Ta Vie offers fresh seasonal specialities and a range of Japanese whiskeys

TA VIE
2/F The Pottinger, Queen’s Road Central, 2668 6488

FARE French and Japanese. AMBIENCE It’s not a big restaurant and the warm, dim lighting gives it a cosy atmosphere. The seating is a combination of alcove seats and normal table settings for two to four people.

COST HK$1,880 per head for an eight-course menu.

WHO TO BRING A date or a loved one.

TURN-ONS It’s hard to fault anything on chef Hideaki Sato’s daily menu of seasonal specialities. The refreshing cold turnip, crab meat and home-made fresh cheese salad set the tone for the night. The chicken wontons in the consommé of “lung guang” chicken were excellent, the meat was firm but the wonton skins were delightfully delicate. The menu wasn’t exactly a truffle menu but offered, at extra cost, three truffle options. Forsaking the onion soup, we chose to add 400g of truffles to our wagyu “minute” steak with burnt onion and onsen egg, and an extra order of braised ox tongue in red wine sauce with white truffles. The wagyu was amazingly tender and the onsen egg was runny perfection.

TURN-OFFS While not exactly a turn-off, perhaps it might have been better for the truffles to be shaved on to the food at the table. The journey from the kitchen to the table, albeit a short one, made the truffles lose some of the pungent aroma that makes it such a delicacy.

DRINKS The selection of Japanese whiskies, getting rarer by the day, was impressive, and the selection of special tea brews as well. And there’s always a wide selection of fine wines.