Carte Blanche Lunch

With the local dining scene slowly getting back to normal so were our eating routine, including our meal date at Caprice of Four Seasons Hong Kong. And this time, it felt like they got the full team working on this particular Saturday afternoon when we were there, and the dining room was filled to the capacity. That is definitely a good indication that maybe we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel of this damned COVID thing. 

Chef Guillaume offered to send us a bespoke menu, or carte blanche as they call it, and we obliged. We started with something refreshing, with tomatoes coming from chef’s own farm in France and shipped over by his mom. They were just of the perfect ripeness, firm but juicy and sweet and served on the side was a quenelle of prawn head mousse (made with cream steeped with prawn heads and tomalley), minced prawn with lemongrass jelly and tomato water. That to me, was the perfect rendition of summer in heaven. Was glad to have caught the last batch of this season’s tomato shipment, grown and harvested with family love I am sure. 

I couldn’t recall having Pate en Croute here at the restaurant, and the piece we got was delicious and photogenic. Inside the perfectly baked pastry crust was scores of ingredients inside the pate – duck liver and meat, acorns, duck jus jelly and more, and on the side was fig, raspberry (or could have been cherry) and roselle powder. That itself could be a meal on its own with such intense flavor and generous portion. 

Late summer/early autumn marked the beginning of mushroom season, and this time it was ceps from France, served with poached Atlantic sea bass fillet underneath with a mushroom-yellow wine sauce and fig chutney. It's one of the signature sauces in Chef's repertoire and the hint of sweetness worked well with the rustic flavor of the mushrooms and the fatty fish.  

Our main course was another beauty, with Greffeuille lamb saddle roasted and served with stuffed swiss chard, pumpkin puree on the side and demi-glace underneath. The meat was super tender with just a hint of the gamey flavor and the sauce just brought everything together. It’s one of those afternoons that we reluctantly passed on the cheese course – we were properly stuffed by then – and went straight for dessert. This time it was a heavy one, with brownie topped with cream cheese and raspberry. Trust me it’s more elegant than it sounds, and the plating was cute. 

Love the champagne Victor poured us as we settled at our table, a blanc de noirs with good intensity, plenty of minerals and a grip of citrus on the palate. Went next with a Swiss pinot noir from a magnum bottle later on, a clean, cold-weather pinot with plenty of red fruits for a comfortable sip. 

More photos here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/g4gary/albums/72157719952289297

When? September 25 2021
Where? Caprice, Level 6, Four Seasons Hong Kong, 8 Finance Street, Hong Kong
Menu Highlights? Chef's Garden Tomato and Prawns Variation
Web: www.fourseasons.com/hongkong/dining/restaurants/caprice
Champagne Eliane Delalot Extra Brut Les Pleiades NV
2019 KLUS 177 Pinot Noir AOC Baselland