October 13, 2021
Begat by parents who then spent the next 60 years recuperating from the ordeal, mainly separate from each other, and in good measure from their children, you were raised by dogs. This imprinted you in unique ways which sorely burden your wife. On the good side, having been modogamous, you’re thoroughly monogamous. You’re loyal, you protect, you fetch, you’re affectionate. On the bad side you tug at your leash, snap, track mud, make inappropriate noises, make messes of mythic proportion. You’re animalistic in a way frowned upon by the Pope. And you steal food – meat in particular – from plates. You’ll have no truck with impossible meat. You want the real thing, preferably gobbets which you’re prone to tearing off with hands and teeth alone. And woe to he or she who comes too close while you’re eating.
Thus you find yourself at Associazione Chianti, Italian steakhouse, for your birthday dinner. Your wife, impelled by her love to take a major risk, has allowed you off leash. She monitors you carefully though. Who knows, at any moment you might grab an entire prosciutto between your jaws from the big red slicer and start tearing around the restaurant at top speed chased by the chef swinging a cleaver.
Black Sheep restaurants thoroughly understand the culture and theater of food. Patrons not only visit to eat but to be cared for and entertained. You arrive somewhat early and the entire staff is in a pre-dinner huddle, but a waiter immediately breaks away, warmly greets you, leads you to a table, and takes a drink order, nestling you into the fold. Soon the restaurant fills, which considering it’s early Wednesday night is a tribute to its allure. You’re pleased to see not only couples and social groups but families with younger children. Such a mix creates the best buzz of all, essential to an optimal experience, like a Sunday dinner.
As you sip your Prosecco you eye the interior which bears no relation to any restaurant you’ve ever visited in Italy. It actually seems to be a riff on the Bronx Italian restaurant in the Godfather where Michael Corleone shoots Virgil Sollozzo and Captain Mark McCluskey. Old-fashioned cleavers hang on the wall. There’s a pleasant sense of impending bloodshed which is just right given the meaty meal ahead. The place would be apropos for mob hits.
They bring a perfect bowl of chilled crudites, including fennel, radicchio, and jicama and two dips, oil-salt-pepper and what you think your server called almond dip (maybe you misunderstood him and he meant something else). You strain to catch a taste of almond, or any taste, but the dip is utterly flavorless.
You’re also served addictively delicious garlic knots, fresh baked dough-knots flavored with lots of garlic and prosciutto. Had the entire meal consisted of just these, you would not have left unhappy.
Drinking a lovely Tuscan red, Pio Cesare Barbera d’Alba, fairly priced at HKD$708, you start with a Insalata Cesare (Caesar Salad) and a platter of Salumi Misti, cured meats. Served commonly in Italian restaurants, it’s interesting that this salad originated (probably) in Tijuana, Mexico. This version based brilliantly on chicory, is delicious but you wish the garlic and anchovy were stronger. You sense they were dialed to accommodate those with timid palates (though your wife, who can handle a lot of torque, says that it is just right). Maybe a restaurant has no choice but to do this. If this is so, you think the salad should be offered “mild” and “wild.” Also, you wish that it was prepared tableside as was once commonly done (a la Madmen), and still done at Carbone (at least the NYC branch) and many Vegas restaurants.
The cured meats are tasty but standard stuff that you can get in any number of Italian restaurants. These meats would be much more special if they were house-cured and if a little creativity were applied. Why not an item from goose or duck or lamb? For instance, duck prosciutto (which is insanely delicious) is of Italian lineage. Likewise goose prosciutto. Certainly Black Sheep has the chops to pull this off.
Tagliatelle with artichoke. Fresh pasta is the devil to make well. It strongly tends to mushiness. Theirs, made solely with 00 flour and egg yolks, is outstanding, with a satisfying bite. Had they come by with a chunk of parmesan and a grater to dust the pasta, as they used to do in serious New York City Italian restos (when waiters weren’t aspiring actors but dignified lifetime professionals), it would have been better yet.
