Serge et le Phoque - relaxed French fine dining

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Serge-et-le-phoque

Do you need a five star location to serve five star food?  It's a question worth asking.  I'd recently dined at perennial fine diner Amber (see post here), located in the oh-so-swanky Landmark Oriental and blessed with two Michelin Stars as well as a rating in the top 50 restaurants in the world.  It was lovely, if not a little sterile.  I mean it's nice walking through Central's million dollar shops to get to a meal, but it doesn't feel like old school Hong Kong.

I'd heard about a fancy little French fine diner that felt like it didn't need the fancy location to produce amazing food, so I set about checking it out.  Serge et le phoque is located in the back streets of Wan Chai and to get there you need to get out your map (well, SatNav) and then traverse the back streets, past the open fish markets and fruit vendors before finding the unassuming little restaurant.  The sights and smells of a more traditional Hong Kong assaulted my senses as we traipsed through the streets and when we finally walked through the black velvet curtain at the front door of Serge et le phoque, I was ready for just about anything.

What I found was an interesting little set up that was part post industrialist warehouse and part fancy dining room.  The area was split between a private dining room, sectioned of by more black velvet along with a series of circular tables surrounded by comfy booth style seating and along the front of the dining area (where we were sitting), tiny little two person tables facing the restaurant.  While I found the tables tiny, they were at least serviceable, but I think I'd have preferred to have the seats facing the huge plate glass window at the front of Serge, which provided a TV style view of the comings and going in busy Wan Chai.

Craftsteak - Open fire cooking

http://www.diningconcepts.com/craftsteak

One of the most famous names in steak restaurants is Tom Colicchio, who is better known in his role as head jude go Top Chef (one of my favourite cooking shows).  I was pretty excited when I was wandering around Soho in Hong Kong one day and saw that there was a Craftsteak in Hong Kong. Upon further investigation though, I was disappointed to find out that it was in no way associated with it's more famous namesake.

I wasn't surprised though to find out that Craftsteak HK was actually part of Dining Concepts, arguably the most prolific restaurant group in this part of the world.  While I was mildly disappointed that I wouldn't get the quality and styings of a global celebrity chef, I knew that at least Craftsteak HK would be the real deal (or at least I hoped).

We'd not made a reservation but managed to easily score a table for a mid week on-the-way-home-from-work dinner.  Securing a table down near the open plan kitchen, I was able to get a view of the open fire custom made charcoal fired grill.  We were given a couple of menus to look over and it became clear quite quickly that Craftsteak was the king of meats, with a good selection of cuts of beef and lamb from the USA, Australia and New Zealand.

Sky Bar - seafood-oyster-dessert, two out of three ain't bad?

http://www.mrsteak.com.hk/TheSkyBar.aspx

So far in Hong Kong, I've not had the best of runs when it comes to seafood.  More often than not, I've ended up a little sick after chomping down on a seafood meal.  I wanted to put an end to that trend, so we decided to check out the Sky Bar, a little spot in Causeway Bay that is known for it's seafood.  Part of the Mr Steak Concept group that runs a heap of steak restaurants around Hong Kong (and one that I would later visit), The Sky Bar takes a bit of a different track and is a bar restaurant that dabbles in a little bit of every style but is mostly about the seafood. 

Getting to The Sky Bar meant traversing the city to get to Causeway Bay, which is probably one of the busiest and most densely populated parts of Hong Kong.  It's always a bit of a challenge, especially since the usual pace of people walking about is slow and very slow!  Not only is Causeway Bay one of the more densely populated spots on the planet, it's also the most expensive commercial real estate on the planet and I wondered if the Sky Bar location would factor into the pricing of the meal.

After surviving the crush, we arrived at the Sky Bar at was apparently staff change over time.  We were shown to our seats and given menus, then promptly ignored for about 15 minutes while the staff settled in for a team meeting and pep up session.  It was kind of amusing to see but also a little frustrating as we wanted to eat!

Bistecca - Another Dining Concepts Gem

Bistecca Italian Steak

Those crazy cats at Dining Concepts just keep rolling with an impressive array of restaurants and our exploration of their portfolio continued when we checked out one of their many steak restaurants.  Bistecca, Italian Steak Restaurant is located in Hong Kong hotspot Lan Kwai Fong and also has the distinction of being in the SCMP Good Eating Guide's top 100 tables of HK.

Bistecca is an easy walk from my work in Central, so it's pretty convenient for those after work dinners when you don't want to travel too far but get a quality meal.  Like so many restaurants in HK, you need to find the right building then head for the elevator to find the place.  I really love this about HK, it's like being transported to a new reality every time the lift door opens, each floor has a seemingly never ending stream of restaurants.  This time we walked into an exposed red brick interior that had shades of rustic Tuscany and by the time we were seated, I almost felt like we were in provincial Italy for our dinner.

Except for the window view, which was all Hong Kong!