Riviera Restaurant

With set meals each costing $ 108 or over, food at the Riviera restaurant is more costly than any usual dinner in the New Territories but then it turns out that this is not a typical dinner around these parts and can offer a dining experience that may well be worth an extra buck.
At first glance the restaurant looks oddly small and out of place in Yuen Long with its almost American-​like booth-​style seating and framed pictures lining the walls. The menu is actually a Chinese attempt at Italian food; mostly seafood themed except for steak and yet it doesn’t serve traditional spaghetti bolognase or lasagne but offers up the likes of «Angel» spaghetti (i.e. thin noodles) and tagiatelle (flat noodles). In fact the menu appears quite random and a little disconcerting as there are options that have been crossed out, some have been labelled over with other words and some have blatant spelling errors in English (e.g. even mispelling the word ‘Italian’). Plus there was not even enough menus for all arriving guests meaning that the menus had to be shared. Thus the first impression the Riviera restaurant gives may not be reassuring but nevertheless it gets better from here.
First on the set menu for pasta comes the soup of the day which on my visit was the lobster soup which comes accompanied with buttered white bread roll — the soup is seasoned well (but is without any solid ingredients) and the bread is suitably soft with a decent amount of butter. Then the noodles that are served are noticeably soft and silky smooth, pleasantly laced with sauce; albeit cheesy, tomato or lobster sauce. The dishes are satiating with a good balance of flavour, ingredients and a sizable portion of noodles. Then the tea/​coffee is a nice round up to the meal and is given alongside a mini éclair-​style dessert whereby a little finger-​length pastry topped with chocolate encases some ice-​cream.
In conclusion, the Riviera restaurant offers a wholesome set meal which boasts good quality of food throughout that is a welcome break from the norm in Yuen Long. The pictures on the walls on closer inspection are actually a nice selection of impressionable artwork and the music playing in the restaurant is quite enjoyable indeed. In short, this Chinese family-​run Italian-​style restaurant is a genuine gem in its own right; a bit rough around the edges but something worthy of appreciation.