Hungry Dino — Restaurant in Hong Kong Island

Sadly this place doesn't live up to the hype, well not for us. It might have been better to give it a go on weekdays at dinner time and not on Sunday @12 for lunch - but usually it's never an issue in HK, most places are ready to serve early goers even on Sundays. Not Hungry Dino - as its kitchen is partly open, you could see they weren't ready, no welcome staff by the stand, we had a booking, so they were aware guests would show up. To our surprise all the staff looked grumpy and a simple "hello" would have been easy to spit out to make you feel a tiny bit welcomed. They gave us a look like we were UFOs. Even though we were the only guests, no one was looking after us, the waitress was into her phone and didn't come to ask for any drink orders for 10 mins, so we decided this was it and left hungry to find some other lunch options nearby. (Which we did in less than a blink at a nearby Italian, where we could see they were still working on the last few touches to be fully ready, but all staff were happy and cheerful, 100% made us welcomed and were there for us throughout our stay.) We had high hopes as Hungry Dino looked fab and the menu had unique dishes, however this kind of careless hospitality is not acceptable. As the staff was fairly young, they might be more into the evening shifts (to be honest they looked like they were having a hangover), I'm sure at dinner time and cocktail hour they get more adrenaline and the whole place is rather vibrant and fun. However all guests should be treated equally regardless how early they arrive and how busy the venue is. We might give it a go again weekdays dinner time as we saw so many positive ratings and the food looks delicious, still the staff has to be trained to handle all...

Cute little place tucked right in the escalator. Sort of jurassic-park x tokyo neon city themed decor - I was pleasantly surprised by that.

That's about the extent of the positives for me though ...

Although the staff was nice, they make some silly amateur mistakes of misunderstanding your order, having to repeat, and when my order of onsen egg on cheese fries arrived... the egg literally rolled off the fries and on to the table. No apologies, just went off to give me an onsen egg replacement on a separate dish.

All the sushi was very instagrammable. The rolls were WAY too saucy though, literally drowning in sauce, they could've wrapped the rolls in stinky tofu or rotten fish, and I couldn't have told the difference.

Bean curd sushi was nice, can't go wrong with anything bean curd sweetness, but again, the taste was all in the sauce, and not anything to do with the fish.

The crab risotto was amazing on taste. But the more you eat the more you realise how salty and most probably it's got food additives. I also think it was imitation crab in there and perhaps a negligible amount of real crab (other than the crab roe on top).

For real sushi aficionados, you will be disappointed.

Our meal for two came close to $1,000, with beers. For that price, I can get a really good sushi meal elsewhere.

I personally...

Restaurant in SoHo that has a great environment and atmosphere. Chairs were comfortable and the dining area was well lit and decorated.

Good assortment of Japanese inspired food, fewer food items than other restaurants but definitely enough for most people.

We ordered a crab rice which had a very strong crab flavor, you could tell that they didn't spare expense while making the dish, which is rare in the city. Definitely worth a try if you enjoy crab.

The cream udon we ordered was amazing, creamy and rich. They gave us a generous amount of roe which gave the dish much more flavour than other restaurants. Definitely recommend.

The fries we ordered were ok. A bit too strong for my taste.

Price was fair given the great dining experience and generous portions of quality food. We spent 444HKD for a 2-person lunch.

Would recommend and would...