mato.coffee.wine — Restaurant in Hong Kong Island

3.5 stars Venue: I couldn't food the restaurant's name from Des Voeux Road. The glass door is very heavy. Interior is industrial style. Slightly packed. Small round tables or high chairs around the wine bar in the middle. The kitchen is outside the dinner area, next to the public lifts. Toilets are on the upper floors. Japanese café style but high-end vibe --- 6.8/10 Service: wait-persons were polite but not very attentive. The waiter's manner was slightly better than the waitress's. The waiter Matt was willing to tell more. A bottle of water was provided, and the waiter poured the first glass for us. Normal waiting time for food. Just need to remind them of my dessert. --- 7/10 Food: simple menu in English and Japanese. Very plain presentation (meno photos were prettier) without much garnish. Smaller portion. Higher prices bit acceptable. We tried lunch sets ("make the main a set": 12n-3pm Monday to Saturday), 30% off for leaving before 1pm. Plus 10% service charge. Small Bites (starters): Salad: with one pumpkin slice and yuze dressing. The mesclun green was fresh, but the pumpkin was very hard. --- 6/10 Pumpkin soup with crab meat, +$20: actually, it ought to be lobster bisque. Unfortunately, it's not available. Told to change to pumpkin soup with crabmeat when we ordered. The crabmeat was just a small bean size. Ridiculous, added $20 for this. Pumpkin soup was just ok itself. --- 5/10 Our choices of Mains: Mushroom Risotto, $150: Porcini and button mushrooms. Rice was cooked well. --- 7.3/10 Whole Confit Duck Leg with Fusillotti in red wine sauce, $180: al dente pasta. Some duck skin was missing. No crispy duck skin. Meat was ok but not impressive. --- 7/10 Dessert or Drink, +$20: Americano: not bad. We asked to serve first. Coffee...

Mato

Today I went Mato, it is a contemporary cozy restaurant, since it is weekends, it provides brunch menu which is $350 unlimited to eat ! With selection of eight appetizers and main menu.

The mategai carpaccio Is interesting, rather light and refreshing.

Parma ham is quite nice, lightly salted together with smooth ricotta, which is a nice balance.

Beef tataki is really good! The beef is really soft and tender, rather juicy, together with potatoes salad, very yummy.

Garden salad is very fresh, the veggies are crispy and the salad sauce is in Japanese style, rather light and refreshing.

Fried gyoza dumping is so crispy and juicy , and the fillings are minced pork, it is not greasy at all, yummy.

Meatballs are soft and meaty, with pork flavor, it is quite ok.

Fried chicken are so good! It is crispy outside, and tender inside, dipped with miso soup, delicious!

French fries are fried perfectly, it is not oily and the fermented tofu lard sauce is very interesting.

Matsuba crab korayaki is nice! The crab paste is creamy and rich in crab flavor, together with the spaghetti, it is so creamy and tasty!

Hanger steak s portion is generous, it is tender and soft, it is rather meaty, with rich teriyaki sauce, a bit of sweet flavor, it is good.

I added a flat white , it is so cool! There’s a small cup with coffee bean for me to smell, and the flat white is very smooth and the coffee flavor is rather fruity...

Walking passed it, I only saw a wine glass sticker on the shop window in burgundy colour, which reminded me of blue bottle. They have omakase coffee and wine pairing, along with Japanese-inspired pastas.

Since it’s a very small café, there’re only limited seats available. I think they tasked the interior designer to make full use of the space and created fitted tables along the side. We’ve booked a table for two and the seats and the table were just right for skinny people. We had to choose which side we placed our legs so that we wouldn’t be kicking each other. The tables were close to each other and more than half of the customers were sitting at the bar.

The pastas and the vanilla gelato were nice. Not sure why the staff required us to confirm which gelato flavour we picked when we ordered the appetizers and mains. Perhaps they can prepare in advance and put the scoop together with the plate into the freezer so that they can focus on the other things, as the plate and the gelato were freezing cold...