Arbor — Restaurant in Hong Kong Island

Food came so slow, they had to cut us off at 10pm (due to Gov regulations)

Please note we didn't say anything at the time as we were kind of in disbelief and didn't really process what was going on until we left.

We had dinner at this 2 Michelin Star restaurant at their private room (min charge $19,000hkd) last month for a family member's Birthday. Due to the minimum charge, we ordered the Full Arbor Experience (13 courses) and with a few drinks and with the cake cutting fee we were going to hit the minimum.

We came on time, and food started off well. There was about a 15minutes between each course (a little long for our taste, but acceptable), but by the 6th course there was a 35minute delay on the white asparagus (we checked the time stamp of the photos we took of the food), and its already past 9pm. As the government ordinance was for restaurants to close at 10pm, we were wondering how we would finish our food, and asked them to check on our food.

Wasn't sure if there was an emergency and maybe some waiters didn't come to work last minute or there was a mishap at the kitchen... because that would be the only reason I could explain why they were so slow even though they knew about the 10pm curfew and the curfew has been ongoing for months.

Also they would have one waiter come into the room to serve us. Two separate tables with 4 of us on each table (8 patrons total). It would take the waiter a few rounds to place our individual plates down, then they would go get the sauce and come back to pour it on all our plates. By then some of the dishes were lukewarm at best.

By 930pm, the waiter came in to tell us "Sorry we would have to rush and have the food come out quicker". It seemed like they suddenly remembered about the 10pm curfew and was really rushed. We kind of just gave each other a look like "umm how did you just realize? hahaa"

When the Main Course: Pigeon Pie came around then, they showed us the Pie fully baked, then took it away to cut into individual portions... the cutting took a whole 15 minutes. Weren't be on a time crunch? By the time we got to eat it (945pm), the pastry crust was soggy and cold. I was pretty disappointed. I felt like this dish had so much potential!

After that it was a blur. They placed the two desserts out at the same time (Which is fine for us) without explaining what the dish was.

They knew ahead of time we brought a cake, and at around 9:53pm they brought it out , we took photos and they told us due to the time constraint , they have to pack it back up so we can take it home. They also had to pack up the last 2 items on the menu - which were dessert items "So Much Soy" and Madeleines to go.

In the end of the day, we are understanding people. Sometimes Bad Days do happen. But what we were surprised after everything is that a 2 Michelin star restaurant didn't really try to make it up to us. They just apologized verbally and charged us the whole minimum charge (even though we didn't get to cut the cake, but i guess a minimum charge is a minimum charge?).

It just did not make us feel great spending all that money and feeling rushed like that. I wish they told had told us to come earlier e.g. 6 or 6:30pm so we can actually experience the "Full Arbor Experience" and maybe hire additional wait staff to make sure the food is served at its best temperature.

It was just a bizarre experience. I guess I had higher expectations since it was a 2 Michelin star restaurant , and i assumed that came with better time management/ customer service. Are my expectations wrong? I guess I'm posting it here so you can make up your own mind on...

Arbor is a two Michelin starred restaurant which serves Nordic-Japanese fusion cuisine. Most of the ingredients are shipped from Japan. Head chef Eric Raty is a young Finnish chef.

The restaurant is bright with a good city view!

At lunchtime, two menus were available. 📄 Weekly tasting menu which cost $688 for 4 courses. 📄 Chef’s tasting menu which cost $888 for 4 courses. I would recommend ordering the slightly more expensive Chef’s tasting menu, as it featured the tuna starter and soy milk dessert which were the signature dishes. Also, for $200 more, you would get more tasty ingredients like pigeon and lobster. (Menu attached at the end)

🍅 Amuse bouche was sardine sashimi served with with tomato in a light vinegary sauce.

🍞🧈 Definitely my favourite bread and butter in HK!! This warm seaweed brioche was super soft and fluffy, with an incredible buttery flavour🤩 It’s served with whipped Parmesan butter and miso & soy sauce butter - both were so tasty and addictive!!! I could eat this all day long😍

🐟Marinated tuna and sushi rice, wrapped in spinach pancake, served with horseradish and red vinegar cream. It’s complemented with a white fish broth. The soup was rich and creamy. It was served in a sea shell 🐚- how cute is that?!

🦞🌽 Butter poached lobster served with creamy sweetcorn velouté. The sweetness from sweetcorn went really well with the savoury lobster - a combination that I have never had before and I really enjoyed it.

🍖 Pigeon breast with caramelised Okinawa brown sugar, served with vinegary onion, pickled mushroom and a smokey maitake mushroom purée. The pigeon was served pink. The sweetness from black sugar, smokiness from mushroom purée and tartness from onion all went really went with gaminess of the pigeon. On the side was a confit pigeon leg with crispy skin. The meat was tender and I like that the bone was removed😆

🍦Creamy soy milk ice cream, was served with salted duck yolk, white chocolate and crispy bean curd skins baked with honey.🤩 On the side were black beans from Okinawa, cooked in brown sugar and Kowloon Soy Sauce Company soy sauce. I love how soy was cleverly used in this dessert!!! ❤️

The petit fours were also excellent:

🍫 Freshly baked warm chocolate tart, filled with chocolate and passion fruit mousse, and topped with a sesame crisp.

🧁 Madeleines were moist and heavenly buttery , with a crispy edge!

As always, I have attached the menu for this meal in my review🤗

👉🏻Follow @foodhunt.diary 👈🏻 for more yummy food😄🤗⁣⁣ And please check out my profile!!😘

📍 Arbor, 25/F, H Queen's, 80 Queen's Road Central, Hong Kong 🚇Nearest Station: 🇭🇰 Hong Kong Station 香港站. 💸 Chef’s tasting lunch menu...

I came to Arbor with high expectations given its two Michelin star distinction and overall had a good meal paired with excellent service. The food here is quite unique which can be characterized as French with Japanese and Nordic influences.

During lunch there are two choices of set menus: tasting (688) and chef's tasting menu (888). The chef's tasting includes a few of the restaurant's signature dishes and I went for that. The menu does include a choice for the protein and with the chef's Nordic background I thought fish would be the natural choice.

Food: 4.25 stars Service: 4.5 stars Value: 3.75 stars Overall: 4.25 stars

Tasting Menu:

Pre-meal: The meal starts off with a home baked brioche and butter. The brioche was quite unique in that there was seaweed baked in and I did really enjoy the accompanying butter choices. One was a miso butter and the other was a soy sauce butter. I preferred the miso as it really paired well with the bread. Following the bread was an amouse bouche of octopus on a rice dusted with matcha. Nice start to the meal

Starter: Tuna sashimi with rice wrapped in a seaweed crepe. Creative dish that had clean flavors. Not something that blew me away taste and flavor wise but I did enjoy it.

Main: Lobster & daikon with XO sauce paired with a shrimp cracker. The lobster was served table side with a butter emulsion broth. This dish was my favorite and is the one I will remember dining here. The XO and lobster paired great together and I could drink that broth all day.

Main: I choose the sable fish as my other main. The skin was puffed to add additional crunch to the skin. I'm sure this takes some skill technique wise but I've found that I don't really enjoy this that much as just crisping the skin in the pan. The accompanying cauliflower and seaweed butter were nice. But since the protein itself wasn't prepared the way I like this was my least favorite part of the meal.

Dessert: I love tart desserts and I love meringue. So I enjoyed the citrus meringue dessert here. Lots of different textures, temperatures and flavors. Some may enjoy a more rich and decadent dessert but this is more my style. The meal ends with petit fours, which are quite substantial. They included a madeline and a cookie sandwich which had a soy sauce cream in the middle (pretty...