Restaurant: RED SoHo Restaurant
Cuisine: American/Eclectic
Last visited: April 22, 2010
Location: Central, Hong Kong (SoHo Central)
Address: Metro: Central
2/f, Kinwick Centre, 32 Hollywood Road, SoHo Central
Tel: (852) 8199 8189
Price Range: $20-30CAD – $150-$250+HKD
1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!
Food: 4 (based on what I tried)
Service: 4
Ambiance: 5
Overall: 4
Additional comments:
- Eclectic New York cuisine
- Chef Mody Lee Man Tai
- Extensive menu
- Steaks, pastas and seafood
- Traditional New York dishes w/creative twists
- Special features menu
- Restaurant/Bar/Lounge
- Casual fine dining
- Gorgeous interior
- Contemporary, hip & trendy atmosphere
- Popular for tourists/international crowd
- “Be seen” place
- Popular late at night
- Hong Kong hot spot
- Hip hop happy hours
- Great for drinks
- Extensive wine list/bar
- Lunch/Dinner/Set lunches/afternoon tea
- Brunch on weekends
- Open late
- +10% service charge
**Recommendations: I haven’t tried enough, but I liked the walnut, beet leaf & ricotta ravioli, sage butter and truffled mac & cheese.
RED SoHo Restaurant is a restaurant, lounge and bar located in the Soho are in Central Hong Kong. Specializing in eclectic New York (American) cuisine, it’s a hip and happening place that attracts a 25-45 year old demographic and international crowd. It’s a bit of a “place to be and be seen” restaurant and therefore it is popular to Expats, locals and tourists. In Vancouver lingo it’s “Yaletown-ish”.
Yes that means RED SoHo is a fancy restaurant with fancy prices, but it’s not fine dining. They serve traditional New York classics with contemporary and creative twists.
They’re famous for some of their signature dishes like king scallop ceviche, crab cakes with honey mustard, buttermilk fried chicken, grilled tuna steak, Hebrew hot dog, RED Reuben and of course their most infamous – truffled mac & cheese.
They also have a selection of house made desserts (popular strawberry shortcake with Mascarpone mousse and chocolate layer cake) and unique cocktails like blue cheese martini made with Bombay sapphire, vermouth, blue cheese and olives $75HKD – $11CAD.
I came for a very late night dinner so I didn’t get to make a big enough dent in their huge menu. It was enough for me to come back, but it’s not the best food either…living in Vancouver I’m spoiled by this type of “eclectic American” cuisine served in a posh atmosphere. If you’re traveling Hong Kong it’s a place to visit if your into this sort of “thing”.
On the table:
Complimentary Bread – 3/6
- Not sure if it’s made in house, but it’s pretty good steakhouse type bread.
- It’s buns (perhaps pumpernickel) and soft bread with lots of Italian dried herbs.
Tomato Soup – 3/6
- Tomato soup with basil cream and tapenade bruschetta about $68HKD – about $10CAD
- This was one of their special feature soups.
- The tomato soup was good, but also quite expected. Nice and creamy and flavourful.
- I actually liked the tapenade bruschetta better. The tapenade was a delicious home made mix of pureed anchovy, pesto, olives, garlic and Parmesan cheese. I would order that alone.
Manhattan Clam Chowder – 2.5/6
- $78HKD – about $11CAD
- The portion is quite large, but I think it’s a bit overpriced. They should serve it in a smaller bowl at a more affordable price. It’s a hearty appetizer.
- It was okay, there was hardly any clams in it.
- Celery, carrots, potatoes, onions in a tomato broth…meh.
Soup of the Day (Always vegetarian) – 5/6
- Carrot soup $58HKD – about $8.20CAD
- This was the best out of all the soups I tried.
- It’s actually excellent carrot soup and it’s very naturally sweetened and very flavorful with a hint of cream for added richness.
**Truffled Mac & Cheese – 5.5/6
- Standard $128HKD (about $20CAD) Large $178 (about $28CAD)
- Vegetarian
- One of RED’s most popular and signature dishes – and the reason for my visit here.
