Pros: the menu states that all vegetables and fruits come from a dedicated organic farm on the mainland and that the cuisine aims to be healthy, light and tasty. Vegetable ingredients are listed first, even for meat and seafood mains. With meat and seafood ingredients, we were told that they were imported, and organic where possible.

Cons: the first day on the job is always a trial, but that's no excuse for management to throw a green waitress out onto the floor without a basic menu briefing. When the first of our appetisers arrived, it was a lowball glass filled with unidentifiable chunks coated in mayonnaise. We inquired what it was, and our waitress confessed that she had no idea. The head waiter revealed it to be the trio fish tartare (HK$128), which fell way below our expectations. There was no way to tell whether the fish was fresh, much less what three kinds of fish were used, under the thick mayonnaise. The restaurant seems to have a few other kinks to work out - at the time we dined, they had neither a proper dessert menu (there was one 'daily dessert' on offer), or a wine list (we were given a choice of house red or white).

Recommended dishes: we fared better with our second appetiser - a yam noodle and crab meat salad (HK$128), which featured springy, grey-brown yam noodles in a very light chilli-garlic vinaigrette and topped generously with snow crab meat. We also enjoyed our main of smoked pork belly with a lemon cream risotto (HK$238). It wasn't particularly healthy but it was certainly tasty. The pork pieces were marinated in a mixture of blueberry, honey and whisky and roasted to a caramelised crispness that suited the al dente risotto.

What else? Mensa Organica offers a two-course dinner set for HK$198. It's HK$258 for three courses, dessert not included. The name is Latin for 'organic table'.