Don't assume that knuckles and sausages are crown jewels. On the day of my visit, the dessert and salad bar were doing the best.
Here is the crown jewel of the day - Serradura. I had never tasted such silky soft lovely serrudura even at Macau top notch Portuguese restaurants.
Something new - German Luncheon Meat. It was hided inside a loaf of bread. The chef open it up for me to take a photo. Of course, I had a slice of it, very yummy, taste really like luncheon meat. But I thought it should be ham of some kind.
We could also picked our own ingredients and had a dish of cook-to-order spaghetti. We could chose between spinach noodle and bow noodle; white sauce and tomato sauce. However the dish size was quite big, we had to share between the two of us.
Here are the knuckles, but not stars of the day. It was good but for some reason I thought it could be better. The sour cabbage was however very good.
The various desserts, jelly candy, serradura, puddings...all are lovely, not to mention the ice creams.
To wrap up the buffet, a cup of coffee/tea was included. However if you want to have latte or Cappuccino, you would need to pay extra.
King Ludwig Beerhall
G/F, 183 Queen's Road East (tel: 2861-0737)
Weekend Buffet: HK$189 +10% per person
Buffet starts 12:00
Hong Kong Food Blog - German Buffet
We, 2 couples, went to Ripasso following the recommendation of a colleague, and were not disappointed. We walked into the cozy ambiente of an almost empty restaurant (they had not had their "grand opening" yet). The views of TST (city only, no harbor; on the north and west side of the restaurant) are very nice.
ReplyDeleteA good-sized menu came with two set dinners, one 4 and one 5 courses ($388 and 488, resp.). Of the four of us, two decided for the 5 course meal, one for the 4 course meal, and I had a starter and a pasta dish (and shared his dishes with my other half). There was a basket with three kinds of bread, all very good, and we got olive oil and balsamic on our plates. The waiter was very attentive and careful to refill bread, oil/balsamic, and our glasses all the time.
Food came pretty fast: one goose liver (very nice, with tasty decorative additions of which I forgot the names) and three caprese, with tomato puree and a deep-fried basil leaf: excellent. Two of us had the "crab cappuccino," a thick crab bisque with white foam on top. Tasty, but not that exciting.
Then came the pasta course for the menu people: two had risotto with beef cheek, which was amazingly tasty, and one had the gnocchi: divine, just how gnocchi have to be. Not too soft, not too hard, and with a really wonderful truffle sauce. Perfect. When the others got their meat courses, I got my pasta (the plates came out of the kitchen well-timed; given that we had different numbers of courses, this is not something that every kitchen manages to do. Thumbs up for this), so I was eating some very good ravioli with a super tasty tomato sauce while they were having lamb and steak. The lamb came with a very nice sauce and some mashed (sweet?) potatoes; the meat was fragrant and tender. The steak was served with fries (which were alright, nothing special) and some really nice mediterranean grilled veggies; the meat was flavorful and juicy, very good.
We had espresso afterwards, and dessert: creme caramel for the menu eaters (very nice, a bit on the sweet side and not too aromatic, but good), and I who had not ordered dessert, got half a pineapple filled with pineapple sorbet - this must have been one of the best sorbets I've ever had. Fruity, with plenty of real pineapple flavor, not too sweet - this was made with real pineapples. Amazing.
During dinner, we drank two bottles of Ripasso wine, which was nice but nothing too special; overall the red wines on the wine list were on the pricey side (I know that's standard here in HK, but I can't get used to it), while the white wines were comparatively cheap. For dessert, we were served dessert wine on the house - they told us they wanted to know what we thought of it, and we told them: it was excellent!
Overall, a very good experience and delicious food. There are some dished on the menu that I'd like to try; they did not have the license for raw fish and meat yet, so I could not have carpaccio or the seared tuna as a starter. The service was very attentive and friendly; the staff was very nice and made sure we were comfortable and happy. One of us is allergic to some foods, and there was no problem substituting things from the set menu with other dishes. Food was very good quality and excellently and beautifully prepared, timing was perfect. Portion sizes were just right, not too big and not too small. There were few other people at the restaurant (only 2 or 3 more tables occupied), and tables were not positioned too close to each other, so it was neither noisy nor hectic - a definite plus.
We will make sure to be back to such good food and atmosphere.
Caprese: yum!
Gose liver: nice.
Risotto: wonderful.
Lamb: tasty!
Steak: so good!
Ravioli: wonderful.
Creme caramel: nice.
It all looks delicious. Some of these dishes I already tried.
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