressing of half olive oil and half crushed garlic was definitely the star of the show but the other five courses were also quite good - not haute cuisine but good rustic bistro fayre. The pork chops were particularly good, beautifully cooked and full of flavour. The only course which people weren’t convinced by was the mushroom soup which people felt was a bit take-it-or-leave-it.

At HKD 380 for six courses it represents pretty good value and was certainly significantly better than Le Blanc. My friend E.L. even rated it higher than Gong Guan - I can’t agree in terms of food but I do concede in terms of atmosphere and service. As with all these things, it is partly the company that makes a dining experience and it was a particularly raucous evening that night (mainly our table, admittedly) which probably added to the atmosphere. All in all, I’d say worth a try…

La Fête
1/F Block 3, Hoover Towers
15 St Francis Street
(but actually entrance on Kwong Ming Street)
Tel: 2893 5891

Gong Guan

I came to the startling realisation the other day that, despite being in Hong Kong for some time now, I'd never actually eaten at one of the many private kitchens I'd read about. Feeling that this gap in my knowledge needed to be plugged and spurred on by an article in HK Magazine, I decided to try out Gong Guan, a Shanghainese private kitchen on the 12th floor of an office block in Sheung Wan.

A good recommendation by HK Magazine - I can’t praise Gong Guan highly enough. It was truly excellent, both in terms of the quality of the food and the dining experience as a whole.

Like all unlicensed private kitchens, Gong Guan is hidden away without much advertising or even a sign board - in this case, in an office block on Des Voeux Road. As a general concept the idea of going to an “unlicensed restaurant” should not be that appealing - after all, it all sounds a bit back-street dodgy. However, in Hong Kong the private kitchen provides something that is really not necessary anywhere else in the world - the possibility of holding some semblance of a dinner party for those without a kitchen or enough room in their flat to seat their guests. Gong Guan, for example, has a minimum booking of 8 (maximum 10) and has two private dining rooms available for your "dinner party". The room we were given had a large round table and was nicely, if non-controversially, decorated with the sole, and rather large, exception to the non-controversy of the decor being an odd purple sequinned and feathered affair that constituted the lampshade.

There is no menu at Gong Guan; you get what the chef has prepared that day. In our case, we started with a selection of cold appetisers which were interesting and varied, perfectly complimenting each other. Each of the starters, and indeed the main courses, were beautifully presented with dramatic serving dishes adding to the visual feast.

Our starters included soft tofu, ox-tongue, eggplant with pork floss, bamboo shoots and cucumber with a fantastic mustard and peanut dressing. This was quickly followed by a slightly uninspiring looking fish soup which turned out to be fantastically flavoursome, and then what turned out to be most people's favourite dish: bready pancakes with honey ham and beancurd sheets fried in egg yolk. It was really simple but the soft pancakes, crunchy beancurd and thickly cut ham made the texture as interesting as the flavour.

Next came the fresh abalone course. It was served on soft turnip with shredded dried scallop. I have to admit to not expecting to like it but it was a great combination of flavours (even if my chopstick skills seriously let me down when it came to handling the abalone/turnip combination!).

Although a Shanghainese kitchen, the chef indulged (successfully) in some fusion cuisine in the form of what, apparently, was "Yellow Flower Fish", Thai style with a sweet and sour sauce and served with deep-fried Shanghainese bamboo shoots (literally "plastic bamboo"). The fish was crispy, the sauce slightly spicy. This was followed by rice pudding made out of red rice with pork belly, soya bean sheets tied in a knot and snow peas, and then by beautifully cooked chicken in Zhenjiang sweet vinegar with scallion oil.

In case there was any remote chance that we were still hungry they brought out some steamed and then fried rice sheets. They really didn't look like anything but were in fact seriously morish - my friend V. thought they were the most surpisingly dish of the night. Then to finish off, they brought through some mixed vegetables with wolfberry and finally, mango pudding with strawberry and basil compote. The strawberry flavour was beautiful but it rather overwhelmed the basil which I couldn't taste and the mango which was rather weak. Still, a non-too heavy end to a delightful banquet.

The other advantage with a private kitchen is that it allows for a bit of opulence in terms of wine. Normally when I go to a restaurant I’m selecting wine from the cheaper end of the wine list but with Gong Guan charging only HK$100 for corkage, regardless of amount consumed, we felt it was only fair and just to drink several bottles of supermarket-bought Moet. After all, it’s unlikely my half-Scots/half-Yorkshire thinking would allow me to go to an “official” restaurant and purchase Moet from the menu!

The cost of dinner at Gong Guan is HK$350 a head plus a share of the HK$100 corkage which is excellent value for money. The food was stunning without one duff course, and the service enthusiastic. I look forward to going back.

Gong Guan

12/F Fung Woo Building

279 Des Voeux Road Central

Sheung Wan

Tel: 2577 9789

Gong Guan's website