Sunday, July 30, 2017

The Good Old Restaurant, More New Dishes

"Let me know next time when you come over again so I can show you more new dishes" I don't think when Chef Gauillaume said that he expect I would come back so soon after my lunch at Caprice back in June. But here we are again for another lunch only a couple of weeks later, since CYY missed out the first one and she wanted to make up for it.



And we did take up on the chef's offer and leave it to his team to work out our menu. I enjoyed the meal at my last outing, and this time it went further up a notch with more new dishes featured. My favorite was the beef-oyster tartare, our first course after the amuse-bouche (which was mozzarella espuma with bloody mary granite - that I didn't like as much). The beef was prepared without many heavy seasonings but the addition of chopped oysters to the mix plus the caviar on top brought about the extra rich umami flavor from the sea, not to mention the presentation (with dots of egg yolk confit and parsley fluid-gel on the side) was definitely Instagram-worthy.

The few other dishes we had borne resemblance to those from his days at The Tasting Room in Macau, but with slight twists here and there. The abalone carbonara was definitely one of those carried-over - I like the creativity of combining an ingredient more common in Asian cuisine to western-style cooking but I thought the creamy flavor somehow overwhelmed that of the abalones'. The turbot confit, our next course, was prepared perfectly with the slightly-charred sweet corns on top, on the side was thin slices of black truffles, mushroom puree and potato gnocchis then brought together with comte emulsion in the center. I loved the interesting contrast between the silky fish fillet with the earthiness of the sides.

Likewise I thought the Greffeuille lamb was well-prepared with amazing texture, both from the pulled shoulder confit and the saddle, with cauliflower couscous and a touch of Ras el Hanout spices. The meat was not as gamey as I thought but rather delicate in texture and flavor.

We saw Chef Nicolas’ dessert creation on his Instagram account earlier in the morning and secretly hoped that’s what we were having. And there it was, the gorgeous fraisier "cake" made with the seasonal Wild and Gariguette strawberries. Inside the rings of both strawberries was vanilla cream covered genoise and Rose Champagne sorbet, and on top, a strawberry marmalade ravioli that burst with the unmistakable aroma as I cut through. That was followed by a second presentation at the same time using a similar set of ingredients, in the form of a long tartlet with piped vanilla cream and bits of strawberries on top. We were lost for words to describe how beautiful they were to look at and to taste.


When? July 1 2017
Where? Caprice at Four Seasons Hong Kong, 8 Finance Street, Hong Kong
Menu Highlights? Beef-Oyster Tartare


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