Grand Central Bar & Grill - Degust The 1912 Titanic Menu

★★★☆☆

$$$

It's been a century since the tragic accident of the world's biggest and luxurious ship Titanic. The media is all about the Titanic, and so are the restaurants in Hong Kong. The Titanic menu is definitely a gimmick to attract customers, but I am interested to know what is on the Titanic Menu in 1912.  So I brought my friend to Grand Central Bar and Grill tonight to degust the once luxurious menu on the Titanic.

Grand Central Bar and Grill (GC) is located on the far end of the Civic Square at the Element, I have been to the area for quite a few times and the ambiance is guaranteed nice in there.

There are two floors in the GC, where the ground floor is a bar area and the first floor is the proper dinning area. There is al fresco tables on the ground floor, but it is less preferred under HK's boiling summer, so just forget it.  The furnishing was very modern with dark brown furnitures and bright lighting. There were intimates two person bar tables near the window and fancy floral sofa booths on the inside.

I was surprised there was no explicit promotions of the Titanic menu either through the table stand or the waitress. I had to ask the waitress myself to confirm if GC is really doing the Titanic Menu and requested for the menu. GC is currently serving two entrée from each of Titanic's first class and second class menu back in 1912. The highlighted courses in the picture below are the four entrée they are serving until May.

1912 Titanic First Class Menu

1912 Titanic Second Class Menu

We ordered some beer, oysters and appetisers before the anticipated Titanic entrée.

Young's Double Chocolate Strout $75 (7/10)

Easy to drink UK beer with light beer taste with 5.2% alcohol content. The beer had a lovely chocolate aroma and a light chocolate taste. Love it.

Tasmanian Oysters $180/6 (6/10)

The 6 Tasmanian oysters varied a lot in sizes and fatness. They were generally small, mildy sweet and not fishy at all. They tasted nice with a bit of lemon, cocktail sauce and vinegar, but was overall average.

Crab Cake with Pineapple Salsa $138 (10/10)

GC's crab cake looked like Japanese's croquette which also had a crispy outside. Instead of a creamy filling, the crabcake had crab meats which was fresh and moist. The Pineapple Salsa was very nice which add extra flavours to the crab cake. Although it tasted different from the usual crab cakes that I have had, I like this deep fries version too.

Sautéed Calamari with Chilli Marinara Sauce (6/10)

The Marinara Sauce (Italian tomato sauce with garlic and basil) was delicious and savoury. The Calamari had absorded the essence totally and was very flavourful. The texture of the Calamari was sadly on the soft side and not chewy enough. The portion was quite small even for the two of us.

On The Titanic First Class Menu -

Fillet Mignon with Organic White Bean Mash and Sautéed Greens $298 (3/10)

I burst into laugher when I saw the cabbage layered on my friends's supposingly Titanic First Class Fillet Mignon. I am sure there could be a nicer way to present the "greens" lol. The fillet mignon was as disappointing as its look, It was well cooked in medium rare but was full of tendons which was pretty hard to chew. There wasn't much beef flavour in the mignon too. The filler mignon was real bad, the only thing I like on the dish was the white bean mash which was mushy and flavourful.

On The Titanic Second Class Menu -

Chargrilled Lamb Chop with Ratatouille and Mint Sauce $248 (3/10)

My Second Class dish was definitely presented much nicer than my friends's First Class mignon lol.  The char-grilled lamp chop was placed nicely on a pool of ratatouille. I always expected ratatouille to be presented in a layered way as Julia Child did, but I have never actually seen one in restaurant myself yet. Anyhow, the ratatouille was nicely sautéed, savoury and not too soft in texture. The Lamp Chop on the other hand was quite some bad meat. It was slightly over burnt with bitter char taste and tasted bland. The texture was rather dry and there was also a lot of tendons in the meats making it hard to chew. There was no "Mint Sauce" on the plate, I had to take the lamp chop with the ratatouille sauce. 

On The Chocolate Menu Ended in May - 

Chocolate and Banana Toffee Tart with Chardonnay Passion Fruit Sauce $68 (10/10)

OMG, this dessert was heavenly scrumptious! Smooth fluffy whipped cream sprinkled with shaved chocolate, layered on sugary halved bananas and rich chocolate tart with a swirl of sour Chardonnay passion fruit sauce on the side, how lovely did it look! The sweetness of the chocolate tart and the sugary banana were well balanced with the lovely sourness from the passion fruit sauce. Imagine all those individual flavours lingered vividly on your palate, it was just too good! I want to give a 100 points out of 10 to honor this lovely tart.

Our Legendary Hot Chocolate Cake $75 (8/10)

The Legendary Hot Chocolate Cake was actually delicious too. The chocolate cake was moist and fluffy, the chocolate taste was not overly rich with a mild bitter taste, which balanced well with the sweet creamy vanilla ice-cream on top. However once the vanilla ice-cream was gone, I just left whatever amount of chocolate cake in the pot, it was pretty bitter to be taken by itself.

FINAL COMMENTS...

I would be pretty furious if I was the Titanic's chef a decade ago, knowing some chef in the modern days trying to replicate my menu, but making a total mess on the taste, texture and the presentation. Despite the 1912 Titanic menu, the appetisers and the desserts were actually not bad. I know I should not judge Grand Central Bar and Grill solely on the Titanic Menu, but I reckon a restaurant that screwed up the entrée could not be that nice a restaurant. I am not sure if I want to come back for dinner again since I don't think the Titanic Menu was that hard to manage, but I would definitely come back for desserts! Yummmm... Chocolate and Banana Toffee Tart!

DISHES RECOMMENDED

- Young Double Chocolate Strout

- Crab Cake with Pineapple Salsa

- Chocolate and Banana Toffee Tart with Chardonnay Passion Fruit Sauce

- Our Legendary Hot Chocolate Cake $75 (8/10)

Grand Central Bar & Grill
Shop R001, Roof Level, Civic Square, Elements, 1 Austin Road West,
Tsim Sha Tsui
☏ 2857-1333

Date of Dinning: 14 April 2012 (A Decade After Titanic Incident in 1912)