ABC Kitchen

Date of visit: 31st August 2010

ABC Kitchen @ Sheung Wan Cooked Food Market

M and I have been wanting to visit ABC Kitchen for some time, since the rave reviews after its opening... tonight we finally made it to Queen Street Food Market, hungry and expecting good food. 

menu for tonight.

Bread – home-made dinner rolls speckled with herbs were warm and soft upon serving, but unfortunately too ‘doughy’ for me. 

Rouille on toast, bouillabaisse. 

Bouillabaisse ($88) was a small bowl of seafood in at most a few tablespoons of soup. Bouillabaisse is a seafood stew originated from Provence, containing at least three types of seafood and topped with bread/toast spread with rouille. ABC Kitchen’s version was definitely a thick stew, and not a thin broth on our visit, and contained a large prawn, a couple clams, mussels and a small piece of white fish. Taste wise it was rich in seafood flavours, and hearty – I loved this stew! But portion-wise, they definitely could’ve been more generous, especially with the soup. On top sat a toast (a different cut of their home-made bread) spread with (I am guessing home-made) rouille, which was really excellent, probably even better than the stew! 7.5/10

Suckling Pig ($118) took a while to be served… at least 20-30 minutes after ordering. The portion was again slightly disappointing, our two cuts consisted of one crackling skin only and the other a bit of meat attached. We both thought the skin was indeed very crispy and well roasted, and the meat tender and moist. However, the two blobs of sides next to the pig spoilt the dish a little for me. The purple cabbage was insanely sweet, whilst the mash…bland and awful. They added in bits of corn and carrots for texture and colour but without seasoning the whole concept fails! 7/10

Carbonara ($58) was probably the worst carbonara M and I have had. I stopped after two bites because life is too short for poor pastas. Our linguine was sticky and softer than al dente, but that wasn’t bad enough. The sauce given was too little, too rich and bland - it could’ve been thinned down to coat the pasta properly, therefore preventing the linguine sticking together. There was no taste of egg, and the fatty bacon did little to help with the flavouring of the whole dish. 2/10

Banana banoffee Pie ($38) was the dessert we picked over a dessert sampler, because we were quite full by now. It arrived shortly and I swear both of our jaws dropped in awe of the presentation. Digestive cookie crust? Yes. Toffee? Yes. Banana? Yes. Cream? Errr..yes, if aerosol cream counts. But how they managed to screw up this simple dessert is beyond me. The photo in this case explains. Nonetheless, I did think their toffee was quite special and tasty. 5/10 (because of the yummy toffee). If you are looking for good banoffee pie, M recommends Portobellow whilst Jaspas' banoffee pie for me was way way way better than what we had!

Our bill came to about $300 for two - definitely not cheap, despite what reviews have said. For the quality and surroundings of the dinner this night $300 would be fair, if not slightly over-priced. 

Food: ♥♥

Service: ♥♥♥

Price: $$$

ABC Kitchen

Shop CF7, Food Market, 1 Queen Street

Sheung Wan

Tel: 9278 8227