8/F Circle Tower, 28 Tang Lung Street, Causeway Bay
Tel: 2575 2257
Open: noon-3pm, 6pm-10.30pm
Cuisine: Japanese
Price: about HK$250 without drinks or the service charge.
Ambience: friendly and quiet. We were happy to have booked, because the main dining area was full. There's a smaller private room.
Pros: our servers were eager to please. There were three of us, so for the dishes that were two per serving, the waitress suggested 1 1/2 orders, rather than making us order two portions.
Cons: the only dish we didn't finish was the assorted tempura (HK$98). It was a generous serving - three large prawns, a fish fillet, baby corn and other vegetables, but had a heavy, oily batter.
Recommended dishes: we ordered mostly from the specials menu. The green onion on minced tuna belly (HK$88) was lovely. The portion looked tiny, but for the price it was a surprisingly generous serving of finely minced tuna belly with cooked seaweed on the bottom and sprinkled with spring onions. It came with small sheets of nori - which we used to wrap the tuna - and toasted cashews, which gave it a mildly sweet, rich crunch. We loved the sea urchin bean curd (HK$88), which was sea urchin-flavoured bean curd topped with more sea urchin. Horse mackerel sashimi (HK$84 for a half order) was fresh and sweet, and came with grated ginger and minced spring onions. Skewers of minced chicken meat with plum and shiso leaf (HK$48 for two) were dense and meaty, with cartilage giving it a nice crunch. My guest liked the fried beef cubes with garlic and butter (HK$98) so much that I had only one piece of the tender meat. A special described as Okinawa bitter gourd with tofu (HK$88) came with sliced pork belly and bean sprouts, all cooked with egg into a messy looking but delicious dish.