Posted by
maz27
18 yrs ago
A friend told me yesterday that she read Bruce's column in HK magazine saying Jimmys Kitchen was being taken over by Igors Group? Did anyone else remember this?
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I can tell you that rumour is totally false. Plus Bruce Dawson no longer writes for HK Magazine. Thanks
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where's he gone? I enjoyed reading his articles!
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maz27
18 yrs ago
Thanks Igors Group for letting me know. I'm a great fan of Igors Group restaurants so bit disappointed really.
I too enjoyed reading Bruce's column!
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Thank god he has gone ! sorry, have to disagree with you. His reviews, and opinions were very biased. I often wondered if he had a share in Zest restaurant he mentioned it nearly every month. I have found that the reviews done in HK magazine to be very poor. The reviewers, in my humble opinion, would not know decent food, or service if their lives depended on it. I have just stopped reading them
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I have to agree with Sandie - Bruce Dawson was one of THE WORST reviewers I have ever come across.
I come from Melbourne and work in the HK Hospitality industry, as does my husband (and no, he didn't give our restaurants bad reviews!) and when we arrived in HK we were gobsmacked to read his uneducated, sarcatic drivel. We were then not surprised to see him staggering around town making a general fool of himself on a regualr basis. He came to my restaurant to "research the menu", ordered 2 glasses of wine and then became offended when the staff gave him a bill for it!! I truly believe most of the reviews were based on how much each restaurant sucked up to him.
Now he has gone the reviews are not much better - generally one sided, unbalanced and one dimensional. I loved one from the other week - they complained about a carpaccio dish - the comment was that they thought carpaccio meant raw (the dish in question was served as cooked finely sliced meat). Carpaccio means thinly sliced!! When you have reviewers that can't be bothered to get their facts straight - what's the point!?
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maz27
18 yrs ago
Well I have learnt a lot reading your comments. I really appreciate your time. I shall now think differently about the reviews in the magazine.
Vantastic, I agree with you about people's food tastes over here. Friends have raved about restaurants and when I've gone there I wonder what was so great.
My husband and I are great foodies and love trying new foods/recipes from various countries and are fortunate enough to have a wonderful filipina helper who is a brilliant cook and has cooked some fav. dishes of ours better than we have done so for that reason we don't eat out a great deal as we too are always very disappointed with the quality, the quantity and the price!!
We're going to Jimmy's Kitchen tonight for a leaving dinner of some friends of ours, I'm not getting excited about it, more worried about the cost. Hope I may be surprised.
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Carpaccio was invented by Giuseppe Cipriani in 1950 at Harry's Bar in Venice, Italy. It was named for the Renaissance painter Vittore Carpaccio who was noted for his use of red in his paintings. Thin sliced raw beef served with a cold vinaigrette made with olive oil, or just olive oil and lemon juice (and sometimes Parmesan cheese). Generally served on a bed of greens such as watercresss, endive, arugula and/or radicchio.
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Ed
18 yrs ago
http://www.supermondays.com/
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RachRobin > I completely agree with you on this. I too am in the F&B industry and for the life of me cannot understand how Bruce Dawson qualifies to be a food writer, except for being a chef.
I remember when he came to the opening of one of my bars and he was telling me how my c*cktail list was really drab because it only featured all the classics - proper martinis, gimlets, whiskey sours etc. Good classic drinks that were easy to pump out (we do incredibly well in a tiny tiny space) and that are coming back into fashion again. He said we needed to use more exotic ingredients and marry food ingredients into c*cktail - on of his suggestions, habenero (sp?) martinis - yes, great for getting press coverage - but would it sell in my bar? Anyway, he never did end up writing a review - guess he couldn't remember any of the details....
Oh and if any journalist comes in uninvited (ie. i'm not hosting) and expects free drink/food, i do to give it to them, get them to sign the bill, and promptly mail it to their editor/publisher along with a quick note on journalistic integrity.
Does anyone know which restaurant he works for now as i would love to review his food.
Igor - Although i believe he works as a chef full time now, he still pens a column for HK Magazine on a regular basis.
Carpaccio > Although the original meaning refers to a dish of thinly sliced beef, the term 'carpaccio' can generally be used to describe anything thinly sliced. Just a few weeks ago i had Carpaccio of Buffalo Mozzarella with vine ripened tomato pesto. Pesto also originally refers to a paste made from basil, pesto, pine nut etc. but it can also be used to describe pastes made from other ingredients. This was served at an Italian consulate function catered by Cipriani.
