In the mood for some seafood? Hong Kong is definitely not lacking in the seafood arena when it comes to dishes that are prepared in a Chinese style. However, when it comes to Western prepared seafood, your choices are more limited. Traditional fish and chips can be had at any of the territory’s pubs (the Irish contend with the English ones). Chippy in Central remains the final word on the genuine article serving both a selection of plaice, haddock, and cod in the traditional beer batter. Staying in character, Chippy’s decor looks like a well-to-do chippy while the menu also boasts favourites such pies, cornish pasties, and chicken cordon bleu.

For those of you wanting a more upmarket selection of seafood, a visit to the Fish Bar in the JW Marriott may well be worth your while. Located by the hotel’s pool in a terraced area is a non-pretentious restaurant whose specialty is fish. One would think that the menu is somewhat spartan until the staff bring around the blackboard with the “catch of the day”. In fact, it is several catches of the day – barramundi, blue cod, red snapper, and so forth – which can all be prepared in three different ways – chargrilled, beer battered and pan fried. The theme here is fish although the menu is complimented with mussles, shrimps, and so forth. A nice touch were the mock newspaper tableclothes, a small homage to the chippies of old.

The best way to describe Opus Japanese Restaurant is that it has somewhat of an identity crisis. You get the impression that it’s not sure whether it wants to be a serious Japanese restaurant, a karaoke or a bar. The reason for this confusion is that it boasts a refreshingly different view of Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay and the menu remains pricey for what you get. The furniture and decor is modern but borders just on the wrong side of kitsch giving it the feel of the “upmarket” option at family ski resort. This is all compounded by the strange lighting which in places was full on spotlighted and in other places goes from dim to dark to dim again, but far from an ambient type of way.

As I said, the food is nothing particularly to write home about. The lunch time toro-fan was expensive and used too much spring onion. For the dinner menu, the strange thing was that they were sold out of beef by 2100 when we sat down for dinner. Even so, the food wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great either. The hefty price tag for what you got, really wasn’t worth it.

One possible redeeming quality was the staff. After a few hiccups, they tried their best to be helpful as they saw it. One young waiter didn’t know much English and couldn’t say what a dish was in English. After we let the matter drop because his English wasn’t up to it, he actually came back five minutes later and told us what it was in English.

Be warned that after 2200, the place features a live band. The caliber of the band was good but one does have to question the decision to have a live band playing its hardest while you are still having a meal. But I do have to recognise that this is more of a personal issue since the live music at TOTT’s has the same effect of annoying me. This band was open to requests and some guests were invited up to sing along with the band. In my opinion, the girl they brought up to sing with them sometimes sounded better than the actual performers. Although I shouldn’t really be nasty since I’m not a music critic.

The restuarant has only been open for a few months. I think this is obvious in the kinks that they still need to work out. Definitely worth a revisit in six months time to see if they have improved themselves and figured what sort of venue they actually are.

Contact Info

Opus
29/F 33 Sharp Street East
Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

Tel.: +852 2831 0881

There is a restaurant in Stanley called the Natural Gourmet Restaurant. You’ll usually find people in the bottom of the shopping centre complex handing out flyers for their restaurant. The last time I was in Stanley, I noticed that this restaurant had a different view from the ones in the Murray Building so I was eager to try this one.

While the view was different, it wasn’t enough to overcome the quality of the food they served. The menu featured mostly Western dishes such as surf and turf and escargot which were tantalising enough, but when served they were all bland affairs. A bottle of Maggi would have worked wonders for this food.

Not recommended for lunch in Stanley. I am curious to see what sort of dinner buffet they have though.

For those of you who want to enjoy a more chilled out night rather than clubbing it away amidst a mass of sweaty people and smoke, there are two places that I’d recommend – C Plus Bar and the Champagne Bar in the Grand Hyatt.

The C Plus Bar is a small, intimate affair that is located just off Wellington Street in Central. It’s hidden away and descending a back-alley to get to it just adds to the mock exclusivity of the place. The decor is dark and subdued, with mellowed out lounge music playing on the places sound system. It’s easy to lose a whole evening there as you escape the usual buzz of Hong Kong. There are only about a dozen or so tables there but the staff always manage to fit in the steady stream of customers on a busy night. There is always the large private room that can house fifteen or so people quite comfortably.

