Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Clipper Lounge, Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong, Central

Haven't been to MO HK for almost 2-3 years and that time was to visit their fusion French restaurant Pierre right after their revnovation. Except for the bread basket, everything at Pierre wasn't to my appetite (frozen cod fish being uncooked, smelly scallop to bitter lime jello). I recently got to know that the master chef (better not mention about his full name as Michelin gave some star to that chef as I don't wanna confront with those Michelin's fans) has left. Anyway that horrible experience stumbled me from not further exploring the other restaurants. Until lately, I am trying to revisit some of the shops including this one at MO HK.
1. Clipper Lounge offers a dinner buffet at HK$298+ and it includes seafood plus Shanghai theme cuisine. I prefer the the former one as the latter one is hard to be done nice for buffet. So I immediately chose 2 different types of raw oysters - French on the left and US on the right. Probably I prefer French cuisine. I still think oyster from Med. Sea or North European Sea are better. I read some comments about someone complaining Clipper Lounge offering oysters with black skirt (claimed as dirty). That person must hasn't tried this kind of oyster. Please excuse her. Anyway, both are nice and fresh. 2. Warm warm bread and of course I finished them all!

3/4. the lounge inside and it's on the M Floor.

5. the butter. 6. left is the mushroom soup - superb! Very nice and fresh mushroom blended. The right one is the Shanghai hot and spicy soup. Pretty good too.

7. Sashimi - these are a bit average and I can tell they are farm fish, but at $298 what can you expect? 8. OK, the must for a seafood buffet - Alaskan crab legs, and the river prawn, pp prawn, snail, prawns. Those are also at average. The vinegar is a bit too sweet - strange.

9/10. due to the theme of Shanghai cuisine, they also serve this famous "big gate" crab but I didn't appreciate it; so I just took them for photo. Sorry crabs - no discrimination.

11. more French oysters... So you know how good they are. 12. Prime rib is nice and the roasted potato is excellent!

13. Shanghai plate - so so. 14. one more plate of cold food and more more sushi. The rice is a bit too soft - quite disappointing.
15. salad - the veggie was nicely spin out of the water. 16. prime rib again; I think the French oyster and the prime rib already set off the other disappointing food.


17. Left to right - Tiramisu, vanilla mouse, choco mouse, egg custard - quite at average. 18. Pecan pie, fresh fruit and bread pudding.
19. Hot coffee. 20. Peppermint tea - quite refined peppermint.
21. Choco cake - also at average. 22. Mango pudding. All the mini-sized dessert get you more chances to eat more varieties.
23. Chocolate - also at average but good to go with a hot coffee. 24. the M. floor of MO HK is still with some established shops.
25. the lobby. 26. part of Clipper lounge.
27. resting area. 28. another view to the lobby and M floor for Clipper lounge.
29. stairs to Clipper Lounge.

13 comments:

Thailand Club said...

what, Clipper serves buffet at unbelievable good price?

just take 2 hairy crabs, half dozen of oysters and a portion of prime ribs (i suppose it was USDA grade) anyone would get a profit from HK$298+

Thailand Club said...

anyway i miss Clipper Lounge

Anonymous said...

I like oysters and I will try it. yes, if only for oysters and prime rib the $298 is a good deal. thanks for the post. by the way, why there are no people or you waited until no people for taking the photos?

Stella said...

Yes TC is right.
This is good price
as two hairy crabs and one prime rib already worth the cost. However, it is funny that Western/French buffet mingles with Shanghai food.

Paranoid Android said...

What a co-incidence. Just had the hairy crabs for lunch last Saturday. I have to admit that the price is certainly very reasonable. My lunch with some spare ribs, one crab and a fried rice was already RM178. *faints*

Is it true that male crabs also have roe? or is my friend pulling a fast one on me.

in the sea said...

Android, I don't know much about crab. All I know is to cook them in Cantonese way - stir fried with ginger and scallion with yellow wine. I just choose the pink/red ones in the market as told by my grand mom to choose those since the stone color crabs are not that good as "hot wet" in Chinese theory. I think almost most crabs would have roes. Anyone can help getting this question. Thanks.

Yes, $298 for a nice US prime rib at buffet is a big big bargain. I am not sure of what they specified but from my taste buds, they are very nice beef and nicely roasted - at least roasted for long hours at low heat. The meat is so tender and juicy, but not chewy! That's why I had no complaint on the other food quality drop. The oyster is a bit beyond my expectation.

in the sea said...

Yes, TC, now in order to compete, MO HK needs to think of their survival and not to be missed out from the scene. The manager came to our table highly recommended for their choco. buffet at weekends. Let me see. I have been lately for the past 3 months drown into different types of nice awesome chocolates. So I need to stop that practice for a few days before trying the choco. buffet of MO HK.

BTW, I need to go back to Pierre someday for their new chef just landed. :)

in the sea said...

haha... I got a phone call just. Someone said it's hard to believe and make sure if it's just $298 for a buffet at MO HK. Then she cut the line, though I was about to tell her it's a dinner buffet, not a midnight buffet.... oops.. Need to sms her.

in the sea said...

To Anonymous, you are right. I took those photos when there was no one around and now I seem to be getting better at that 0.3 second photo taking. Need to buy a faster camera. My Leica is a bit too chilled out sometimes.

Thailand Club said...

ooooops good excuse for an upgrade to d-lux 4!

Anonymous said...

Android, it is true that male crabs may also hv (a bit of) roe, although usually male crabs we called them "meat crab" while female crabs we called them "roe crab".

Stella said...

So you mean there is also mid-night buffet in MO-HK? Or in HK overall like in the cruise ship? If yes, this seems to fit my life style.

in the sea said...

TC, I am a bit much too for fame and glory (好高騖遠). My target is the Jan 2010 due released Leica X1 - another interesting camera with CMOS size between 4/3 and ASP-C. The published price is HK$16k but with a fixed focal leica lens F2.8/24mm (equil. to 36mm on 135 film mode). This camera is very chic and back to the classic leica camera design. Or I will wait for the D-Lux 5. BTW, D-Lux 4 has almost 10 marks on every aspect.... I was thinking of others like Fujifilm EXR or Ricoh (the one with 846 fragments of white balance/color detection). So many things....

SS, nope, they don't serve midnight buffet but just my friends are doing "promotion" for MO thru' their fast mouths. Now the promo. came back to me this afternoon... haha.