Posto Pubblico

Located on Elgin Street in SoHo, Posto Pubblico is a nice place to go with your friends for a quiet, simple Italian lunch in a bustling city.

A fairly simple menu - we went for the HK$120 set lunch of any appetizer + a slice of pizza/ sandwich / pasta. Go to http://www.postopubblico.com/menu-lunch.html to see the menu. One point though - to understand the menu you may have to speak Italian or be well-versed in your Italian cuisine lingo. The names of all the dishes were in Italian, and we had to ask the waiter to decode the menu.






Ambiance in the restaurant was nice - the high ceiling really helped the give the restaurant spaciousness, and there were a few U-shaped booths.



















Our appetizers - mushroom trifolata, rosemary roasted potatoes, roasted pumpkin. Yum!










The pastas - oreccheitte with rapini and sausage, linguine vongole, and the bombardoni (veal, pork, beef)

I liked the bombardoni the best! The ragu was rich and dense, and the tomatoes and herbs melded beautifully. I did have a slight problem with the vongole though; there were large shards of broken clam shell in the pasta.

Posto Pubblico is a nice place for simple Italian fare - I read in a separate article somewhere that the owners of Posto Pubblico actually started their own organic farm in order to keep a continuous supply of organic food to the restaurant. Good to know that you're eating at a restaurant that doesn't have a large carbon footprint.

Pros: Not packed during weekday lunch, simple Italian fare, decently priced lunch sets, organic

Cons: May need an Italian food glossary to decipher the menu, bland linguine vongole with shell shards

Cafe Gray Deluxe

Finally, my friends and I found a time to have lunch at Cafe Gray Deluxe in The Upper House. Interior decor of the hotel and the restaurant was modern and very chic. Our booking was made about three weeks in advance, and we got one of the nice corner tables by the window.

We sat down, the waitress handed us the menu and asked the water question "still or sparkling". It's one of my pet peeves (not directed at Cafe Gray in particular): fancy restaurants trying to get you to order bottled water so they can charge you about HK$60 per bottle, and they keep refilling so that they can put more bottles on your tab. Grr. My answer to the water question: tap is fine.





The bread basket. Just one type of bread (multi-grain), with a yogurt and olive oil dip dressed up with a sprinkling of dried herbage. Bread was okay - crusty on the outside, soft on the inside, but I wish it were hot and fresh.










On with the menu: they offered a set lunch ($285 for any 2 courses, $345 for any 3 courses), as well as their a la carte menu. Starters ranged from $105-$165, mains ranged from $185-$425, desserts from $75-$100, and sides were $50 each). Of the 8 a la carte main course choices, 4 of them were fish dishes, and the others were a duck dish,a braised beef short rib, lobster bolognese, angus beef steak au poivre.

The set lunch choices were...
Starter: Tortellini // Cauliflower, Pine Nut, Winter Melon Salad // Cream of Watercress Soup
Main: Parsley and Onion Meatloaf // Duck Confit Cassoulet // Steamed Mandarin Fish
Dessert: Chocolate Espresso Ganache Tart // Baba au Rum














Home-made Tortellini with Sage and Prosciutto, Tomato Coulis // Barbecued Quail and Beet Salad ($115)

The tortellini was fresh - the skin was al-dente, ricotta filling was smooth. The sage and prosciutto were fried to a crisp, which added a nice texture to the dish and the prosciutto added a smokiness. The coulis was creamy and there were bits of stewed cherry tomato. My friends shared the quail salad.




The steak tartar ($130). I've heard good things about it, so I shared it with a friend. Presentation was gorgeous - the tartar (mixed with ketchup, some herbs and crumbled boiled egg) is topped with some greens and a yolk, and sits above paper-thin pieces of beef. The sides are dotted with sour-cream/yogurt and Kunz ketjap. Served on the side with house-made chips. The texture of the beef was nice, but I found that the tartar had a bit too much of the ketjap mixed in, and the ketjap somewhat overpowered the flavor of the beef.

The Cassoulet of Simmered Duck Leg and Duck Confits with Flageolets Beans

I think this was the best dish I had at Cafe Gray. The skin of the duck was nice and crispy, like Chinese roast pork (燒肉) or cracklings. The duck leg was very tender - you could pull it apart with a fork, and it was still very moist. The beans were creamy and spiced well with herbs.





Braised Short-Rib of Beef with Soft Polenta and Meaux mustard ($255)

My friend was looking forward to having this ever since we started talking about going to Cafe Gray. She said her friend had it in New York and it was delicious. I had a bite - the meat was tender, and the most surprising part of the short-rib was probably the spices used. I thought it would lean towards the bold earthy flavors like red wine, rosemary, shallots, garlic, but this was a softer, creamier rendition of braised short rib, and used curry spices instead.







Chocolate Espresso Ganache Tart

Nothing particularly wow about it, but it was good. The pistachios added a nice crunch, but the caramelly wafer decoration was a bit sticky and chewy. The stewed cherries helped cut through the density of the ganache.




Cafe Gray is a nice place for lunch, especially when visibility across the harbor is better. It's a nice date spot too. Service was fine - nothing spectacular, but I think dishes in general came out with less wait time in between to cater to the executive lunch crowd. I would come back to Cafe Gray, but only for lunch (the dinner menu is similar to the lunch a la carte menu, just more $$$), and when the set lunch menu changes.