THE PORT CAFE Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre 1 Expo Drive, Wan Chai Tel: 2582-7731 Open: 11am-10pm If you ever get hunger pangs in the vicinity of the convention centre you might want to pay a visit to the Port Cafe. During their Holiday Treat lunch buffet - on Sundays and public holidays - you can eat your fill from the antipasto and dessert buffets, with as many cooked-to-order hot main dishes as you want.
On a recent visit there was a tasty cream of broccoli soup with roasted pinenuts. The salad selection included tomato and buffalo mozzarella, potato with bacon and onions, Japanese crabmeat and cucumber, and our favourite, a penne pasta with scallops.
The main-course selection is rotated on a four-week cycle, with dishes such as roast veal with a lemon caper sauce, salmon marinated in Lapsang Souchong tea and served with a crab roe sauce, gratinated half-lobster and spaghetti in tomatoes and wild mushrooms. The fresh, tender salmon is wonderful, but the spaghetti and the veal are disappointing.
The dessert buffet table offers lots of calorific choice, including light cheesecake with cherries, pear strudel, chocolate butter cake, tiramisu, ice-cream and bite-sized waffles. Be sure to get your fill of the desserts before 3pm, because the staff will start to clear everything away.
The choose-as-many-dishes-as-you-want concept is an attractive one. Just one slight niggle with the service, though - it is sometimes difficult to attract a waiter's attention.
The set price for the Holiday Treat menu is a very reasonable $180 for adults ($130 for children), plus 10 per cent. Throughout the rest of the week the restaurant offers an a la carte menu.
