Black and gold

I'm back in Hong Kong and hit the ground running, meeting up with some friends at Petrus for dinner.  Yet another opportunity to take out my discount card with the Shangri-La...since the last attempt wasn't so successful.  It's been a few years since I last paid to dine here, so I looked forward to seeing how the restaurant compares with its peers.

We were presented with the menu and introduced to the tasting menus.  None of us really wanted to go through the full tasting menus, but some of the items did look pretty good.  We asked the maître d' if we could order a few items from the tasting menus, and the initial response was negative... Huh?  This is a Michelin-starred French restaurant, and they actually said "No" to a simple request from the customer?  I was kinda surprised.  Eventually the maître d' relented and promised to check with the chef, trying to lighten up the atmosphere by joking a little.  In my mind though, I'd already deducted a few points from my score...

We started with some gougères and white mushroom sandwiches.  The gougères were pretty decent, but the raw white mushrooms in the sandwiches were pretty refreshing and full of the clean flavors of summer.

The amuse bouche was a Brittany sea snail with (white wine?) jelly and homemade mayonnaise.  The sea snail was nice and chewy, with good flavors.  The mayo was pretty damn rich and good, balanced out by the refreshing jelly.  We all wondered why the piece of nori was there...

Œuf mollet croustillant à la truffe noire, crème d'asperge - when the dome-shaped cover was removed, the strong fragrance of the Australian black truffles hit the nose immediately.  It was obvious that the truffles were very fresh, but somehow tonight the scent reminded me of bleach...  The crispy batter contained a boiled egg with semi-soft yolk.  Not bad.  The asparagus was very nice, and my slices of black truffles disappeared in no time.  Not so sure about the gold foil... Why is this back in fashion again?  My last lunch here also featured gold foil on the dessert...

Crevette carabinieros juste cuite, fine feuille de foie gras au caviar - I just can't resist these red prawns...  and they were barely cooked so none of the natural sweetness was lost.  The heads were deep-fried and crunchy.  I found it interesting that they served the prawns with thin layers of sweet foie gras terrine and quenelles of savory Aquitaine caviar.  Pretty good, though...

Pièce de porc iberique en deux services: la peau croustillante, les pieds et le boudin, hachis d'aubergine; la côte glacée à la sauge, tomate farcie - how can I resist pork, especially Iberian pork?!  This was served two ways, which meant that this was a huge main course...  The glazed pork chop came first, with the unnecessary sage on top which was meant to cover up any "unpleasant" smell of the pork itself, but in reality only served to detract from the original goodness.  It was also not the best piece of pork chop I've had... just a little overcooked for my taste.  And where was the yummy strip of fat I was looking for?!  The tomato was stuffed with a mixture containing meat from just above the trotter (the waiter said "腳踭肉"...) and was kinda interesting albeit a little fatty.

Part 2 was a trio consisting of crispy skin (with the layer of fat underneath, of course!), blood sausage, and trotter meat.  All three parts were pretty good, as was the layer of eggplant underneath.  I could never say "no" to crispy skin... nor blood sausage, for that matter.

Carré de mangue, sorbet acidulé à l'hibiscus - we debated about whether or not to have dessert, and in the end I gave in.  The mango "square" was pretty decent, and the foam on top was yummy, too.  Maybe my tastebuds were off, but I didn't get the slightest hint of hibiscus flavor in the sorbet... it was all mango to me, despite the darker color.  Here again we had some gold foil on top of some mango gelée...

We had small platters of fruits and petits fours to finish.  The chocolate sandwich was decent, but the rose macaron was just OK.

I brought a bottle of 2001 Armand Rousseau Charmes-Chambertin.  From the first pour (after having pulled the cork about an hour before dinner) the nose the very nice and open, like a classic Burg.  Sweet plum, farmy, mushroom, smoked meats and floral notes.  The fragrance lingered in the mouth for a very nice finish.  Medium body.  Pleasant to drink now.

We were pretty stuffed, as there was a lot of food.  There were some highlights, but somehow the food could have been a little better.  I am happy to report, though, that my Gourmet Card did bring us a reasonable amount of discount this time around...