The Ardent Gourmet
Restaurant Review: FRANCIS
April 26, 2019
Francis is small -- a few tables, a bar, a counter accessible inside and out -- and so cozy-comfortable you wish you could bring your dog. You don’t have a dog, and dogs are surely not allowed, but still you wish. Wine bottles are everywhere, exerting a vinous influence to which you are not unsusceptible.
Wouldn’t a dog go nicely here?
Oh so vinous. But, then again, you are too.
After a trek from the MTR, you’re hot though and start with an Aperol Spritz that needs a dash more prosecco. Your wife’s Garden Spritzer with elderflower and gin is a tad sweet, but otherwise refreshing. These are quibbles, of course. Nibbling pickled vegs (including wonderful fennel and whole garlic cloves) you and she lean close, rub noses, toast beaded glasses, peer at the menu, and plan your through-line.
Baked Halloumi comes sizzling, glazed in pomegranate molasses, sprinkled with dried wild oregano, dotted with pomegranate seeds. You ask for pita bread and by the time it arrives (lovely warm rounds in a cloth basket) the cheese has unfortunately cooled. Your bad. Still the sweet of the molasses plays wonderfully against the saltiness of the cheese and the wild oregano beguiles. Standard supermarket oregano wouldn’t cut it here. The pomegranate seeds loft this dish high. The pita should have come with this dish unasked.
Halloumi cheese with pomegranate molasses and pomegranate seeds.
It gets better though. The lamb ribs. The lamb ribs. The lamb ribs. No other ribs can ever own your heart after these. Yes, you may have a dalliance or two (you’re lustful after all, and have taken no vows) but these are best. To be brutally honest, they’re even better than those at Black Salt which you had thought, in your innocence, represented the apogee of ribdom. They’re pull-apart tender. They’re crisped (over charcoal?). There’s a sweet orange glaze. They’re salty. There’s thick, sharp, luscious yogurt to dip them in. You shudder with pleasure at this flavor profile, not dissimilar from the Halloumi, unctuous-charred-sweet-salty-lactic. The only other place you’ve experienced it so powerfully is at Machneyuda in Jerusalem, one of the world’s great restaurants.
Fabulous lamb ribs!
You’re a sucker for octopus (which is a play on words, by the way), but, alas, it falls far short. It is tender, true, and very fresh, in a lovely vinaigrette. But why isn’t it charred? This is perplexing because the picture at the website shows it this way and that’s how come you ordered it. Why is the portion so minuscule? The picture at the website shows much more oc. And the little bulgur cakes, while tasty, don’t seem to enhance the octopus at all. If anything, you could forget the octopus and just go with the cakes. It’s inexplicable. At 170 HKD this dish is an expensive disappointment.
Uncrisped, uncharred octopus, alas.
Redemption comes with cauliflower to make a wolf go vegetarian: roasted, caramelized, somehow unwilted, uplifted by tarragon, underlaid by that lovely thick yogurt. Its flavor profile echoes the Halloumi and the lamb.
Fabulous cauliflower!
You take a sip of water and make a mental note to order bottled next time. It tastes chemical and processed, the same as from your tap.
Ignoring forebodings (or, to be truthful, the direct instructions of your wife) you order dessert, Knafeh: a disk of melted mozzarella within shredded phyllo, soaked in sweetened orange blossom water, strewn with pistachio. It is heavy, oversweet, with an unidentifiable bitter element (an artifact of the blossom water?). You, of the clean-your-plate philosophy, eat it all and feel leaden. You wonder if a custard filling would have lightened it. Francis, how about an ice-cream finale instead? Halvah or pistachio or marron glace or pomegranate (or fennel?) popsicles (coated in chocolate!) come to mind as playful possibilities. You’re willing to consult at no charge.
Knafeh. Heavy. Weirdly bitter.
The bill was just shy 1400 HKD, more than you intended to spend. Almost half the bill was wine. Had you ordered a modest bottle (thankfully, there are a number) instead of going glass by glass, probably you would have shaved it to 1100 HKD. If you’d skipped dessert, as you should have, it would have come out at around 1000 HKD, a bit closer to the realm of sanity. To be fair, this is price average for comparable expat food in Hong Kong.
You know there are a number of other restaurants in Hong Kong that draw from the Middle-Eastern vernacular, though you haven’t eaten at any of them yet. They’ll have to be top of their game though to equal Francis. The food at Francis bears a linkage to the microbrew movement. Some years ago, brewers in the United States, dissatisfied with the flavorless generics pumped out by the major breweries, took a fresh look at what was being done. Applying passion, intelligence, knowledge, and creativity they reinvented beer with extraordinary flavor geared more to fewer people with discerning taste and less to many people with little taste. Barring a few missteps, Francis is to most Middle-Eastern food as a great craft IPA is to Heineken.
Rating (on a scale of 0 to 5)
Food: 4
Ambiance: 4.5
Service: 3
Overall Value: 3.5
FRANCIS
4 & 6 St. Francis Street, Wan Chai, Hong Kong