French Restaurant Bistro du Vin in Hong Kong

One really can overdose on Cantonese cuisine when visiting Hong Kong. While it may just be the best Chinese food you’ve ever tasted (just try and stop yourself from devouring suckling pig and roast goose for breakfast, lunch and dinner) HK offers a wild and wonderful variety of global cuisine. From Joël Robuchon to Nobu, the worlds creme de la creme culinary bravados have set up shop to rave reviews.

So it was a pleasant surprise after spending a long day touring around the city we found ourselves standing on the curb and staring up at one of the cities newest French restaurants. We had arrived in the “up and coming” food district of Kennedy Town and would spend that evening swapping Peking Duck for rillettes, crispy suckling pig for confit choucroute.

We skipped into Bistro du Vin, past the restaurants petite bar and into a quaint and cozy dining room featuring sky high walls covered in French-vintage-everything. The Chinese, especially those who call Hong Kong home have an unbridled penchant for anything French. J’adore fine fabrics, Chanel to Vuitton, vino sipping Bordeaux to Burgundy. So you can imagine it was no shocker to watch this cozy little Parisian bistro hustling and bustling throughout dinner service.

After plopping ourselves around a table we immediately began to lather bread generously with cold butter, delightfully salty crunch with cream. The feast started with pork terrine, duck pate and rillettes followed by spoon swoons a la french onion soup. Meat of the moment featured a crispy suckling pig leg confit, braised lamb shank in tomato sauce and braised beef cheeks with potatoes fourchette.

While we all started to grumble at the table about having almost eaten ourselves to death we magically found room to endure one more round. The most memorable of the dishes that evening would be a Grand Marnier Souffle. Each of us had a perfectly browned and crispy souffle placed under our noses. We eagerly cracked each bloom with a small spoon. A boozy plume, a twirl of sweet vanilla ice cream and “the feast was fini.”

The Feast:

Pork Terrine, Duck Pate, Duck Rillettes

Cheesy Onion Soup

Crispy Suckling Pig Leg Confit, Choucroute

Braised Lamb Shank with Tomato Sauce

Braised Beef Cheeks with Potatoes Fourchette

Grand Marnier Souffle with Vanilla Ice Cream