Wineshark HK Restaurant Review - Lily & Bloom

This restaurant is located in LKF Tower, with a huge bar on one side offering a nice hang-out space for customers to enjoy themselves with a few of their signature cocktail, while on the window side a series of table giving diners the proper setting to enjoy their meal in a dim lighting.

We were seated at one end of that dining section, and with not that many customers on the night, able to have a nice quiet ambiance throughout our meal. The leather sofa is comfortable, but one panel got a large slash and was torn. Even though we was not exactly sitting on that it was not a nice sign and kind of indicating the lack of upkeep for this restaurant.

I ordered a mocktail while perusing the menu. The Passion Cooler ($70) is concocted from passion fruit, lime, coconut and plum, with lots of shaved ice on top. The taste is quite good with the lime giving the acidity to balance the sweetness of the fruit juice and syrups, but there are so much ice that either you have to wait for the ice to melt, or the mocktail would finish in two big suck, making you wonder it is a bit of ripe-off...

For starter we had the Mussels Meuniere ($185). The mussels are large in size, cooked nicely to allow a nice tender texture without making the mussels rubbery. The sauce is made from white wine, butter, shallot and garlic, with a brioche toast on the side for dipping. I like the brioche better than the mussels honestly, freshly toasted and very soft, great together with the sauce. A nice start.

Then we had the Razor Clam Linguini ($235). This is my favorite in the evening, with the creamy white wine sauce appealing, the pasta great on texture with a nice bite. The sun-dried tomato and garlic gave a nice mixture of sweetness and fragrance to the linguini. The razor clams are a bit of a let down though and from the bite I feel it was the frozen ones. However the overall experience was still good and delicious.

At the same serving time came one of the two main courses we ordered: Slow Cooked French Turbot Fillet ($360), with watercress puree, endives, grated Parma Ham. Not sure because we finished the pasta before starting this dish, or because of the cooking method, the fillet was only lukewarm. I am not sure I resonate with the rationale of using this technique to cook fish. The watercress puree was to me too bitter, and that might match with the taste of endives, that sort of mask the other tastes for me. The plating is very beautiful but still it could not change my overall disappointment for this dish.

Having told the waitress not to serve our other main course until we finished the last course, we ended up having to wait a while for this dish: Slow Cooked French Pigeon Breast ($380). It was interestingly prepared by combining a piece of foie gras with the pigeon breast, giving a layer effect, and offering a contrast of the creamy and soft texture from the two components. The poached figs is put on top of a white daikon, and helped to balance the fatty sensations as a traditional good complement to the foie gras. The pigeon breast is tender and for this one I could relate to the slow cook method. But overall it did not provide me a wow factor.

Going for dessert my wife had the Classic Creme Brulee ($85) with Madagascar vanilla and a caramelized sugar crust, while I had the Banana Ice-Cream ($35). The ice-cream is nice, with rich banana flavors but the restaurant could add a bit of flair by having a few slices of banana or other garnish in my opinion.

The service is decent with the staff attentive and not intrusive to diners for them to enjoy their conversation. Like I mentioned many times I would really like them to introduce each dish, not just calling out the name of the dish, but a bit more on the ingredients or way it is prepared. That I found always made the dish more enjoyable but not that many restaurant spent the effort.

The bill was $1562 and it was fairly expensive considering this is more a bar/restaurant, I found it not too surprising that they did not have many customers. I think there are many areas they could tidy up to make this restaurant better, and I hope they could review and took the effort to change.