Restaurant critic Vicki Williams highlights a selection of dishes she would order again and recommends you try.
G Room Bar & Lounge – Whole Lobster Paella
Perfectly cooked lobster was the first impressive tick. The second was the “Asian-style” rice beneath it. It had deep umami-ness, a result of cooking the Jasmine rice in a Malaysian-inspired brown sauce (house-made) combined with fat rendered from Iberico ham. The dish featured other seafood, but that played only a minor role to the star – the rice, which had such comforting richness and depth it made me forget about the misstep of a missing crispy crust.
G Room Bar & Lounge, the latest opening from Gaia Group, is Hong Kong’s ‘first immersive’ restaurant with high definition curved screen walls displaying a rotating selection of mesmerisingly realistic nature and iconic city vistas.
Censu – Udon
Slippery, bouncy udon, coated with crab miso, topped with a generous portion of sweet Hokkaido snow crab, adorned by a creamy egg yolk cured in soy sauce for 36 hours. When combined becoming more than the sum of its parts for a deliciously decadent result. Japanese restaurant, Censu, may have a sharing plate philosophy but this was the one dish on the menu I wanted to keep all to myself.
Censu opened in July and is the first restaurant from chef Shun Sato, with an interior inspired by his grandmother’s house in Japan. Sato previously worked at Fukuro, Belon and Armani/Aqua.
Quiero Más – Suckling Pig
I have a weakness for roast suckling pig and my personal favourite for this guilty pleasure, Spanish style, is 22 Ships. Now it has a rival, with new opening Quiero Más and its signature slow roasted suckling pig, with its tender meat and fantastically crisp skin. Served with a glossy bone-based gravy, and vibrant Chinese greens to counter the richness.
The restaurant also produces its own gin, making the bar a great spot for a pre-dinner G&T.
Interestingly, not only is the mod-med restaurant in the space formerly occupied by FoFo by El Willy but, the menu has been designed by its former chef, Alex Fargas, who is also chef-owner of La Paloma.