Catalunya. One of the hottest restaurant names that is currently on everybody’s lips. Not just because Spanish cuisine is taking Hong Kong by storm, but the kitchen at Catalunya is run by a team that has experience at some of the world’s best Spanish restaurants with elBulli being one of them, so surely the hype is understandable no?
So popular at the moment, reservations seem to need to be made at least one month in advance unless you are willing to take a late booking say after 9pm or settle for tapas at the bar. However, when I called to make a reservation, upon asking when the earliest date they had available for two at 7.30pm they actually had availability just one week away providing we returned the table at 9.30pm.
Situated between Wanchai and Causewaybay, Catalunya really is in an awkward spot if you plan to take MTR or walk there, so if you do not drive I would suggest taxi as the way to go. The restaurant is quite dim with shades of burgundy and chocolate brown as the dominant colors in play. It is a big space, able to seat up to 140 guests, and not surprisingly it was packed with diners that evening making for quite a loud environment.
The menu concentrates more on tapas which is largely what Spanish cuisine is known for, but if you are looking for something more substantial they do have a selection of mains too pending whether you fancy meat or seafood.
So we started the evening with some tapas.
Feeling like potatoes, I picked the patatas bravas with ‘all i oli’ which is the Spanish equivalent of fried chunky potato wedges. Quite a big portion, the irregular cut potatoes were fried to a golden brown, but the supposedly ‘spicy’ Bravas sauce was not spicy at all.
The ham, cheese and truffle ‘bikini’ is their little joke, where ‘bikini’ is in fact a toasted sandwich. This tapa has been quite popular from the reviews so it seemed like it was worth ordering. Four toastie soldiers arrived limp and lukewarm, with a thin layer of ham, truffles and slightly gooey cheese. Quite a filling tapa, the flavours were there, but it was not as ‘wow’ as others claim.
Caterpillar like, the avocado and lobster roll was stuffed with marinated lobster meat draped with avocado slices and scattered with salmon roe. I was not particularly taken with the filling, a little tart with bits of celery, but the avocado was perfectly ripe while the salmon roe was fresh and popped pleasantly in the mouth.
Rather than being served steak and shrimp for surf and turf, they serve it with sweetbreads and baby squid. Very savoury, the sweetbreads were slightly overcooked, making for a more solid than spongy texture. The calamari was lovely though, two snow white scrolls that were very tender. Compared to the others, this was probably the best tapa of the evening…
For mains, we settled for lobster rice which is Catalunya’s version of paella. Arriving in a black pot, it unveiled a generous portion of lobster atop a mound of rice. The lobster meat was super sweet and moist, but the rice was too al dente for my liking.
We were finished by 8:30pm, deciding not to stay for dessert since the overall dinner was just… underwhelming. I think our expectations were set too high resonating from all the hype, but if you have not been, it may be worth experiencing at least once.
Just Something About Me 