ABC KITCHEN

It's possibly the first fine Italian restaurant in Hong Kong's Cooked Food Market. The ABC Kitchen, the initials for A Better Cooking Kitchen in Sheung Wan’s Queen St. Market is owned and run by two former staff of the award winning restaurant, M at the Fringe.

As you might imagine, the area inside the Cooked Food Market is not as spacious as other Italian restaurants and there are only around 4-5 large tables in this small venue. Given the limited number of seats, reservations are highly recommended to secure a place there as it gets very full during lunch or dinner time.

Once you enter the Cooked Food Market, you can easily recognize ABC Kitchen with its red and white checkered table cloth which singles their territory out from other surrounding restaurants. While the atmosphere in the food court is a little lacking for a refined Italian meal and the menu is rather limited, the food makes up for it as it is both delicious and reasonably priced. Today, we had the famous Home Made Bread with Butter for starters which was served and toasted hot. It was crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. Together with the appetizing flavors of the herbs, the bread was the perfect choice as a starter.

The La Bouillabaisse was rich with ingredients such as fish, seared scallops, clams, cherry tomatoes and onions. It was a relatively light dish with simple seasoning. Inspired from the three colors of Italy’s national flag, the Margherita Pizza was made of red tomatoes, green herbs and white mozzarella cheese. All these matched with one another very well. We love the strong taste of cheese. As for the Pan Fried Foie Gras, it was smooth and sided with Passiflora foetida which has been doused with honey.

The most anticipated part of the whole meal was the Roasted Suckling Pig. Its the signature dish of ABC Kitchen for its splendid texture and taste. It was crispy outside but tender inside. The whole baby pig was served on a plate and cut into three to four parts. The crackling was thin, crispy and totally devoid of fat. Together with the tender and succulent piece of pork, no wonder this dish becomes the must-try item of the restaurant.

Another dish we tried was Mushroom Risotto which was topped with cheese and mozzarella. Its taste and texture was a bit too soft, but it tasted better with more black pepper and salt. The Linguine with Clams in Cream Sauce was worth a try as well, with its light cream sauce and healthy serving of fresh clams. Its seasoning matched perfectly well with the ingredients and make the dish a perfect choice for seafood lovers. 

Also worth remarking are the desserts. Everyone there goes for the Sticky Toffee Pudding with Vanilla Ice Cream and its perfectly understandable once you've tried it. It was soft and tender but not too sweet. Even if you are not really into desserts, you might not be able to resist this tasty treat. The Crème Brulee however was a bit disappointing as it was neither smooth nor blended with enough eggs. Generally speaking, ABC Kitchen is an excellent venue for a special dining experience. It has a unique indoor dai pai dong ambience, warm service and quality gourmet food at affordable prices.