Superb Japanese @ Inagiku (Four Seasons), Hong Kong

One of the great things about living in the big smoke is that you don't have to look very hard for an amazing dining experience to sweeten the bad taste in the mouth left by a crap experience. Of course, good and bad have to go hand in hand together, because the good cannot be fully appreciated without the bad. Last Sunday we thought it would be fun for my son if we took the short 10 minute ferry ride from our side of Hong Kong (ie Kowloon aka "the dark side") to Central. Zak loved it. Once at Central, we made the impromptu decision to have lunch at the fabulous Inagiku in the Four Seasons. It's kinda ironic, considering the fact that we had the wonderful opportunity to stay at the Four Seasons for a month after our arrival in HK, and we never even thought about having a meal at Inagiku. Mind you, we had just moved from Japan, so we were more interested in the wide variety of food available here in HK other than Japanese food. I also doubt that we would have appreciated the experience as much as we did on Sunday because we wouldn't have anything to compare it with. It would be like going from Japanese food paradise in Japan to Japanese food paradise in Hong Kong, and not knowing any different. Hm, that actually doesn't sound too bad at all. Anyway, knowing how bad sushi can get in HK made us love our lunch at Inagiku even more.

Incredibly shy chefs at the teppanyaki station:

Inagiku HK is inspired by the renowned restaurant of the same name in Tokyo, which is one of the oldest and well-known restaurant in all of Japan. The restaurant decor is quite beautiful with a mixture of traditional and modern Japanese artwork, and the floor-to-celing views of the Harbour doesn't hurt either. There's the choice of sitting at the teppanyaki station, the sushi bar or table, and if we were sans toddler, we would have preferred sitting where we can watch the chefs in action. Service is pretty good (for HK standards), and the staff made sure that we were as comfortable as we could be dining with a 2 year old. The menu was pretty extensive, offering kaiseki, signature tempura, teppanyaki, sushi and sashimi.

We could see our apartment building all the way across the harbour, from our table at Inagiku:

I wanted to sample the best that Inagiku could offer, but I couldn't be bothered ordering individually from the a-la-carte menu, so I went for their Holiday Premium Lunch Menu. Rob followed suit, even though he was quite surprised at my choice because we'd originally wanted a light lunch. As you can see below, this lunch set had a bit of everything, and they were all good! Even the tempura, and that's from a person who doesn't like battered-then-deep-fried stuff!

Duo of appetiser, part 1 - Dried kaki persimmon and spinach with black soybean. Nice combination of sweet and savoury:

Appetiser, part 2 - Komochi konbu (herring roe on kelp) with slices of pickled turnip. Delicious crunchy roe:

Steamed egg custard (chawan mushi) with zuwaigani (snow crab) meat. This was really good, and contained mochi, yurine (lily root/bulb), shiitake and ginkgo nuts:

Smooth, silky and tasty egg custard:

Tempura course - included live shrimp, scallop, fish and seasonal vegetables. Crisp and light batter that wasn't overly greasy, and super-fresh ingredients:

Teppanyaki course - U.S beef steak or roll, and we got one of each. Beef roll here (thin slices of beef with onion and pepper):

Teppanayaki course - Beef steak. Loved the simple presentation of the beef, which can only be done for good quality beef:

Sushi course, which was infinitely better than the sushi at Sen-ryo. Six types of nigirizushi: aburi-toro (seared tuna belly), saba (mackerel), flounder, ikura (salmon roe, as we requested for Zak who loves popping these little salty orbs in his mouth) and uni (sea urchin roe); and six pieces of salmon makisushi. The miso soup and pickled vegetables were also pretty nice:

Dessert course: Matcha ice cream with rice flour dumpling, Japanese strawberry, soba cookie with black honey. Matcha-flavoured ice cream is such a clichéd Japanese dessert, but I love it! :

This was a great meal. I was happy to eat delicious Japanese food again, just like the ones we used to get during our time in Japan. It was on the pricey side, but honestly, I'd rather pay a little bit more, especially for sushi and raw seafood, than risk getting food poisoning. There is another Inagiku restaurant on the Kowloon side which has gotten good reviews and is a bit cheaper, so we may head there the next time we feel like having Japanese food.