If you’re looking for something more upmarket and more exclusive, try the Champagne Bar at the Grand Hyatt. The old world charm and the live band gives you a taste of living it up and the price tag on most items help you to know that you are. It’s not a place to go and party but it is a definitely somewhere to go where you might want to add a touch of something special to an otherwise normal night out. Seating policy is on a first come, first serve basis. This causes some problems with larger groups and gatherings larger than ten will not work out that well. Best just to go with a group of close friends.

Contact Info

C Plus Bar
Basement Floor
27-29 Wellington Street
Central, Hong Kong

Tel.: +852 2869 9990

Champagne Bar
Grand Hyatt Hotel
1 Harbour Road
Wan Chai, Hong Kong

Tel.: +852 2588 1234
Official Link

Me and a mate decided to check out two places mentioned in HK Magazine. He’s into his tequilas so he wanted to check out Coyote’s after reading the article on the agave-based drink in the magazine. I don’t think he was disappointed. Of course, I can’t stand Tequila, so I decided to give it a miss. It’s one of the worst drinks to come back up again and it sort of sticks in the memory. I blame an old Mexican college buddy for the bad experiences with tequila.

The next place on our list was Les Visages which boasts HK’s only all-black band. Racial stereotyping just a little bit, no? It boasts a wild crowd but I think after 02 30, the wildness has pretty much left this place. Although, I can’t say I blame them. It seemed to be a quiet night out in the city. Hell, Klong was empty at 02 00. Anyway, my friend is fast learning to decode HK Magazine’s reviews – like “best kept secret” probably means that it really is better off being kept secret.

Hong Kong is a strange place for its night life. Hong Kong, for its size, appears less vibrant than it actually makes itself out to be. Certain parts are 24 hours although unlike the centre of London, which is a-buzz pretty much 24 hours in a day, these pockets of activity are not really that lively. The Hong Kong nightlife is usually confined to two distinct areas – Lan Kwai Fong on Hong Kong Island and Mongkok and TST on Kowloon side. I’ll admit I travel less to the Kowloon side than I should, and a recent escapade reminded me that most of the better looking girls are on that side.

For the Hong Kong side, Lan Kwai Fong represents the focal social point for many in Hong Kong. It’s a slightly unbalanced mix of people – expats, asian expats and locals. It’s hard not to find a bar to have a good time in…although if dead, then just get up and leave. Try experimenting, that’s what I would initially suggest. But if you want to take the easy route, then well, here are my two cents worth on four places in and just off Lan Kwai Fong.

I’ll have to be honest but I must say that over the summer in HK, the quality of girls actually goes up somewhat (well, and the guys too if you ask my female friends) as the returning overseas students bring the in-your-face American beauty and attitude. It’s like an injection of youth and coolness. This applies to C Club and the other places that I’m reviewing here. So the quality of “talent” should be adjusted according to the necessary seasonal factors.

The C Club

This is one of those upmarket places with a queue and there are no trainers allowed. The queue is there because it is most likely to be full and from my experience, Hong Kong’s queue’s aren’t directly related to the exclusivity factor as they are in London. The C Club is next door to California and I’m not entirely sure if they are owned by the same company or not. Don’t make the mistake of going into California – that’s passed its prime a long time ago (Some time after late 2000, as I was still going there then).

C Club is the one that you have to walk down the stairs to go in. The best day to go is on Wednesday which is “Model’s Night” or ladies night. I’ve been there on both ladies night and on a regular night and I must say that the quality of people are well, pretty, well groomed and well, the beautiful people shall I say. It does have its fair share of pretention but I guess that’s to be expected at 60 bucks for a drink.

C Club, being the popular place that it is, has plenty of seating but in most cases these are private tables and private areas. These places are expensive in the UK to say the least, I have a feeling that in HK these places will have a similar price tag. It’s also quite cute to see people about half a decade younger than you living the high life. I remember doing it myself and enjoying it. Now that I look back, you look more like a kid and a spoiled brat than ever(which is probably why Brat Pack is the name of one of these successful promotion companies in England). And in a place where the average person doesn’t learn to take care of themselves until they leave home at early 30′s, financial responsibility isn’t high on the list for a lot of these kids.

