Wineshark HK Restaurant Review - Garden Cafe

This restaurant is located in Conrad Hong Kong, offering both buffet dinner as well as international a la carte cuisine. Arriving on the night we found that the restaurant is fairly popular, and even at early evening there is a good number of diners already seated.

The setting is decent, but the tables are quite close to each other so it is not a place for private or business dinner. However, for casual and informal gatherings it is fairly comfortable. Our table is just on the side of the buffet area so we get a good view of the food on offer.

I decided to go for the Buffet Dinner ($658) while my wife had the Traditional Fish and Chips ($215). On the seafood bar there are lobster, jade whelk, prawns, mussels and crab legs. I tried the lobster and whelk, and both are so-so but could not be called tasty.

Then going for the salad, along with some cold cuts and cheese. While the choices are fairly wide, again all of them are just mediocre, without anything that really jump out in terms of flavors. The only thing I like is that you can make your own Caesar salad with the salad bowl.

Next I went for the sushi section. Sampling a number of them, they are ok in terms of quality, and my favorite would be the squid sushi. I did not get much of the sashimi apart from the crab sticks and octopus. The octopus was so salty that I could barely finish the slices. A disappointment.

Switching to the cooked food, I went outside to the BBQ area. The chef had already grilled different types of meat and I got a piece of lamb, a chicken skewer and a piece of spare rib. The lamb is decent and fairly juicy, but the chicken has all dried up. The spare rib got a nice sauce on top but was not marinated enough in my opinion.

Coming back inside I tried the other cooked food. Nothing worth mentioning except the pork chop which is rather tasty, and the gravy is also rich and flavorful. Unfortunately that is the only food throughout the night that I could recommend.

Suddenly the chef came out with a cart and on it there was a whole fish, and the waiter advised us that the Hiramasa sashimi is available. Surprisingly they are not as good as I would expect, and I suspect the fish has not been properly defrosted and not served at the right temperature which affected the taste.

The waiter then came and provided us with a foie gras. Even that was a let down, with the foie gras have not been seared enough to bring the nice signature aromas.

Going for the noodle, I had the udon with some fish roll. The udon had been cooked for too long and became too soft, as the chef had to take care of cutting the meat at the adjacent station. It is not her fault but sadly this made even this simple dish disappointing in the end.

For dessert I decided to just had some ice-cream and fruit. The passion fruit ice-cream was good, with the proper sourness to balance well the sweetness and is quite delicious.

The fruit is, well, nothing special.

The service overall was decent, as would be expected from a 5-star hotel. But the food quality is certainly a big disappointment.

The cost overall was $845, after a credit card discount. I am not a fan of buffet, and this again prove to me I made the wrong decision. And I could not agree it is worth the money.