Restaurant review: Hue in Tsim Sha Tsui a good blend of modern Australian cuisine despite short menu
- Located in the newly reopened Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hue serves modern Australian cuisine from a menu of eight starters and seven mains
- Get the aged duck breast with quince purée and black garlic sauce, but skip the pork loin, which was a little dry
“I thought we were going out for Vietnamese food,” complained my guest as he looked at the menu of Hue.
It’s a fair enough assumption to think the name refers to the city in Vietnam, rather than a colour or shade, although it makes more sense when you remember that the restaurant is in the Hong Kong Museum of Art.
Despite being disappointed in the type of cuisine – modern Australian, and not the expected Vietnamese – my guest was, by the end of the meal, won over.
The menu is short: only eight starters and seven mains. I enjoyed the starters more than the mains, while it was the opposite for my guest.
Ocean trout (HK$170), as pink as salmon, was lightly cured so it was soft, moist and not too salty. The tender slices were served with whipped cod roe, which looked much like a very light mayonnaise, along with salmon eggs and two piping hot fried potato cakes.
My guest asked the waiter if the carabinero prawns (HK$220) were cooked, and was told yes. In truth, they were only very lightly cooked and almost raw – which is how I like them, but not how my guest does. I ended up eating his starter – the prawn flesh was soft and sweet and the heads were crunchy, with plenty of intense innards. The smoked herring butter sauce served with the prawns was a little too rich, and I scraped most of it aside.
My guest’s main course of aged duck breast with quince purée and black garlic sauce (HK$360) saw him clear his plate. The duck was deeply flavoured and delicious, with the quince – both fresh and puréed – adding a sweet-tart accent to the rich meat.
My pork loin with radicchio purée and fermented blueberries (HK$340) was dense and dry, although I’d asked for it to be cooked “a little pink”. It wasn’t very pretty, either: puréed radicchio is dark purple, which was also the colour of the blueberries.
As we were quite full, we shared a dessert of coconut ice cream with white chocolate ganache and passion fruit (HK$115). It was light and refreshing with a good mix of flavours, textures and temperatures.
Hue Dining, 1/F Hong Kong Museum of Art, 10 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, tel: 3500 5888. About HK$665 per person without drinks or the service charge.
