8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana - Hong Kong
The dining room filled up later in the evening.
Rating: 15/20
Where: Hong Kong, Hong Kong
When: Dinner for 2 on 19 April 2023
Cost: Tasting menu 2450 HKD, Wine pairing 1180 HKD
Accolades: 3 Michelin Stars
Why: A few good dishes at the world's only Italian three-star outside of Italy
8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana is a three Michelin star restaurant located on the second floor of a shopping mall in Hong Kong's Central district. Once inside the dining room, it's easy to forget about the shopping mall - windows along one side of the dining room look out on the trees in an adjoining street. The room's decor is a bit dated: the ceiling is covered with what looks like a flattened disco ball, and the chic here would be more at home in the 80s or 90s than the 21st century. A huge ceramic tomato is placed right at the entrance to the dining room, a cute play on what would traditionally be the location for a flower arrangement. And also a giveaway: the cuisine here is Italian. This restaurant with its long (and oddly redundant) name has the distinction of being the only one holding three Michelin stars that serves Italian food outside of Italy.
Compared to other three-star restaurants in Hong Kong, the clientele's age skewed significantly younger on our visit - most guests seemed to be in their 20s and 30s. Not sure what to make of this, but it was interesting to note.
For our dinner, the restaurant offered both a five-course tasting menu and an a la carte menu. We tried the tasting menu, which thanks to a couple of “surprise” dishes actually ended up consisting of seven courses. A wine pairing was also available, but its (exclusively Italian) wines were generally pretty underwhelming, and didn't create any strong synergies with the paired food either. I'd recommend ordering by the glass or by the bottle instead.
A bread basket filled with focaccia, grissini and carta di musica crackers arrived first. The warm focaccia was pretty good, although a bit chewy. The grissini were decent as well, but the carta di musica ended up being a bit too dry 16.
The amuse bouche was a Hokkaido scallop served over a cauliflower sauce. It was surrounded by a champagne dressing and topped with a dollop of caviar. This dish was a bit plain; not much was going on taste-wise. There were some acidic notes from the champagne sauce, and the cauliflower sauce had a crunchy/creamy consistency that reminded me of a light mayonnaise. Fine, but not very distinctive 14.
Warm slices of rye bread were served next, and while they had a great crunch, their taste wasn't anything too special 14.
Our first official course consisted of three slices of South Australian abalone. This abalone carpaccio was topped with small dollops of Osetra caviar, semi-dried tomatoes and sweet peppers. The dish was quite enjoyable: the different flavors combined seamlessly, with nothing dominating the taste experience. The abalone had a light bite, my only nitpick would be that the dish was a bit on the heavy side - maybe it had too much olive oil? Then again, this is an Italian restaurant, so complaining about an abundance of olive oil seems pointless 16.
Lobster from Brittany was topped with a little bit of sea urchin, and served with mushrooms (roasted and raw as a salad), as well as a lobster jus/citrus sauce. Sadly, this dish was pretty underwhelming. One of my two pieces of lobster was considerably overcooked and tough, and the other piece was slightly overcooked - not a major improvement. The amount of sea urchin present was so minuscule that it was impossible to taste. And the mushrooms and the light sauce didn't register taste-wise either. This dish seemed like a wasted opportunity: adding a bit more seasoning and cooking the lobster correctly might have made this a fine presentation. But as it was, only a 13.
The first of two pasta courses was a “surprise” addition to the tasting menu. Triangle-shaped ravioli were filled with burrata cheese and served with a tomato sauce. Also present were pieces of eggplant, sun-dried tomatoes, olives and basil. Let's start with the positives: the pasta was cooked perfectly al dente, the sun-dried tomatoes practically burst with intense flavor, and the cheese filling was also pretty good. However, what greatly diminished this dish was the sauce which reminded me of the plain tasting tomato sauces available in jars at local supermarkets. There's nothing wrong with tomato sauces from jars per se, but everything has its time and place, and a three Michelin star restaurant is definitely not the place for a mass-produced tomato sauce. By itself, the sauce might have rated a 12 or below, but considering the tasty pasta, generously overall 15.
