Zig Zag
Zig Zag G/F 1 Davis Street Kennedy Town, Hong Kong Tel: 2886 5004
Grub: Mostly French and Italian: pasta, pizza, fondue.
Vibe: This is a small bistro with a post-industrial colour scheme of steel and black. A large wrought iron sculpture guards the door. The tables are high and seating is on stools. When the weather permits, the whole front opens, allowing a sense of al fresco dining and a view across the harbour towards the Tsing Ma bridge.
Who to bring: It has a young, trendy feel, so it's a good place to hang out with a bunch of school friends.
What's hot: It's not a large menu, but it does cater for a range of tastes. We'd decided to share a starter and were torn between escargots, and cheese quiche. We went for the latter, which was bursting with cheesy flavour - thanks, we were told, to the cheeses which are shipped weekly from Italy.
We followed with a roast chicken salad, which was strips of chicken on a bed of tomato, egg, crisp lettuce and celery. The chicken itself was fragrant with rosemary - it can also be ordered as a main course.
Pasta dishes are spaghetti or fusilli and looked delicious but we had already been sold on the idea of a half-half pizza: a different topping on each half. We went for the pepperoni/tuna and onions combo.
The pizzas are traditional thin-crust type, also made with the imported cheese. There are two sizes, mini or maxi - the maxi is three times the size of the mini. As we had ordered other dishes, we found the mini quite big enough.
With the pizza came the option of a spicy olive oil. It's a dressing they make themselves, in which sliced fresh chillies are steeped in a bottle of extra virgin olive oil left in the sun for a week or so. A few drops on the pizza added a delicious spicy kick that worked equally well on both toppings.
We finished off with chocolate mousse. It's the only dessert on the menu but it is very good. It's also very rich, so unless you have a particularly sweet tooth you might want to share.
What's not: The stools are fine if you are just popping in for a quick lunch but they could get a bit uncomfortable if you are planning to while away a large part of the afternoon.
Cost: Starters range from HK$28 to HK$59; the cheese quiche was HK$41 and the chicken salad HK$73. Pasta dishes start at HK$62 for a simple tomato sauce up to HK$108 for shrimp with cream and mushroom. Pizzas are HK$88 for a mini and HK$188 for a maxi, regardless of toppings. You can also order the Margherita or pepperoni at HK$28 per slice. A cheese fondue for two is HK$249. The chocolate mousse is a very reasonable HK$38.