The place plays R&B and Hip Hop. Bumping and grinding seems to be happening in bucketloads over there. And because you are dealing with the level of society that can afford (or at least tries to look like they can afford) to look great, all the close body contact its not such bad thing to watch. The place does get crowded over the weekend and I have a feeling its shut on Sunday. With the economy the way it is, I imagine that its empty during the week although I’m sure that there are few die hards in there (especially over the summer).

Would I recommend it? Yes, over summer, when the cute girls come back to spawn….sorry, rest… Otherwise, its one of those places to be seen and to be shown. I reckon its the Cafe de Paris of Hong Kong. Exclusive but open to many posers.

The Green Parrot

Okay, in contrast to the C Club, there is a place just further up the hill in LKF. It actually has a more local flavour to it although it is styled into an American sports bar. The clientele is mostly Cantonese and they have live music most evenings. The band is strangely enough Thai and they usually work on 6-month rotation. Apparently, the manager puts together the band in Thailand and then exports them here and then well, sends them back as far as I know. Seems a strange arrangement but I haven’t really pryed too much into it.

The place gets packed over the weekend, summer or not. The sounds of popular drinking games – such as Sap Ng Yi Sap, Di Wah Sik and Hang Won Sik- can be heard and add a vibrant charm to the place. The music is often lively and the band plays a mixture of English and Cantonese songs, which of course appeal to the mainly Cantonese clientele there. The singers, at the moment, two lovely Thai ladies, Vicky and Oom, come out and get the audience to sing, often making it an impromptu karaoke session. And they do most requests.

The drinks aren’t the cheapest but the place, like so many bars, is plagued with promotion girls with the latest discounts. If they haven’t accosted you before you’ve had a chance to sat down, call one over and ask what the promotions are.

For those celebrity hunters amongst you, I did see Edison there once but have no idea whether its a regular venue. He looks more gay in person than in the pictures.

Drop

Okay, swinging back to other side of the spectrum, we’re back at exclusivity but this time away from LKF. In fact, this next place promises to be a little more exclusive than C Club. I have a feeling that it is a private members club. I’ve been twice to Drop and the one time with a member and the other with somebody who had booked a table in another name. So I’m not too sure on the nature of the place.

Drop seems to be a place that people make their way to later in the night (or earlier in the morning) and it seems catch the Liquid leftovers who are still keen to party. It’s located behind some shops in between Hollywood Road and Lyndhurst Terrace and besides several bouncers, you wouldn’t realise the place was there.

Once you’re in the place, it’s actually quite small. It’s probably one of the smaller night clubs in HK with the exception maybe of Pillows. This means that a lot of people can be crammed into a really small area space….and the music seems louder. Plenty of seats but most are adorned with the standard Reserved sign. I enjoyed myself less at Drop than I did at C Club. Maybe its because I was spoiled on the quality of women at C Club that, considering the smaller sample size (due to the space limitations), I wasn’t a happy bunny. Also, maybe because both times I went, I was tired and really just wanted to go home.

It’s nice place to go to after you’ve been to other places and you still want to lose some energy after they have shut. For a more chilled out time, I recommend…

Home

No, not home but Home. Actually, I think it’s called Homebase but everyone refers to it as Home. This place is located on Hollywood Road, just opposite the police station. It’s on the third floor of this building that is next to Pacific Coffee. To be honest, avoid this place early in the evening. Go there about 1 am in the morning. Things start to kick off then. The reason for this is that it serves as point to really end the evening. People will often filter from LKF, Alibi and so on to Home.

One of the unique propositions to Home are these ridiculously large sofa’s that are actually beds. It’s hard to describe but it is reminiscent of the Arabic style of entertaining. There are only two of these bays and so, high demand for them. It’s a great way to just sit and chill with friends. Recommend it, but price tage to suit.

At the moment, I don’t have the addresses of these places…but they will be following soon.