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Susan Jung

1/F, 63 Wyndham Street, Central. 
Tel: 2536 0183
Open: Monday-Saturday 11am-3pm, 6pm-11pm (later on the weekends)
Cuisine: Cajun/Creole 
Price: about HK$400 without drinks. There's no service charge.
Ambience: The restaurant is decorated with restored, refurbished furnishings such as distressed wood, high, flexible stools with bases made of springs from ships, and displays of old bottles.
Pros: American-style service, which means very friendly - some people like this, others don't. The noise level makes for a raucous, convivial evening.
Cons: some of the food sounds better than it is. Most disappointing was the Jack's fried chicken with Tabasco remoulade and watermelon pickles (HK$248) which we ordered because it looked so good as waiters carried it to nearby tables. Our main worry was that the white meat would be dry and it was - but so was the dark meat.
We picked up the thigh and bit through the well-flavoured, crunchy coating, only to find dry, stringy meat. A dish that shouldn't have even made it out of the kitchen was the Café du Monde beignets with powdered sugar (HK$68, or HK$130 with chocolate fondue). We've eaten the beignets at Café du Monde in New Orleans and they were nothing like these, which were too large, heavy and undercooked.
Recommended dishes: crabmeat cheesecake with savoury pecan pastry and creole meunière (HK$108) had delicate, crumbly pastry, a light filling, and the unexpected (it wasn't in the dish description) but welcome addition of fresh chanterelle mushrooms in the sauce. Shrimp and stoneground grits with rosemary, Guinness and garlic (HK$248) had a lot of smaller shrimp and one that was huge, with a head that was full of delicious juices. But the star of the show was the grits and the sauce. "Grainy" and "dense" aren't usually positive adjectives when it comes to food, but this was really good - think polenta, but with a lot more character.
What else? The menu lists grilled dishes that looked delicious, including a double-cut pork chop that's poached first in duck fat. The restaurant will be open all day in the near future.
Susan Jung


Review: Restoration

Restored furnishings take pride of place; shrimps and grits (top right); crabmeat cheesecake.Photos: Thomas Yau

Lifestyle

Food & Drink

The restaurant is decorated with restored, refurbished furnishings such as distressed wood, high, flexible stools with bases made of springs from ships, and displays of old bottles.
