Chesa

Day 1. We decided to go to our favourite restaurant Chesa for our CNY's Eve dinner.The place was renovated a while ago but they made sure everything looks the same as before. We felt right at home as soon as we walked into the cosy dining room.

We were greeted with a basket of freshly baked bread after we ordered. We find it welcoming as a basket of bread is hard to come by these days. Instead we find we often get asked to pick from the waiter's basket and end up just pointing at whatever. Call me old-school but I think it's a crime to do that unless you're on an airplane.

My starter: salade de cervelas à l'Appenzelloise (HK$160) - very poncey sounding but I assume it's comfort food. If they make salad like this I will be having salad everyday! I love the pickled carrots and cucumber. The sausages were similar to Vienna sausage and the Appenzeller cheese was very rich and sharp.

My husband had the Raclette du Valais (HK$115), with gerkins and pickled onions on the side. He said it was simple but nice. The cheese smelled rightly like feet. :-)

I had the filet de bœuf américan poêlé, ravioli aux champignons et deux sauces(HK$330). The texture of the beef was tender and juicy but lacked taste. It just didn't taste like beef at all for some reason. The two sauces were interesting but the winner was the ravioli. I believed they were filled with porcini mushrooms (could be mushroom cooked in a very tasty stock reduction though). They were divine. For what you get though I thought the dish was a little over-priced.

Hubby had the jarret de porc salé et lard croustillant, choucroute au Champagne (HK$250). The pork was tender and flaky: fall-off-the-bone kind of way.

We shared the fondue au chocolat Lindt aux fruits selon saison (HK$95). It was all good.

After the nice bread and everything the petits fours were uninspiring. As usual I just poked one without eating it. We decided to make a move as the joint at that point was starting to smell like a fish and chip shop + stinky feet with all the fondues cooking at the tables next to us. Why didn't they sort out the ventilation I wonder?

Overall a very pleasant dining experience. The service was spot on and unpretentious. Reasonably priced wine list (lots of GOOD half bottles) and we felt like the meal was definitely good value for the buck. In this instance if it wasn't for the smell we would have stayed longer and perhaps move on to dessert wine. In hind sight we are glad we didn't as we were pleasantly trashed as it was after 2 gins and one and a half bottle of wine later. For once we didn't go OTT!

Chesa

2/F, Peninsula Hong Kong

Salisbury Rd, Kowloon, Hong Kong. Tel: 2315-3169