Kitchen, W Hotel

I'm not a huge fan of buffets but in the past few months I've gone to Kitchen twice - once for their Sunday brunch and this evening for dinner. I love the ambiance of the restaurant with the floor-to-ceiling windows and ample space between the tables. Also appreciate the fact that there's good noise control here - I hate it when a restaurant has poor acoustics (the Press Room and Oolaa are definite culprits). Finally, the service is pretty top-notch. Servers were always quick to clear plates, pour water, fold napkins, and take the numerous photos required before I look semi-decent. Plus, they did all that with a smile :)

brunch

The brunch costs $628 per person with free-flowing Perrier Jouet (my fave!) and loads of deliciously fresh juices. If you have My W card you get an extra 15% off. We ended up staying from noon to 5, without anyone attempting to kick us out. Super chill way to spend a Sunday! Didn't capture too many pictures because my plates were all really ugly - I'm absolutely hopeless at plating food - but here are a few that didn't turn out too bad:

Couldn't resist the donut (which was yum) but tried to offset it with some greens...hence the very bizarre combination of food.

bircher muesli

Always my favourite breakfast item. If only more restaurants served this, my brunches would be far healthier! I recently picked up a ready-made pack from CitySuper - just add milk and leave in the fridge overnight. Can't wait to try it!

eggs bene and oysters

The oysters were absolutely delicious, super fresh, and shucked on the spot. I felt so sorry for the guy doing the shucking, must be so tiring considering how many oysters people go through! Eggs bene though was a waste of calories.

Blurry picture because I had to take it surreptitiously after being told I wasn't allowed to take photos... But I loved the carnival-esque feel to the buffet! They also had a candy floss machine and gigantic lollipops 3x bigger than my head :)

dessert and delicious homemade truffles

green tea creme brulee & mixed berries yoghurt

My favourite dessert of the day was their creme brulee which tasted really light and went down easily after all the eating.

dinner buffet ($488 per person)

It was dad's birthday yesterday and we initially wanted to check out the Ritz but after numerous bad reviews from friends, decided on the W instead.

dad is super spiffy...

I told myself I could only eat the expensive stuff, meaning no carbs. However, I caved on my last plate and had to help myself to a bit of bread! Too bad it had been sitting out all night and was already stale by the time I got to it...

japanese selection

cold udon and soba noodles

buffet spread

seafood

utensils for happy eating and bliss wet wipes - though personally I'm just as happy licking my fingers!

sushi & sashimi, mozzarella & sundried tomatoes, oysters, and Japanese spiced cured salmon

The oysters were great as always (dad had 14 hehe) and I really enjoyed the spiced cured salmon which had a nice kick to it. Sushi is a pass - the rice was far too dense and tasted a bit off. Sundried tomatoes weren't as good as I expected either.

little pot of couscous - so cute but so tasteless.

oysters, little lobster, mozzarella, olives and salmon

garlic prawns

I loved that they brought these out to each table and made sure there were enough so each person would get one. It's always the little things that make me happy - though it didn't hurt that these tasted fantastic.

lobster, snowcrab leg, more sashimi, proscuitto, chicken and potatoes

Okay, moving into seafood overdose here. I'm not a big fan of shellfish so won't pass judgement on the crab, though my family loved it. The proscuitto was yummy, but the chicken was super dry (as I often find in buffets) and the roasted potatoes far too salty.

duck, cold soba, bread and roast potatoes

The duck fared a lot better than the chicken and was really good when dipped in the plum sauce. Cold soba was great with the sesame sauce. Bread and potatoes were awful but I really needed something starchy by this point :P

dessert spread didn't look as good as for brunch

cheeses all gone by the time i got there

The table next to us were celebrating a birthday too and the restaurant brought out a big chocolate cake for the birthday boy. Realising that we hadn't arranged anything for dad, we quickly flagged down the maitre d and asked him if we could get a cake too. He was super accommodating and told us he would take a selection from the buffet table and plate it with a Happy Birthday sign. What he ended up bringing out was far better:


A whole cheesecake topped with super juicy blackberries!! I never get the chance to eat blackberries much so whenever they feature in a dessert, I'm quick to order it. Though they always remind me of Seamus Heaney's "Blackberry Picking" and the endless list of sexual connotations the poem evoked... I suppose along that vein, these blackberries were pretty orgasmic :) The cake itself was actually pretty good too, very light with a nice base.

happy birthday daddy :)

Even after eating a quarter of the cake, I still couldn't resist hunting down other desserts.

chocolate mousse with praline bits

This one was creamy and delicious. One of my favourite desserts of the night.

green tea angel cake

My favourite dessert was the green tea angel cake which really did melt in your mouth. The other three desserts on this plate were bad.


Ended the night with coffee and tea, the milk cup was so cute and carried nicely warmed milk.

interior

(Btw I'm loving this new iPhone app my friend told me about - it's called photosynth and it's real easy to create panoramas like above :)

Silly family photo while walking home haha. Trying to channel a pop band. Maybe.

Both experiences were really enjoyable, though definitely no more buffets during beach season! The food is above average for a buffet, but I guess so are the prices. Doubt I'll be coming back but I would definitely recommend trying it once if you love seafood and can eat a lot.


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Kitchen, the W Hotel
No. 1 Austin Road West
Kowloon