Wineshark HK Restaurant Review - Bizou

This American brasserie is located in Pacific Place, enjoying a prime site in the shopping mall so do expect there are a lot of customers especially around the happy hour session. With head chef Duilio Desimoni creating the menu, the decor offers a contemporary ambiance to customers though the tables and chairs are a bit too small to provide a comfortable dining experience.

As it was still the happy hour I ordered a cocktail to start. The White Peach Bellini ($118) was prepared with white peach puree and sauce, mixed with sparkling wine. The taste is decent and quite refreshing and good as an aperitif.

For starter we had the Boston Style Crab Cake with Spicy Aioli ($188). It was of a single piece but very big in size, with the two sides pan-fried nicely with bread crumbs. There were plenty of crab meat, seasoned nicely and I like the black pepper added to give a slight spicy note, which matched with the spicy aioli very well. A good one to begin our meal.

The other starter was Grilled Octopus with Jalapeno Mint Hummus, Olives and Sumac ($188). The hummus is a sort of dip, with this one made from the Mexican chili and mint, with an interesting taste, both refreshing and a bit spicy. The octopus was tender and not rubbery, giving a nice chew. It was also grilled beautifully with a good char. Again the portion was fairly big and would be ideal for sharing.

For the main course we had the Linguini and Clams, Dried Red Chili, Garlic, Olive Oil and Parsley ($218). The waitress told us that clams were not available so they changed to shrimps instead. The texture of the linguini was good, with the right chewiness and not tangled together when forking it up. The dried red chili and garlic gave nice flavors to the pasta but all these could not offset the fact that the shrimps were just too tiny and without any taste.

Hoping the other main course would fair better, the Grilled Pork Chop ($178) did deliver a decent job. The thick pork chop was seared well, with the juice oozing out when cutting it up. It was also properly seasoned, and the chef provided a mushroom sauce and sea salt to accompany. I found with a tiny bit of sea salt the overall flavors were enhanced. Maybe true to its nature, the restaurant did perform better with its grills.

As the portion were all big we could not have room for dessert, but I did finish with my buy one get one cocktail, opting for Man-Hat-Ann ($118) this time. With raspberry juice, rum and other ingredients, I like this one better than the white peach bellini.

Service throughout the meal was just mediocre, probably because the restaurant was super busy during the happy hour period and the waitress had to cover a lot of tables. That still doesn't mean the dining customers would accept the rather non-existence service.

The total bill was $1048, including a bottled water ($62). Rather expensive considering what we had, I would suggest coming for the happy hour (especially since they offered free buffet on snacks) than the normal dining.