Plato
No. 29, Section 2 Anhe Lu.
02-2707-3121
They open at 5:30 every day and close at 11:30 but the last order is before 11 or earlier.
Opened by the same owners of Forchetta in August of last year. Close to the XinYi intersection.
It is one long winding bar seating. Open kitchen and you sit right next to the action. Very Hong Kong Soho décor with light jazz playing.
Yesterday was their first day to offer a set menu instead of the single dishes. Only two choices - $800 and $1200.
We ordered one of each.
$800=
- Cold boiled broccoli with a tomato salsa and tofu with a fruit (cantaloupe honeydew melon ) salsa
- Rocket salad with vinaigrette dressing and pan fried “Dai Bai Yu” white fish
- Clams in broth
- Variety of deep fried vegetables and fish
- Wasabi sausage, artificial paella, and another soup
- Squid ink sausage and pan fried potato
$1200 had an extra beef / mushroom kebab and a fried truffle dumpling with green bean dish.
They do still have a half dozen appetizers (bruschetta, etc.)
Flavor of the food is very much like Non-Zero. They are aiming at a healthy / creative menu (their words).
My opinion:
- good but bland
- salad fine, fish very good
- bland
- ok
- The sausage is great. I haven’t had a wasabi spiced sausage before. rice and soup yawn
- Again the sausage was good as were the potatoes
The kebab is served on a rack for effect. However, they don’t have a proper grill. The kitchen consists of a large toaster oven, a stack of steamer trays, an oven, a fryer, and a 6 gas stovetop. The oven wasn’t used while we were there. The kebab (and wasabi sausage) was precooked and then heated in the toaster which left a lot of grease remaining on the meat.
The fried truffle dish was overly oily.
Wine is $300-400 per glass or a little over $1000 per bottle.
Service is excellent. The staff consists of 5 (one waitress, three sous-chefs, and one chef). Ray the chef was pulled over from Forchetta. All the dishes are presented well but it is somewhat questionable to eat with an appetizer fork and a dessert spoon (especially the soup).
For one of each of the above sets with two glasses of wine and sparkling water was $2,700 and some change.
Note that Ray is willing to cook up off-menu dishes depending on available ingredients.
Summary: I don’t think the new menu best shows what they are capable of doing. They excelled at the “tapas” type dishes. However, it is a great place for a date either before or after dinner. Go and have some wine and a couple of appetizers until they work the kinks out of the full meals.