Beets, that pedestrian staple of East European cookery, are having something of a moment at the moment. No longer confined to your grandmother’s borscht, health gurus tout the deep red root’s benefits in, among other things, promoting fresh breath, running faster and improving sexual stamina, though no one seems to have connected the first two items to the third. Consistent with the humble vegetable’s rejuvenated cachet, one of Hong Kong’s newer restaurants bears the root’s name as its own.
Beet opened late last year on Kau U Fong in the NoHo — North of Hollywood — sub-neighborhood of Sheung Wan. Beet is tastefully designed with big, street-facing glass windows, concrete flooring and small wooden tables surrounding a larger central table suitable for a bigger party. The table setting showcases slim stemware and a natural fabric napkin decorated with a single stalk of dried wheat, evoking Beet’s emphasis on local and seasonal ingredients. The music was funky though a bit loud, as was the decibel level in general, resulting in a need to strain to hear the food descriptions that came later. A little acoustic improvement would help the overall experience.
The menu varies seasonally and is simple, with a few appetizers and mains, plus the featured five- and six-course tasting menus at HKD690 and HKD860, respectively. Beet also serves a vegetarian tasting menu at HKD580. My guest and I chose the six-course menu, intrigued by the additional dish of geoduck clam.
Before the six courses formally begin, there is a pre-course of “snacks” consisting of four bite size amuse-bouche, including diced snapper ceviche on a crispy cracker and a creamy chicken liver mousse. The morsels are quite tasty but their delivery one by one in quick succession, each with an accompanying hard to hear explanation, is disruptive to the flow of conversation and, frankly, a bit annoying. I would suggest as an alternative that they come all at once or at least in pairs.
The pace of delivery slowed to a more comfortable clip with these snacks consumed. The first course is the namesake Beetroot. Sliced paper thin and artfully arranged on top of a bed of smoked curd, radicchio and toasted barley, the beets were a delicious start to the meal, with the watery tartness of the root providing a good balance of taste and texture with the smooth curd, crunchy barley and bitter radicchio.
Next came the geoduck. This clam, with its rather notably long siphon or neck that extends out from its shell, was served sashimi style sliced thin in a light, chilled broth of whey seasoned with coriander leaf with a layer of edamame beans underneath. It was a beautiful combination to look at and taste, certainly the best preparation of geoduck that I can recall. I could have had several bowls of this, skipping only the edamame.
Next came the BBB course, for Beet’s bread & butter. This was also delicious and arrived as a homemade loaf of tangy sourdough with a thick crunchy crust and a smooth, fluffy interior served with home-churned kefir cream. The smooth spread, silkier than ordinary butter with a lighter taste, traces its roots back to a fermented milk drink native to the Caucasus region and was a perfect accompaniment to the sourdough, which itself delivered a lot of flavor. Needless to say, not a slice was unconsumed.
The Hokkaido scallop course that followed was not as impressive as the prior three. The corn grown locally was nicely crunchy and impeccably grilled, but the scallops themselves were cooked in a manner that was, I would say, boring. They were neither raw like a high quality scallop from Hokkaido might be, nor were they seared to impart the pleasant taste that comes from fire. Rather, they were slightly bland, flat pieces of seafood, the taste and texture of which could have easily been mistaken for some other meat product but for the signature color and round shape.
The New Territories Chicken that came next made up for this missed beat (pardon the pun). Perfectly cooked slices of juicy, tender chicken with crispy skin were served with a bed of greens generously covered with autumn truffles and accompanied by a dollop of parsnip mash. Even without the addition of the truffles, the chicken would have been noteworthy and not just for their breeding within the very territory of Hong Kong.
Rounding out the set was a dessert of Hay Ice Cream with strawberries and basil. You could be forgiven for thinking that “hay” is a brand when in fact it is actually ice cream made from an infusion of that very grass commonly consumed by horses. Imagine a tea-infused ice cream with the scent of the autumn harvest and you can get a sense of what the ice cream tasted like. It was so good that I wished Beet had skipped the strawberries and doubled or maybe tripled the portion of ice cream. As it was, one thing to commend Beet for is that the aggregate quantity of the course menu is just right, leaving you full and satisfied but not over-stuffed.
Overall, Beet is creative, with delicious food and a seasonal tasting menu that will be worth going back for as the seasons change. There were a few areas for improvement but mainly because the standard generally set is so high.
About the Hungry Lawyer: Marc Rubinstein, born in Baltimore, USA, has been in Asia for more than 20 years, with 15 of those in Hong Kong. He has split his career between banks and law firms, and is currently the general counsel of an Asia-based real estate and alternative energy investor. Marc is a co-founder and co-chair of the Hong Kong Gay & Lesbian Attorneys Network. In addition to being a hungry lawyer, he has run three marathons, eight half-marathons, completed the Hong Kong Oxfam Trailwalker and won the U.S. National Debate Tournament way back in 1991.