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maz27 ~ I've sent you a PM, would be interested to hear your comments, thanks.
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Thanks Ilovecc,
Great idea about sending the bill to the publisher - I guesss if it happened more that would have occurred to me. Most reviewers (and there seem to be a lot around!) seem to have the manners and common sense to simply pay as they go - I guess most of the professional ones have an expense account or company credit card for that purpose.
I am shocked to learn BD is/was a chef - I thought he was simply a professional alcoholic with a laptop.
I agree with the above comments on carpaccio - it may mean raw to most people in the traditional sense, but I have worked with menus that include carpaccio of zucchini (see The River Cafe in London) and recently carpaccio of pineapple in a dessert dish (this was in Italy!)
The restaurant I work in was opened last March. Before it opened it was a completely different style/cuisine restaurant and was gutted, renovated and reopened by different owners in March. In the past 2 months, HK MAG has listed this previous restaurant 3 TIMES as a 'place to go' - a place that has not existed for 9 months. A simple case of 'cut and paste from last year's article'? 3 times?
What makes me upset is there is such a high expectation of restaurants (and rightly so) from the dining public, but not enough of a high expectation of the quality of the reviews they read and base their opinions on. A bad review can make or break a place if it is just starting out.
Its good to see there are a few people out there that see through it......
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A friend of Sandie's,
As a F&B hospitality professional working in Hong Kong for nearly ten years. I have to say I think the issue is bigger than Bruce Dawson, you are right he has no clue and his reviews are clouded by poor industry knowledge and his over zealous refreshment intake.
Hong Kong is a joke, over priced, poorly constructed food concepts with normally very bad service standards not to mention the absymal hyienge standards.
It seems that the local populas and the influx of visiting tourists build up a terribly complacent attitude amongst the hundreds of restaurants and bar owners in Hong Kong.(Is it build it and they will come syndrome, ie, feild of dreams)
With more F&B outlets opening and less staff to do the the job I fear it will only get worse, most of all the operating restaurants are run by people with little experiance or no experiance and no personality.
When you are paying top dollar who needs it? if you ask me more dinner parties with great wine and friends is way forward.
Granted there are some gems out there, with people working hard to live their dreams, which brings me back to our friend BD good or bad it should be not one man's opinion that can ultimately destroy the reputation of a bar or restaurant, in my opinion I'm glad BD is not rocking the wok anymore.
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Hi, Rach-Robin, Vantastic.
I have to agree with you, especially on the ""Americanized'' Italian food, postively disgusting. I see huge vats of tomato sauce, which covers just about everything, one taste thruout, and a vast over use of fake parmesan cheese, and plastic mozzarella.
To my mind, to be a good, non biased, reviewer, you need some background in the food industry, and a love of food, and know something about the cuisine on offer, its not good enough to just say, for example that Belgian food is heavy and un- interesting, as one restaurant reviewer stated recently. One needs to look at the varying regions, from the coast to inland. Not all Italian food is pasta, the Northern regions utilize, Polenta and Rice for example. Not all Spanish food is just based on tapas.
I am fortunate in having a decent kitchen, so I vote with my wallet, and just stay home, I can cook better than most of the ''chefs'' the service..... well, it would depend on how many wines I have had during dinner ! but will be better than most restaurants here !
Here is hoping that HK Magazine, The South China Morning Post are reading this, and take some notes !
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Have to agree. I learnt from living all over the world, and although at times, some items can be hard to source here, some substitutions that some restaurants use are just bizarre. The few private kitchens I have visited, are in my opinion for people that have no knowledge of that cuisine, and therefore have not a clue on how its supposed to be done. One particular Italian themed place, has totally confused vongole with mussels, called the dish vongole, and delivered mussels, and told me, thats vongole ! For once, I was speechless !
C'est la vie ! keep cooking at home ! your ricotta cheese dish sounds fabulous !
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Dear ilovecc,
Bruce Dawson left HK Magazine and continued to write the column for a few months, however, he has now completed ceased writing for them. He is now writing for Beats Magazine, sorry Mr Cynical.
Thanks
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maz27, thank you for your support. For more information about our outlets, please visit our website www.igors.com
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lace
18 yrs ago
Back to the original question, Jimmy's Kitchen has been taken over by the Epicurian group - as well as the 97-group Mozartstubn and Le Tire Bouchon.
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