Wineshark HK Restaurant Review - The Drawing Room

This restaurant is located in St. Regis Hong Kong, with an elegant and cozy experience, providing customers with an indulgent afternoon tea and a la carte all-day dining of international fare. The staff greeted us warmly upon arrival and showed us to our table, offering us a choice of sitting at the sofa or the chairs which we opted for the latter. Seated comfortably and breathing in the nice fragrance, while the view might not be particularly interesting, we got a nice impression to begin our dinner.

After ordering a cocktail to start, we decided to go for a couple of appetizers to share. The first is Lobster Summer Roll ($218), with the rice paper wrapping Boston lobster tail, avocado, cucumber, carrot, palm heart and vermicelli. There are also a mango chili and Nuoc Cham sauce to accompany. A nice starter in this hot weather, the flavors are delicate and light, and when adding the appetizing sauces the overall complexity is increased manifold. A nice dish.

The second starter is Caesar Salad with Grilled Chicken ($218). The salad has Romaine lettuce, crispy bread, avocado, Parmesan flakes and grilled chicken. The homemade Caesar dressing is provided on the side to allow us to add by ourselves. The lettuce is crunchy and fresh, and the chicken nicely seasoned with black pepper. Instead of the usual croutons the restaurant used a thin crispy bread slice. Another dish of great taste.

For the main dish I had Penne with Scallops, Prawns and Tomato Sauce ($288). Both the scallops and prawns are flavorful, apparently of good quality and freshness, and even though it looks simple, the penne had a wonderful balance of acidity from the tomato sauce. The texture of the penne is also very good with a nice bite.

The other main dish unfortunately was disappointing. The Hainan Chicken Rice ($298) is a dish offered by many restaurants, and while we believed it should be a safe bet, it turns out otherwise. The yellow rice is nice, and they come with the dark soy sauce, ginger and chili sauce which is also meeting the standard. But I found the texture of the meat too soft, to an extent I would wonder the freshness of the chicken itself. The taste was a bit weird too.

Going for dessert I have the Iced Mille Feuille ($108), which is a frozen vanilla parfait with seasonal fruit compote and caramelized puff. Decent in taste, the puff is crunchy and flaky, with the parfait of the right sweetness to make it fulfilling but not cloying, and the apricot pieces on top are a good complement.

The other dessert is Green Tea-ramisu ($118), made from mascarpone cream, matcha sponge, matcha brulee and black sugar ice-cream.  The appearance might not be particularly appealing, and the taste also are surprisingly lacking as well. A bit of the let-down unfortunately.

The service was really good, as expected from the renown St. Regis hotels all over the world. However I think the overall food quality can see some improvements. The bill was $1,632 and it was a bit expensive too.