Busy Suzie

There are many new restaurants along the Canton Road in TST. Busy Suzie is one of the few with interesting interior while serving you high quality Japanese food. Located in 1881 Heritage and designed by Patrick Gilles and Dorothée Boissier, this place is a circular space on plan, with tables and sofa seating on one side, bar table and cooking area on the other side. The dark color scheme mixed with light wood, bamboo and sand materials creates a moody and modern ambiance that certainly reminds people of a contemporary Japanese style.

Food is all made from excellent materials imported directly from Japan. Their signature dishes are robatayaki, and here you can talk to chefs, who all come from Japan, when they are preparing your dishes.

Today we came here for lunch, and with just HKD350 you can enjoy a lunch buffet set. You can order anything you want, and have a complimentary drink (coke, ulong tea or sake). Yes, this restaurant is famous for its expensive food, but this lunch set is certainly a good deal.

First came the complimentary abalone and fish sashimi, followed by foie gras and beef robatayaki.

The oyster and mushroom tempura were not oily at all, and the latter one was especially well done.

After having a second round of foie gras, we also had some robatayaki of scallop, sea snail, tiger pawn, cod and eel.

We ordered a softshell crab roll, thinking that it would be something like a handroll, which ended up to be just a simple sushi roll.

The robatayaki asparagus and squid were nice. Grilled vegetable is not easy to do because once overcooked it will be very dry.

Finally it is the dessert. The matcha ice-cream was great, but the yuzu jelly was even better with its refreshing flavour.

Overall the robatayaki was fantastic but the menu lacked creativity and surprises. Yes, the food was fresh and the chefs' skills were excellent, but I guess the chefs can do more by combining different types of food to create interesting dishes. The high price is also another problem. While it is nothing wrong to target rich customers, some of the items are just unreasonably expensive to me. A little pudding costs HKD100? That sounds too much like a ripoff instead of a high-end dish.

However, this lunch buffet is certainly very attractive to many people, as you can try so many different kinds of robatayaki at such an affordable price. Perhaps you have a lot to spend and choose to come here at night, but I would say, save some money by coming at noon. It is really a bargain, and remember, just stick to the buffet and don't order any more a la carte.