Lunch @ Gold by Harlan Goldstein, Hong Kong

Gold prices may be the talk of the town these days, but I'm writing about an entirely different Gold, by Harlan Goldstein. From a quick search on the internet about the (former) New York chef, I get the impression that he's a fairly big personality in the Hong Kong dining scene as well as 'chef to the rich and famous'. I believe that it's his name that brings majority of the people to his latest restaurant, but we were not among that group of people. We were just hungry for lunch but the place we'd originally intended to lunch at was not open for lunch, and Gold was just upstairs from it. It's a fairly swanky space, as it needs to be if Goldstein is to continue wowing his clientele of tycoons and prominent entrepreneurs. The service was also suited for fine dining, and we couldn't help but feel a little under-dressed in our casual attire and sneakers.

During the lunch period, Gold has the Executive Set Lunch (HK$258) which includes an appetiser buffet, a choice of main course from six selections, and a dessert from a list of four, as well as "Graffeo's Famous Coffee or Tea" (no, I have no idea who or what Graffeo is). There is a nice variety of salad, seafood and other dishes in the appetiser buffet, although I did find the arrangement of the dishes a little awkward (most of the dishes were placed on the central bar, but the seafood sat quite lonely on a separate counter - which meant that Rob totally missed the seafood on his first round). The quality was good enough, but nothing outstanding.

Some of the salads and appetisers:

The seafood (the cold cuts and melons were next to the seafood):

Wholesome salad and beans:

Rob's second round - salami, nuts, melons, and seafood:

One of my plates of seafood, prosciutto and melons, pate on toast:

We were rather underwhelmed with the main courses, and I get the impression that the main draw of the executive lunch set is the appetiser buffet, and the main course is only to supplement.

Hand-crafted Pizza with Organic Chicken, Pesto, Mozzarella and Aged Provolone. It was very hot when the pizza was brought to the table. Quite tasty but ordinary. We actually got this for the boy, but he was already drowsy for his nap and ate only half a slice:

Slow-cooked Salmon, Tuscan White Beans, Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Spinach. Also nice, but nothing special:

Dessert was beautifully presented, and enjoyable to eat, but nothing outstanding. At this point, my camera battery had completely died, and so I had to use the camera function on Rob's HTC to take photos of dessert. I'm surprised they turned out okay.

Banana Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Ice-cream - the banana flavour was strong and overpowered the chocolate flavour. Thankfully it didn't taste at all like fake banana flavouring. The vanilla ice-cream had tiny specks of black vanilla seeds:

Vanilla Parfait, Chocolate Cumb and Crispy Honey Crunch - this, I think, is what French parfait is like. In any case, it's not like the American-style layered parfaits. Safe combination of flavours, and quite enjoyable:

Impressively decorated restaurant, but the food was ordinary. Still, it was a lovely experience.

Gold by Harlan Goldstein
Level 2 LKF Tower
33 Wyndham Street
Lan Kwai Fong, Central
Tel: +852 2869 9986