All the pasta at Pici! A much better second outing!!

The sun finally managed to appear in Hong Kong over the weekend and so the Scot and I decided to make as much use of this as possible and wander into the Mid-Levels.

We began by exploring the recently refurbished Tai Kwun, the old police head quarters. The city has done an excellent job on providing a bright, open space in the heart of the Mid-Levels whilst there are plenty more shops and restaurants to open it is a great starting point. Fingers crossed they can use the space for some great attractions, always a sucker for a Christmas market I'm hoping Tai Kwun can deliver.

One of the few restaurants that is open is Cafe Claudel, a stunning looking cafe with a very attractive menu, think traditional French flair such as Croque Monsieur, sadly there was only a limited menu on offer but I will be sure to come back and visit in a couple of weeks and I highly recommend that you do as well!

Having completed our short but sweet exploration we decided to grab an early supper and headed to Soho. There is a plethora of restaurants in this area with new ones popping up all the time but we decided on the well known, and rightly so, Pici, part of the Pirata Group. The restaurant is located right outside of PMQ with a sister restaurant in Wan Chai.

This space, well known to a lot of people, had come highly recommend so we decided to give it a go and were not dissapointed. Pici's concept is a simple one and serves a range of pasta dishes made with sunshine yellow fresh pasta. The kind that makes you want to buy a pasta roller and take one look at it before placing it back into the box and leaving it to the professionals. Upon looking at the menu we decided to give the pasta tasting menu a go. This option could quite possibly be one of the best value menus in all of Hong Kong and for 280 dollars per person you are able to sample and inevitably enjoy, two starters, three pasta dishes and two deserts! Trust me when I say that you won't be leaving hungry.

We began with a sharing platter of cold cuts and cheese coupled with the meatballs (I promise, the Scot and I do eat other food!). The cold cut platter consisted of some good quality parmesan and taleggio cheese as well as parma ham and salami.

All of the components were of good quality with my only complainant being the board favours the parma ham too heavily, it would have been nice to have some extra salami.

The meatballs were covered in a tantalising tomato sauce but the meatballs themselves were lacking in seasoning.

Next up came the pasta which you can see being made on the bar counter. We went for beef ragu, lasagne and a mussel pasta with saffron cream. First to arrive was the beef ragu, the pasta was perfectly cooked and still al dente. The sauce consisted of some meltingly tender beef, the kind that only comes after long slow cooking, covered each individual strand. Both the Scot and I suggested some more of the sauce would have helped this dish. Next came the dish that both of us were most looking forward to, lasagne!

For me lasagne will always compare to my Mums, I'm sure many people will agree that their mums lasagne is the best, much in the same way that mums roast chicken is, so we were both intrigued to see how it would compare. Sadly, Mums still reigns supreme. The major problem with Picis lasagne was that the cheese crust was too thick. I never thought that I would ever write that there was too much cheese but in this instance it was cloying and melted cheese does have a tendency to release a large amount of oil which unfortunately ran into the rest of the dish. Halve the amount of cheese and this could give any mums lasagne a good run for its money!

Our third and final dish was a mussel tagliatelle served with a saffron cream. The first thing I noticed was that one of the mussels had a broken shell, whether this was broken already or brook during cooking it should not have been placed on the dish. So we avoided the one mistake and moved onto the pasta itself.

Again, this was cooked perfectly and the cream sauce itself was rich and yet still light, the subtle hint of chilli at the end was a welcome addition. Although we were both fit to bursting point we kept going in for more, this was certainly the dish of the day.

When the waitress, on a side note service was superb throughout the meal, asked if we wanted desert we knew that we couldn't stomach one each so shared a panna cotta (the other option being a tiramisu). This arrived in a glass so there was no chance to view the wobble that usually comes with a panna cotta. It was overfirm and the mouse itself lacked flavour but the raspberry compote on top was the best part.

Dinner at Pici was a great second outing for The Galloping Ginger, long may this continue! And although I'm sure many people will be aware of Pici for those that haven't been I would recommend it and for those that have, what harm can visiting again do!

Thank you for reading and as always any comments are much appreciated.

The Galloping Ginger

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