- It’s made with 4 cheeses: cream cheese, blue cheese, cheddar cheese and Parmesan cheese…and I feel like maybe some brie, but that makes 5 cheeses so I’m not sure which one I got wrong.
- There isn’t much Blue Cheese so don’t be scared if you’re not a fan. It’s an expensive cheese so they don’t use too much of it anyways.
- It’s extremely buttery, creamy and sauce with dried Rosemary, Thyme, and Oregano leaves.
- The real “show” and signature move is that they grate the truffle at your table upon serving it.
- The problem is is that the truffle is kind of wasted. What they really needed was some TRUFFLE OIL in the cheese sauce…that would have made the dish easily 6/6.
- It was just slices of truffle that wasn’t well incorporated and the flavour didn’t infuse into the dish, the oil would have made a world of difference.
**Walnut, Beet Leaf & Ricotta Ravioli with Sage Butter - 5.5/6
- Standard $108HKD (about$18CAD) Large $158HKD (about $25CAD)
- Vegetarian
- I always hesitate before ordering ravioli because I’m scared it’ll be a portion for children and I would have paid a fortune for it AND have to go for dinner #2 afterward. However, the portion here was okay – this was the standard size (6 pieces of ravioli)
- They were actually very generous with the ingredients and topped it with big pieces of walnuts, sweet red beets, crispy sage and beet leaves and fresh Parmesan cheese. The quality of ingredients was also high.
- The ravioli skin was a little bit hard, but the flavour and concept was there.
- It was sweet from the beets, very nutty, salty from the butter and cheese and very aromatic with the herbs. There was actually a strong and unexpected sun dried tomato flavour in the stuffing. It’s a rather light ravioli dish, although very oily.
- It could have been better if it was stuffed a bit more. The stuffing was the same as the toppings and it was a bit crumbly rather than creamy.
- The combination of ingredients and flavours was excellent, but I just wanted a bit more stuffing for the 6/6.
I apologize for the picture quality, but I just want to somewhat show the filling.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Can’t help but wonder… Were you with a vegetarian? I mean, one time might be a fluke but, after several veggie dishes, I can’t help but notice that!
About the truffle, yeah, to me, it is hype more than anything else. Now, given this type/theme of restaurant, if I was travelling from Vancouver, it would be far from being top options. After all, we have our share and, given this is located halfway across the world, I would rather try local goodies instead. I guess it is applicable to those who wants to try something “American” while in Asia…
AND have to go for dinner #2 afterward.
Wait, don’t you do this all the time?
“Portion for children!” hahahaha. and they made a custom mac ‘n cheese for us that night by adding in the extra cheddar. it does have brie. the waiter, San, thought I’d like it with cheddar as well so he had the chef try it out that night.
Kim – nope! I was going to mention too, but then I was like oh well there’s CLAM chowder. It was also 10pm so we stayed to somewhat less heavier dishes. Yup this was eaten on one day…I know what you’re saying about “local food” but Hong Kong is actually very international so you do have to try what else there is to offer…it’s like coming to Vancouver and trying sushi…not exactly “Canadian” food – but it’s damn good here.
Mijon – ahhh well thanks for the reminder…then I can’t really rate this mac n’ cheese for what it usually is…if I think it’s a 5.5/6 then on a usual night it’s probably a 5/6? Thanks for commenting!!
Kim – lol oops I get your comment…YES dinner #2 is VERY common…and so is dessert #7!
oh and this Walnut, Beet Leaf & Ricotta Ravioli with Sage Butter was good enough for me to actually order again if I was back in Hong Kong…can’t get it in Vancouver and haven’t even heard of it elsewhere…so it does pay off trying some international cuisine
ALSO if ur mom opened a Chinese restaurant in Panama…although it’s not “local food”…I would still go! And be thankful that I did! Looks AMAAAAZZZINNGGG
Truffle oil? You CANNOT be serious. No serious cooking should ever use truffle oil, it is a cheap and gimmicky replacement (never an adequate substitute) for the real thing.