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Susan Jung

Podium Level 3, IFC Mall, Central
Tel: 2393 3812
Open: noon-2.30pm (last orders, Sunday until 4pm), 6pm-10.30pm (last orders) 
Cuisine: French
Price: about HK$480 without drinks or the service charge.
Ambience: after being closed for several months, The French Window, which originally served modern French cuisine, reopened in September with more of a brasserie-style menu. The airy dining room remains elegant.
Pros: the menu has all the French brasserie favourites - frog legs, escargots and confit de canard.

Cons: we had to ask for our plates to be cleared, even when they were piled high with shells, and the position of our cutlery indicated that we had finished our main courses. You'd think that a restaurant that serves so much chilled seafood would have finger bowls for the guests to rinse their hands. Instead, we were served those individually wrapped towelettes of the type you get on the plane when flying economy. The frog legs sautéed in garlic and parsley butter (HK$158) tempted both my guest and me, but we sampled one piece each and left the rest. Served in pairs, the lean legs had meat that was - strangely - very mushy in parts and stringy in others. The rum baba bouchon (HK$78) hadn't been soaked in advance, as it should be. We poured the too-sweet rum syrup over the baba, then cut into it but because the syrup didn't have time to penetrate, it was hard and dry.
Recommended dishes: tourteau crab with mayonnaise (HK$218) had sweet meat, plentiful roe and creamy innards. Mussels steamed with white wine (market price) were a large serving of sweet black-shelled mussels in a subtle broth. Duck confit (HK$198) had a nice thin layer of crisp skin covering the tender meat, but my favourite part of the dish was the sautéed potatoes - the ratte variety (I suspect), delicately crunchy outside and soft within.
What else? The restaurant is part of the Mira Group. Susan Jung 
 


Restaurant review: The French Window

Duck confit with sautéed potatoes. Photos: Nora Tam

White wine steamed mussels in broth, 

Lifestyle

Food & Drink

We had to ask for our plates to be cleared, even when they were piled high with shells, and the position of our cutlery indicated that we had finished our main courses. You'd think that a restaurant that serves so much chilled seafood would have finger bowls for the guests to rinse their hands. Instead, we were served those individually wrapped towelettes of the type you get on the plane when flying economy. 
