There’s apparently a movie playing in Hong Kong called “Chef” starring Robert Downey Jr where a creative, or “celebrity” chef is ruined by a review by a food blogger and social media.
Often, real life imitates art- or social media reflects real life- but the almost relentless pounding that “nouveau chic” and “Chinese fusion” restaurant Ho Lee Fook is receiving these days from so many different quarters is more spooky than the location that houses the venue in Lower Elgin Street, Soho that some say is either haunted or suffers from bad fung shui, or both, as nothing that has tried to become a business there has succeeded.
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A scathing review of Ho Lee Fook by a food blogger where nothing was spared- the food, “celebrity chef” Jowett Yu, pictured below, who arrived in Hong Kong from Sydney with a good track record, the interior, the music, the menu choices, the lack of any Chinese in the menus, the prices, the stark interior, the work on parts of the restaurant by retail and design outfit G.O.D- the rant- and much of it is almost frighteningly honest in oh-so-polite Hong Kong with its warm and fuzzy foodie writers like the SCMP’s ubiquitous (and tedious?) Susan Jung- has and continues to make the rounds.
It’s like a “hate crime” where no one and nothing is spared except for the Fried Pork Belly and owner, who has his own haters, and is constantly rubbished by his competitors and those who know him, as an arrogant and spoilt rich kid whose father is a wealthy property owner.
Where’s all this leading?
No idea though Hong Kong is often a city of lemmings with a herd mentality and where nothing, like what Occupy Central is about, is questioned.
Say something is bad, long and hard enough, and jump up and down about it until all that jumping up and down makes one hits their head on the ceiling and starts making no sense, and it becomes a trending battle cry.
Remember how much space between the ears and in the media was devoted to rooting out the evils of illegal structures?
Still, nothing in a long time, certainly not something as harmless and frivolous as a hardly ultra-successful restaurant in a city where so many restaurants with their high profile chefs have been hyped to death as friendships have their privileges, has been singled out for such a very Fooked Up comedown.
What do I think?
My last visit was a huge letdown and an astronomical $2000+ bill for average dishes, a bottle of wine marked up to the heavens plus a table situated in what sounded like being at a Stones concert in a basement location where my cellphone couldn’t work, has made me go cold on the place.
That initial enthusiasm has disappeared, and BB King is singing “The Thrill Is Gone”.
In comparison, heading to Nepal, the Nepalese restaurant in Staunton Street, was a welcomed change of pace- very good, reasonably priced cuisine like delicious dumplings, fried cashew nuts with chopped onions, spices served with lettuce leaves and lentil starters plus a fiery chicken curry dish, a prawn pulao and a decent bottle of red came to around $420 for the two of us.
There is one helluva extensive menu where even wisely ordering 4-5 starters will work as dinner, plus having my phone work, will definitely have me going back for more.
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