Saturday, June 20, 2009

Lucy's @ Stanley

This place is not an easy place to find, it is hiding inside an aisle near the main Stanley market. When you come to the door, the color and decor of the front entrance remains you of an Italian / Spanish restaurant situated in the country side. Once you entered, the interior decor carries the same feel. The lighting, the ambiance, the pictures and fixtures provide an added vacation sensation to the whole experience. A note of caution though, when this place is full, it can get quite noisy.



Initially I thought this is an Italian restaurant, but when you look at the menu, there was no pasta dishes at all. It seems this place serve casual gourmet style cuisines from different regions. The chalk board menu for special items was a nice touch. There were a fair selection of items especially for starters. Since there were 5 of us, we ordered quite a few dishes to try.



For Starters: (1) Seared Scallops with Green Pea + Mint Puree, Cauliflower Cream + Crispy Parma Ham, (2) Char-grilled asparagus, soft boiled egg and crispy parma ham salad, (3) House smoked salmon, sweetcorn fritter, lime leaf dressing and avocado salsa. For main dishes: (4) Slow roast pork belly with roast potatoes, braised red cabbage and apple sauce, (5) Char-grilled beef filler with horseradish dauphinoise beetroot with dill, (6) Sea bass with olive oil mash, french bean + pancetta salad and gremolata and (7) Teriyaki salmon fillet with roast pumpkin, soba noodles + wasabi aioli. For desserts, (8) Lemon Meringue pie, (9) Almond Meringue with mascarpone and raspberries and (10) Pavola.



Just from the name of the various dishes, you can see that even for starters, there are many ingredients mixed together. Usually starters are simple and straight forward, but here, they tend to experiment with various items which I like. A very refreshing idea. Soon after we ordered, the bread was served in a dim sum bamboo basket which we all thought was very smart.



(1) Seared Scallops with Green Pea + Mint Puree, Cauliflower Cream + Crispy Parma Ham
For this particular starter, the flavor of the green pea + mint puree and cauliflower cream mix were just enough to let the flavor of the parma ham to blend perfectly together, not too salty and the contrast in texture was rather interesting. The seared scallops were fair but in my opinion, they were just added items that I can do without.



(2) Char-grilled asparagus, soft boiled egg and crispy parma ham salad
The grilled asparagus were abit soaky and not as crispy as I expected. What I found interesting was the addition of a soft boiled egg which blended nicely with the rest of the ingredients.




(3) House smoked salmon, sweetcorn fritter, lime leaf dressing and avocado salsa
The lime leaf dressing turned this starters into a Thai style salad in my opinion. Not a negative comment at all, just very surprised. It was indeed a very refreshing starters.



(4) Slow roast pork belly with roast potatoes, braised red cabbage and apple sauce
Now for the main dish, I ordered this slow roast pork belly because I wanted something different, something I rarely ordered. It turned out to be a disappointing choice. The pork itself was too dried even with the fatter layers on top, it was still too dry to my likely. If the top few layers were abit more crispy it would be better. On a positive note, the red cabbages were a item to go with the pork belly in one bite.



(5) Char-grilled beef fillet with horseradish dauphinoise beetroot with dill, (6) Sea bass with olive oil mash, french bean + pancetta salad and gremolata & (7) Teriyaki salmon fillet with roast pumpkin, soba noodles + wasabi aioli.
I could not really comment of these three dishes because I did not really tried them but can covey what my friends told me about them. For the beef fillet, I was told that it was well grilled but the horseradish dauphinoise was abit too rich. A fair dish. For the sea bass, it was fresh and pretty generous as well. As for the salmon, was told that it was abit greasy (likely fish oil) and the wasabi aioli was rather an interesting and refreshing sauce for the fish. The use of soba in this dish turned it into a fusion dish in my opinion.



(8) Lemon Meringue pie, (9) Almond Meringue with mascarpone and raspberries and (10) Pavola.
One thing in common with all three desserts: very sour. I am more a sweet person than a sour person especially when it comes to desserts. The lemon meringue pie was well prepared but too sour. The same with the almond meringue with raspberries. If you are fans of lemon and raspberries, these two are highly recommended desserts. I picked the Pavola because I had no idea what it was. Turned out to be a dessert made of egg white and the taste and texture was very similar to meringue. Again, it was abit too sour for me with the citrus kiwi and fruity sauce.






Likes:
  • great ambiance
  • interesting selection of starters
  • adventurous with ingredients
Dislikes:
  • too noisy when full house
  • more varieties of main dishes would be nice
Lucy's
G/F, 64 Stanley Main Street,
Stanley, Hong Kong
Tel: 2813 9055

2 comments:

Esther said...

Gosh, the plating is HORRID!!

Jin said...

they say the pecan toffee pudding here is the best. and i agree with esther's comment, the plating IS horrid hahaha!

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