New restaurant: Chef Stage - great harbour view, flavourful food

(tel: 2303 0999) boasts great views of Victoria Harbour from Tsim Sha Tsui, making it an ideal venue for catching the Lunar New Year fireworks. The compact menu offers a fairly mainstream, if somewhat boring, selection.

Prawn tartare with black truffle (above, HK$98) was a mottled quenelle that turned out to be delicious, as the black truffle sauce nicely accented the wonderful flavours of diced and shredded prawns.

We didn't understand why the chef suggested we taste the two components of pan-fried duck liver with cherry tomato gazpacho (HK$148) together. The duck liver was slightly overcooked, but the gazpacho was refreshing, lively and light.

The US natural Angus rib-eye (HK$388) came slightly more cooked than the medium-rare we had asked for, and the grilled Australian rack of lamb (HK$238) was unevenly cooked; one piece was still rare in the middle while another looked medium. The gamey fat in the lamb was deliciously satisfying. Unfortunately, both meat dishes came with olive oil-infused purple sweet potato mash - which wasn't all that sweet.

Warm chocolate brownie with ice cream (HK$58) arrived as two small tablets with crispy shells encasing light and fluffy interiors, and seemed very "Asian" to us.