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2014-09-17
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I only write 2 types of reviews. One is worth my wholehearted recommendation; the other one is worth my time to criticize. And this time is the second oneI came with my family for mid-Autumn festival celebration. Honestly the most appealing thing of this restaurant is only the LOCATION because it is extremely unique in Hong Kong. The view towards the Tsing Yi Bridge is stunning. But other than that, please don't come for so called organic vegetable, home-made sauce, roasted pig because your mone
I came with my family for mid-Autumn festival celebration. Honestly the most appealing thing of this restaurant is only the LOCATION because it is extremely unique in Hong Kong. The view towards the Tsing Yi Bridge is stunning. But other than that, please don't come for so called organic vegetable, home-made sauce, roasted pig because your money is not well spent for this quality of food.
1) Restaurant Setting
You would enter in a local house which is pretty cool if they renovate (but unfortunately they didn’t). When you walk in the restaurant, you will be overwhelmed by the smoke. It is just because they put a big open kitchen in the living room WITHOUT good ventilation. So please be prepared that your whole evening will be spent in the hazy environment. And the whole restaurant is too bright for dining which does not give cozy atmosphere. Only the view outside is absolutely fantastic, but we were a bit unlucky. The chef invited a group of friends for barbecue gathering (can you imagine…), so as the guest, I did not feel comfortable to have a drink outside, or to look at the sea because I felt like I was disturbing her friends having good time!
2) Too artistic
Definitely, the Chef Margaret is an artist. I worked in an advertising agency before. The problem of creative is that he/ she sometimes believes his/ her fantasy too much but turns out lacking connection to the reality at the end, which means the chef Margaret forgot what the customers like!
She concerned too much on the LOOK rather than the TASTE. She tried too hard to make every dish complicated but the taste just did not synchronize! For example:
- Water Garden (organic harvest) :
She used some blue sauce to imitate as the lake but unfortunately the sauce was too thin which hardly stayed on the salad to give taste. The home-made cheese was so neutral in taste. I even did not know that was cheese until she told me!Of course everything was eatable( I mean I could eat) , but it was not yummy.
- Moon in Stain (wild scallop fruit gelee)
She said the gelee was made by freezing the chicken broth which had been boiled for 3 days (I guess she was talking about the layer of chicken oil ..) And she put the scallop in the gelee with Lychee sweet wine. I fully understood that she probably worked on this dish for 3 days but I am so sorry to say that the taste was neutral and not delicious at all. Of course it is eatable, but you would not say “ Hey, this is good” And I think foreigner did not like it. Actually my husband is a dutch. He felt very awkward to eat the chicken oil jelly.
3. Roasted Food
Barbecued Calamari , roasted chicken , roast baby pig were the highlight of the dinner. The meat was juicy and tender. I think her strength was on roasted food. The chicken was soft and juicy but still dining is the overall experience. The environment and food overall was not impressive.
4. Home-made sauce
This is definitely her pride. I was told hundred times during the dinner that the soy sauce was made by her; the shrimp paste was homemade.. bla bla bla. The waitress kept saying , “Miss, you really needed to try this homemade soy sauce”. I was a bit annoyed at the end of the dinner because I didn’t come here for the sauce.
Honestly I think this is exactly the chef’s problem. She focused too much on details; so much time on making all kinds of sauce but she has NO TIME to focus on making the delicious food! She lost the focus on whole picture! I never come across anyone who used so good ingredients, like fresh Garfield crab, juicy clams , still made the seafood soup not sweet but sour & salty ! I was so stunned about it. How could she do that! She used the best seafood in the world but the soup taste like“purified sea water”, which means not that salty sea water…. (Can you imagine!!)
Dessert is also another interesting dish. I am not sure if a dessert taste so neutral still calls dessert? Chef Margaret said this toufu dessert was homemade (of course) and it topped with thin layer of peaches foam and garnished with red dragon fruit. Sounds yummy but I think she forgot to taste before serving. The dessert simply had no taste at all. She forgot to add sugar or she blindly believed the peach was sweet enough to give taste to WHOLE toufou pudding.
The chef was definitely hardworking… but she tried too hard to make everything different and complicated BUT the taste did not work out!
5. Misunderstanding of open kitchen
Last, I am not sure whether chef Margaret has ever worked in the fine restaurant. The whole kitchen setting was something wrong. She made the kitchen way too opened that the guests could easily see all the dirty dishes lying everywhere in the kitchen while they were fine-dining.
Open kitchen is nice if it is cozy BUT it is not nice if all dirty dishes are lying on the floor.
Be fair, it is a clean restaurant overall. But I was paying more than Euro 70 (without wine) , Euro 90 (with wine) PER HEAD for my dinner, I would be very demanding not purely on food but also the setting, environment and whole dining experience. There are much more better food / better dining experience in Hong Kong than this yinyan restaurant.
Please don’t come for so-called home-made sauce, organic food, discreet location.. It does not worth that much of money.
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