Visited 8th July 2008
The options of what you can do on a Hong Kong public holiday are pretty limited. Masses of liberated punters make any remotely popular spot a no go zone; Causeway Bay, Mong Kok, TST and any shopping mall are definitely too crowded to be considered. HKSAR Establishment Day is such a renowned public holiday we thought lunch at Sai Kung with a few mates might be a workable solution to escape the hoards of rampaging merrymakers. Jaspas was pretty busy but we'd booked and got a nice table outside facing the busy square. There are als
o branches of this ever popular restaurant at Happy Valley and Soho.The menu is usual assortment of western dishes - a mix of salads, pasta, pizza, grills with a couple of Mexican and Indian options thrown in. We began by sharing a serve of Quesadillas; the crispy little pockets filled with chicken and cheese were a tasty start. For my main I went old school and ordered surf 'n' turf. The steak came topped with a single giant prawn, chips, three chunks of grilled vegetable and a little gravy boat filled with 'mushroom'; my sauce selection. The steak was well cooked and flavoursome, the prawn lovely though lonely and the sauce a gluggy goop that reminded me of packet gravy. While the chips were good I was disappointed by the lack of decent salad or vegetables. Naomi's beef fajitas consisted of a hotplate of beef, capsicum and undercooked onion, flour tortilla, and bowls of guacamole, salsa and sour cream. While the serve was generous, she also lamented the lack of salad and would have liked at least a little lettuce or tomato to accompany the pile of meat.
There was nothing to fault about Jaspas, but nothing really excited me either. It's the sort of place that reminds me of numerous other restaurants around Hong Kong; the foods decent, the service professional, but the menu uninspiring. My meal was tasty enough, not really exceptional value at $175, the bottles of cold Sol we were drinking clocked in at reasonable $35 each and the whole bill was wrapped up in usual 10% service charge. Oh, one more thing. Jaspas is a restaurant, it's for people. A dog is a dog, not a person. A dog should not wear clothes. A dog should certainly not sit at a table in a restaurant, wearing clothes and eating from a plate. Sure it's OK to leave out a bowl of water, but a restaurant that allows dogs eat off the same crockery as guests while sitting in seat is the sort of restaurant I won't visit again. Jaspas get rid of the dogs.
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2 comments:
most certainly would take my dog there if i were living in hk still! its so unfair that dogs are not allowed at restaurants here in Vancouver!
Hi
The debate about dogs in restaurants is certainly interesting. I love dogs and one of the first things I'll do when I move back to Australia (and have more room) will be to buy a Border Collie puppy.
I also like the idea of dog friendly cafes and pubs. Venues that provide bowls of doggy’s drinking water and shady places for dogs to sit certainly get a tick of approval from me. I however hesitate when I see dogs sitting inside, sitting at tables and eating off the same cutlery and crockery as their owners. Surely this has to be unhygienic and an imposition on those customers who aren't as fond of dogs?
Cheers
Andrew
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