Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Food for Homebodies


Food guest blogger hkLifestyleGeek visits Wild Grass and give us her thoughts.

A new restaurant has opened in Central offering home-style cooked dishes in a laid-back setting.

Wild Grass promises to be "organic nose-to-tail real cuisine", on the menu, but we didn't see much evidence of literally eating every part of the animal. Nevertheless it's about fresh ingredients and bringing out natural flavours that are eaten family style.

Located on the first floor of a building on Arbuthnot Road, the cozy space is white with wooden floors and then a curious wall at the back for locally-based artists to create art as you dine... it's a well-meaning concept, but do we really want to be inhaling paint fumes while we dine?

In any event the menu features a number of delicious-looking dishes that got our taste buds going, but in the end only a few were memorable.


For starters, the fresh Scottish ocean trout with capers and whiskey sour dressing with heart of romaine ($HK$118) was a refreshing start with its tart taste, while things got creamy with the baked goat's cheese on bacon puff pastry with beetroot (HK$88).

Another appetiser had bacon wrapped around kidneys (HK$108) -- but the strips of pork weren't enough to hide the taste of kidneys.


In terms of mains, we enjoyed the roasted halibut (HK$288), cooked just right as it was moist and flaked easily. It was seasoned with sprigs of rosemary and whole roasted onion cloves we gladly spread on homemade bread.


The slow-grilled rump (HK$320) was presented on a long rectangular plate with a bed of French fries underneath; the beef was alright, but a bit on the dry side despite the basil peppercorn relish. The same could be said about the suckling pig (HK$288) that was even drier even though it was accompanied with slices of apple, turnip and mustard.

One of the saving graces are the desserts. We thoroughly enjoyed the piping hot rhubarb oatmeal crumble (HK$78) that came with what is described on the menu as "dairy frozen cream", ie. ice cream. This is one of the few places in Hong Kong that was not stingy with the rhubarb and we hope it will continue to be generous. The stewed apple turnover with vanilla cream (HK$78) was really vanilla ice cream, and it seemed to have more pastry than apple. And then the creme brulee tart (HK$68) was sinfully creamy.

Diners can also have a farm cheese plate (HK$138) with a selection of hard to soft cheeses accompanied with finely diced prunes, raisins and fresh figs.

With a few tweaks here and there hopefully Wild Grass will get its act together, though the name and tagline seems a misnomer.

Wild Grass
1/F, 4-8 Arbuthnot Road
Central
2810-1189
www.wildgrass.hk

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1 comment:

  1. I do enjoy your reviews, but isn't it a little harsh to criticise a kidney dish on the basis that it tastes of kidneys?

    ReplyDelete