Taste Festival FAIL!

taste-festival-hk-fail

For those thinking of attending Taste at the Central Harbourfront, then sadly I suggest you think again if you haven’t already bought a ticket. Especially if you’re imagining something like last year’s enjoyable and diverse Wine & Dine Festival.

At Taste there are just 12 restaurants: Aberdeen Street Social, Amber, Arcane (Sunday), Bibo, Café Gray Deluxe, Chino (Thursday & Friday), Duddell’s, Serge et Le Phoque, The Ocean, Tin Lung Heen, Tosca, Yardbird and Ronin and visiting UK restaurant Duck & Waffle (Saturday). The organisers IMG are hoping to attract 3,000 people per four hour session. If you are keen to try all 12 outlets then you’ll be hoping to get served every 20 minutes as will the other 250+ customers at each booth. Even the most efficient McDonalds in Hong Kong would be struggling to serve 750 people every hour for four hours straight; and they’re a restaurant specifically designed to serve fast food. The 12 outlets at Taste are restaurants used to serving 100 or so people in an evening, with care taken in the cooking and presentation of the food. And with rents for a booth at over $20,000, the dishes aren’t cheap ranging from $50 to $380 for mini-portions on a paper plate…

Each restaurant is offering 3 dishes and one signature dish, as the organisers IMG didn’t ask the participants to prepare any dishes for the media to taste it’s impossible for bc to comment on the individual offerings. On the opening night an outlet ran out of its signature dish within just over an hour having prepared less than 30 portions. Others ran out of their ‘main’ dishes before 8pm. One outlet spoke of preparing 300 of each main dish per session – so only 1 in 10 of IMG’s projected session visitors might be able to taste it…

Arrive early and expect to queue and queue… Even the Event Director Simon Wilson thinks you’ll only be able to taste dishes from 5 or 6 outlets per 4 hour session. Thursday was the first night, and the weather meant only a couple of hundred visitors yet there were long lines all around. Service at all the restaurants was friendly but disorganised with ordering and food arrival taking several minutes per customer. Late in any session I expect the food choices to be extremely limited if non-existent.

The place feels very sterile, there’s no area to sit and congregate and share food stories. There are no tables on the event ‘lawn’ (more like a squishy puddle in the rain) so the few standing only tables inside the booths were crammed and with staff working flat-out to serve food; clearing the tables of piling rubbish was an oft forgotten afterthought.

The restaurants are spaced around the exterior, while the ‘spine’ of Taste features various wine, craft beer and food produce outlets. Drinks are at bar prices and nothing that you can’t find easily around town. Although La Boucherie and Golden Pig are offering some tasty sausages while Eclair! has some interesting savoury eclairs and chocolates.

The lack of restaurant booths is Taste’s main problem. 20 or 30 outlets (there’s no shortage of ‘high end’ outlets locally) would have allowed diners to spend less time queueing and more time tasting – which after all is supposedly the idea behind the event.

This is not IMG’s first Taste event, they have organised many around the world, but Taste HK feels like a rort, designed to fleece it’s visitors of as many dollars as possible… Looking to cash in on the premium names and reputations of outlets with dishes that are expensive for what’s on offer. $280 for a lobster roll eaten standing in a puddle under an umbrella… Maybe it’s different overseas but here it’s definitely an event for those with money to burn. For the rest of us, save your money and go enjoy the dishes as the chef imagined you would eat them, sitting down with time to appreciate all their subtleties and complexities of flavour, texture and taste.

Megabites: Seafood – 24 October, 2015

Seafood is hot right now with four new restaurants opening recently that offer the ocean’s not quite as plentiful as it used to be produce. The world’s seas and oceans offer a bountiful source of food, but pollution and fish harvesting have depleted fish stocks, destroyed fish breeding grounds and killed the food sources that fish need to grow and live. Sustainable fishing and fish farms are a start, but it only works if we the customer take an interest in where the fish we eat is sourced.

Organized by Hong Kong’s Ocean Recovery Alliance, November’s month-long Kin Hong “Healthy” Seafood Festival looks to raise public awareness about sustainable seafood and why we should care about what we are eating, and where it comes from. 21 restaurants are participating, but insanely for the restaurant to participate they only have to prove that one fish dish on their menu comes from sustainable sources. Positive idea, poor execution.

lobster and musselsNoho’s Pauls Kitchen which opened in 2007 has undergone a renovation and a rebrand to emerge this month as Lobster and Mussels by Paul’s Kitchen. Looking to differentiate itself from a regular seafood restaurant the outlet sells only fresh lobster and mussels cooked and prepared in a variety of ways. Paul’s Kitchen’s signature French Baby Chicken does make the new menu for those who don’t like lobster or mussels.
Lobster and Mussels by Paul’s Kitchen: 16 Gough Street Central. Tel: 2815 8003 www.pauls-kitchen.com

New in Sai Ying Pun is Fishschool a concept and collaboration between Yenn Wong and Chef David Lai which looks to “Bring modern Hong Kong to the plate with a cuisine reflecting the local culture and resources”. Offering farmed seafood and fresh local Hong Kong fish sourced from small, family-owned fishing boats the menu features a range of dishes you might not have tasted before. Or simply pick a fish and have it baked, steamed, roasted, grilled or pan-fried… as you desire.
Fishschool: 100 Third Street, Sai Ying Pun. Tel: 2361 2966 www.fishschool.hk

The Ocean is the latest outlet to open at The Pulse in Repulse Bay. Located on the 3/F The Ocean opened on the 21 October and claims to serve “sustainably sourced seafood”. Neither the press release or website offers a menu and we’ve received no replies to our emails for more information. So all we have currently is the address, more when we’ve taken a look.
The Ocean: Shop 303-304, 3/F, The Pulse, 28 Beach Road, Repulse Bay. Tel: 2889 5939. www.theocean.hk

seas-ahoySeas Ahoy a family themed child friendly restaurant opened in Tsim Sha Tsui last month. The interior looks a little different with a ‘kid-literate’ menu and a ship themed play area for children to enjoy while parents dine. Sadly according the press release “Seas Ahoy’s portion is created smaller so that every plate is a new experience” – the sharing plates concept of micro-sized portions that you can ‘share’ at full meal prices was old several years ago.
Seas Ahoy: G1, Mirror Tower, 61 Mody Road, Tsim Sha Tsui. Tel: 3956 5300. www.seasahoy.com