Pasta course number two was a tale of two dishes. A large piece of scampi (shrimp) was served on top of spaghetti dressed with a green wild garlic sauce. In addition, there was some scampi jus at the bottom of the bowl. Again, the plus-point first: the scampi was very, very good; cooked perfectly, buttery and full of flavor, it was lovely. By itself it would have rated an 18, and it was the best single food item of the whole dinner. Unfortunately, it shared a plate with somewhat overcooked spaghetti that were dressed in a sauce that was so light in flavor that it might as well have had none. The scampi jus was also barely detectable flavor-wise. I would expect more from a neighborhood Italian restaurant; around 12 for the pasta. Overall 15, maybe a bit too generous, but the shrimp was just that good.
For our main course, we had two choices. The better one was a dish of French baby lamb, served two ways as both a medallion and a rack of lamb. On the side were some green vegetables, a cube of yam and a tomato compote. There was a nice crunchy crust on the rack of lamb, and it was wonderfully juicy, which is quite an accomplishment considering that my dining companion ordered the meat well done. A lovely piece of meat. The veggies were generally ok, but the yam was dry and underwhelming 15.
The other choice for the main course was beef, also coming in two preparations: as a cube of braised short ribs and as a roasted tenderloin. Whipped potatoes, seasonal vegetables and a red wine and plum sauce completed the dish. I'm not the greatest fan of braised meats to begin with, but the almost gelatinous texture of this particular example was especially weird and unenjoyable. The first impression of the tenderloin was pretty good, but there was a hint of unwelcome mealiness in the aftertaste. The mashed potatoes were quite plain (this is not Robuchon, and there was very little butter), as were the veggies - there was hardly any seasoning here at all. It might be a backhanded compliment, but the best thing on the plate was the quite nice sauce 13.
The palate cleanser was an additional “surprise” course: a lemon ice cream was prepared table-side and served in a cocktail glass. It consisted of a combination of 70% lemon sorbet and 30% milk ice cream that were mixed with grappa, house-made limoncello, sparkling wine and topped with shavings of lemon zest. This dish was an unmitigated success, starting with the fragrance of the lemon zest, it was a lovely, sweet, creamy, and lemony ice cream. Very good 18.
There were again two choices for the main dessert. A hazelnut mille-feuille (well, technically a trois-feuille) was served with hazelnut gelato and a vanilla sauce. The gelato was amazing, reminding me of what one eats on a perfect summer day in Italy (19 by itself). The mille-feuille was a bit heavy due to the solid hazelnut cream, but its hazelnut flavor was also very nice. The vanilla sauce pretty nondescript - a vanilla taste in the other sense, I suppose 17.
The lighter choice for dessert had sliced strawberries, a strawberry sorbet, a moscato sabayon and strawberry jus. I liked the strawberry flavor and how fresh, fruity and light the dessert was 16.
A cart of petit fours concluded our dinner after about three hours. Mostly for this review's sake, I tried all of the choices. A raspberry cream puff was fruity and creamy but didn’t taste that fresh 14. A layered banana / hazelnut mousse “cake” tasted mostly of banana - the hazelnut was merely an afterthought 14. The best of the bunch was a slice of apricot pan dolce; it was similar to a panettone with pieces of apricot in it. This was the only petit four I'd get again 15. A pistachio biscuit tasted pretty plain, and weirdly enough the pistachios in it were a bit chewy 13. Chocolate-covered orange peel was oddly light on orange flavor 13. Then there were two chocolate pralines. One was filled with pistachio cream, more in the style of peanut butter than marzipan. But actually that's insulting respectable peanut butter - this filling was definitely not to my taste, ugh 11. The other praline was filled with yuzu, but that flavor was not very distinctive, it might as well have been Meyer lemon 13. The petit fours were accompanied by complimentary tea or coffee. My espresso was surprisingly mediocre, which is odd since it is usually a reliable conclusion to any meal in Italy. A fitting anti-climactic end to our dinner then.
Overall: If I had had this dinner at a neighborhood Italian restaurant, I would have considered this an enjoyable night. But armed with the expectations (and price-point) of a three-star Michelin restaurant, it unfortunately fell way short. Sadly, there was also no nod to where we were (Hong Kong) - with no local ingredients to speak of, this meal could have been served pretty much anywhere in the world. There were some bits and pieces (scampi, lemon ice cream, hazelnut gelato) that got close to a three-star level, but the majority of the dishes here were at a one star level or below. That's unfortunate since the service was friendly, and everyone, including the chef, kept checking in on whether everything was good - I just didn't have the heart to give an honest answer 15.
Tasting menu and wine pairing