Saint Germain

Terrific French bar cum restaurant. Food is good, wine good, service OK, price OK. The ambiance is basic but comfortable and relaxed. My wife and I go regularly ourselves or with a couple of friends. The place is small and can’t accommodate a party more 6 or so people.

St. Germain is nice as a bar, though I will admit the prices have scared me off a bit from dining in the restaurant. With indoor-​outdoor seating on a relatively calm portion of Wong Nai Chung road, St. Germain is a relaxing spot for a drink. One very nice feature is that they still allow you to bring your dogs to the outside area, which Happy Valley Bar and Grill and The Jockey no longer do. So, St. Germain has supplanted these two spots for dog beers.
I would be remiss if I failed to mention the excellent service from the bar staff and waitresses. They are friendly and efficient, checking in to make sure your glass does not sit empty, and they always offer bowls of water to the dogs.
Although the beer is more expensive than its neighbors, St. Germain’s Stella on draft is always amazingly ice cold. I’m not sure how they keep their beer colder than all the other bars, but it’s incredibly welcome on hot summer evenings. The bar menu is also excellent for a snack or a cheese/​charcuterie board to share. I am particularly fond of the Croque Monsieur — oozing with cheesy goodness and crisped to perfection, and accompanied by greasy-​in-​good-​way hand cut fries.
One of these days I’ll probably get around to trying the restaurant, but for now it’s a great spot to enjoy a really cold beer with the pups.

LA brasserie a Hong Kong pour le Frenchy nostalgique…
A must-​go as long as you fancy French traditional gastronomy.

I should have known that a restaurant with only two occupied tables at 8:00 on a Saturday night was not going to be great, and it wasn’t. The emptiness was the first clue.
The second clue was the menu. Sun-​dried tomatoes and mushrooms in a frisee aux lardons? A frisee aux lardons is a very simple salad. A poached egg (not boiled as the menu indicates), sits atop a bed of frisee, with croutons and lardons. No sun-​dried tomatoes. No mushrooms. What’s next? Carrots?
No, the carrots were saved for the blanquette de veau; a traditional French veal stew that is supposed to be all white. White button mushrooms? Yes. Pearl onions? Yes. Leeks? As long as only the white parts are used, yes. Flaming orange carrots? No.
The third, and most telling clue that this was not going to be a good restaurant was the tray of pre-​made dishes of chocolate mousse, which were marked with the previous day’s date. How hard is it to make fresh chocolate mousse?
So what did I order? The pork chop, which was extremely fatty and not very good (quelle surprise!).
The waitstaff matched the restaurant. I always enjoy watching the waitresses in the dining room drinking (water) and chatting all while ignoring the patrons.

This was a welcomed addition to Happy Valley for several reasons, one HV didn’t have a French bistro, and two we love the convenience right next to Ding’s final stop, in front of the cab stand and on our way back from a run around the race track.
Food, uneven, but we do love the chacuterie platter.
Rose from Provence, ah… many a nights have tied 3 of them with my drinking buddy.
Buzz, depends on the night.
Price for value, a bit on the high side. Service, uneven.
Why you would go there? To hang out, it’s got an easy bar scene: Indoor and outdoor seating (for smokers).
It’s a nice local ok-​la place.
ps — No Lillet is served.