We ourselves are mainly steak. And given the average body mass index these days, most of us are well marbled prime. In fact, with our massages and our alcohol intake, most of us are A5 wagyu. So there can be nothing more natural than eating steak. It’s us. Associazione Chianti’s are dry-aged, twenty days if you remember.
Many the Bistecca Alla Fiorentina you’ve wolfed in Tuscany. Usually you’ve had it accompanied by grilled provolone, hockey pucks of provolone, banged over glowing charcoal until it’s semi-molten and bubbled and blistered on both sides, served with superb bread, usually charcoal grilled itself. This is common in small village restaurants in Italy. You’ve never had it in a big city restaurant though and wish that Black Sheep would bring it on board.
Your wife, who’s eaten here once before, and felt her steak was just a bit too bloody, orders a Filetto (filet mignon) between medium and medium rare. You order a Costata (ribeye, your favorite) medium rare (which, in your view, is the only way to have steak). You also order Salsa di Manzo, Chianti and Peppercorn Sauce.
It is the charred, caramelized exterior that makes steaks great, far more delicious in your view than prime rib or Beef Wellington that are mainly (or entirely) without it. The Maillard Reaction accounts for this. It’s what also accounts for the outstanding taste of toast, toasted marshmallows and roasted vegetables, something to do with amino acids and reduced sugars.
Both of your steaks are Maillard Reaction exemplars, deliciously charred over their entire surfaces. Your steak is cooked accurately, your wife’s not quite, coming out medium and consequently too dry. But, then again, filet mignons, which are less fatty than many other cuts, tend to dryness.
The Salsa di Manzo is tasty, but, in your view, needs to be reduced at least twenty percent more, to be more of a syrup, more concentrated in flavor. And you think it would be better with whole green peppercorns, fresh if possible.
Along with your steaks you get broccolini in a bagna cauda sauce. You love bagna cauda (a fondue of garlic and anchovy and olive oil, sometimes butter and cream) and wear a medical bracelet telling emergency responders to only put bagna cauda in your IV feed. This is a good bagna cauda, but again a bit mild. Broccolini is good, but broccoli rabe (which is distinctly more bitter) would have been better to your taste. You sense a caution in the kitchen to dial down sometimes when you wish they would dial up.
For dessert the two of you split a dacquoise – a cake made with layers of meringue and whipped cream, studded with berries and chocolate in this case – and it’s phenomenal, memorable. It is your birthday and four servers come up and sing a birthday song (to be frank, you forget what it was…. you’d been drinking) but it is spirited and fun and you appreciate it.
Though not perfect, the meal was excellent and – food, service, décor, fun, all knit together -- had just the right heft for a birthday. At HKD$2989 it wasn’t cheap, but considering the Prosecco, the mid-priced bottle of wine, the outstanding steaks, handmade pasta, consistent high quality, and the cost of doing business in Hong Kong, the price was fair. You would happily return. Associazione Chianti lives up to its excellent reputation. It is a paragon of Italian cuisine.
Docile from overindulgence, you depart. Good dog.
Rating (on a scale of 0 to 5)
Food overall: 4.5
Ambience: 4.5
Service: 4.5
Overall greatness: 4.5
Restaurants are intuitively rated within their particular realms. So Michelin restaurants, pizza places and stand-up sandwich joints are judged against like restaurants, not each other. A 5 for a high-end restaurant is not meant to be the same as a 5 for street food.
From my website, here’s how I rate food: “I believe the quality of a restaurant’s food is vastly more important than any other factor. Even if I love a restaurant’s food, I’m very conservative about giving out 4’s or 5’s. I reserve 4’s for food that is uniformly excellent. Preponderantly excellent tends to get a lower score. 5’s are for food that is uniformly stunning.”
Associazione Chianti
15 Ship Street, Wan Chai, Hong Kong