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Grand Stage
This wonderful place, with balcony and booth seating overlooking a huge dance floor in Western Market, features ballroom music and dancing at high tea ( to ) and/or dinner. The food is fine but come here primarily to kick your heels up.
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Greeny Grassland
The food here is nothing to write home about, but the ultra-friendly service is. Take a seat outside, enjoy some pasta (with soup and coffee for around HK$28 ) or the signature pork loin bun (around HK$10 ) and soak in the village charm.
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H One
The nameplate outside proclaims the restaurant 'the ultimate dining experience', and besides wood-fired pizzas, handcrafted pasta, handcrafted breads and specialities such as Wagyu beef cheek and roasted northern Thai style chicken massaged with tamarind and spices, there are also 'kick-ass curries' and 'dum dum biryani' and tandoori. Over-confidence aside, this glass-encased restaurant does offer the ultimate view.
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Habibi
Whether or not Habibi serves strictly authentic Egyptian food is a moot point - the halal food is very good and the setting is the Cairo of the 1930s - all mirrors, tassels, velvet cushions, ceiling fans and hookahs. Habibi's casual and takeaway section, Habibi Café (2544 3886, -midnight) in Shop A next door is a lot cheaper, with meze from around HK$25 to HK$58 , meze platters around HK$85 and a very affordable set lunch during the week.
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Heichinrou
This stylish Cantonese restaurant is arguably the most elegant eatery in what makes up the four-level Food Forum (floors 10 to 13) in the Times Square shopping mall. The dim sum (around HK$16 to HK$45 ) is excellent.
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Hemingway's
It may not exactly feel like Key West or Havana here, but when the weather is clear, this beachfront restaurant makes for a great escape. Try the BBQ jerked salmon (around HK$120 ) and the great cocktails.
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Hometown Teahouse
This wonderfully relaxed place run by an amiable Japanese couple serves lunch and dinner, but the afternoon tea - sushi (around HK$10 to HK$15 each), pancakes and tea - is what you should come for. It's convenient to Tung Wan Beach.
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Honeymoon Dessert
This place, serving Chinese desserts such as sweet thick walnut soup and durian pudding, has become so famous that some people drive in from town for it. Some former loyalists say standards have slipped in recent times, but others remain faithful. The business has since grown to include new locations such as Sheung Wan (2851 2606, Shop 4-8, G/F, Western Market, 323 Des Voeux Rd Central; hnoon-midnight; MTR Sheung Wan, exit C).
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Hunan Garden
This elegant place specialises in spicy Hunanese cuisine, which is often hotter than the Sichuan variety. The Hunanese fried chicken with chilli is excellent, as are the seafood dishes. Views, overlooking the harbour or into the heart of Central, are a bonus.
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Hutong
With the panoramic view of Hong Kong you'd feel like you're midair while eating here, and dishes such as wok-fried prawns with salty egg yolk and crab roe (around HK$190 ), and crispy de-boned lamb ribs in hutong style (around HK$250 ) would make you feel that way anyway. If you're adventurous, try the drunken raw crab.
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Hyang Chon Korean Restaurant
This somewhat expensive Korean restaurant attracts Korean expats and their friends with its authentic ginseng chicken and bibimbab, rice served in a sizzling pot topped with thinly sliced beef and cooked and preserved vegetables, which is then bound by a raw egg and flavoured with chilli-laced soy bean paste. Service is friendly and helpful.
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Indonesian Restaurant 1968
This erstwhile dive has recently got a much needed face-lift and has added the year of its founding to its name - just so you won't forget. The food? It still serves pretty authentic rendang, gado-gado and the like, with improved presentations but in considerably smaller portions. There's a Tsim Sha Tsui branch (2619 1926, 2-4A Observatory Rd) and a Sha Tin branch (2699 8777, Shop 701 in Shatin New Town Plaza Phase 1).
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Islam Food
If you fancy trying the cuisine of the Wui (Chinese Muslims), come here. Order the mutton with scallions on a hotplate, or minced beef with pickled cabbage stuffed into sesame rolls.
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Ivan The Kozak
Blinis and borscht is probably not what springs to mind when you're considering an ethnic dining experience in Hong Kong, but the food here - down-home dishes such as Ukrainian-style borscht, beef Stroganoff, stuffed cabbage rolls and vareniki (Ukrainian dumpling) - is surprisingly authentic and the décor cosy. There's live folk music nightly. Caviar goes for around HK$65 - HK$850 for 30 grams.
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Jaspa's
Jaspa's is an upbeat and casual place serving international and fusion food. Weekday set lunch is around HK$88 , and the all-day breakfast at the weekend is also a bargain.
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Jimmy's Kitchen
High on nostalgia and one of the oldest names in the game, Jimmy's, a Hong Kong feature for seven decades, rests on its laurels. The baked onion soup, char-grilled king prawns, seven-pepper steak and a whole medley of desserts (including its famous baked Alaska, around HK$58 per person) all compete for the diners' attention. There's a branch in Tsim Sha Tsui (2376 0327, 1/F, Kowloon Centre, 29-39 Ashley Rd).
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Jumbo Kingdom Floating Restaurant
The larger of two floating restaurants moored in Aberdeen Harbour and specialising in seafood, the Jumbo is touristy in the extreme and the food is so-so. The interior looks like Beijing's Imperial Palace crossbred with a Las Vegas casino; think of it as a spectacle - a show - and you'll have fun. There's free transport for diners from the pier on Aberdeen Promenade. Dim sum is served from to on Sunday.
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Kin's Kitchen
Opened by artist and gourmand Lau Kin-wai, who was behind the opening of private kitchen Sichuan Cuisine Da Ping Huo, this unassuming restaurant is so painstaking in choosing its ingredients that the waiter can tell you why the chef needs to source a chicken from a particular region. The signature smoked chicken (half/whole around HK$180 to HK$360 ) needs to be booked a day in advance, and you will know why when it melts in your mouth.
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Koh-I-Noor
Fine Indian cuisine with sophisticated presentation and service is what you get here, as well as sophisticated prices. The most expensive dish is the leg of lamb (around HK$300 ), great for sharing. But the weekday vegetarian/meat lunch-time buffet is a steal at around HK$55 , while biryani dishes are around HK$62 . There are branches around town, including in Tsim Sha Tsui and Tai Koo Shing; prices may be a little lower at those locations.
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Korea House Restaurant
Korea House, in situ since 1965, is known for having some of the most authentic Korean barbecue, kimchi and appetisers (side dishes to a BBQ sizzled at your table) in Hong Kong, and is always filled with Korean expats - the ultimate stamp of approval. Enter from Man Wa Lane.
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Kowloon City Thai Restaurants
Kai Tak airport may have shut down in 1998, but the neighbourhood of Kowloon City to the northeast of Tsim Sha Tsui is still worth a journey. This is Hong Kong's Thai quarter, and the area's restaurants are the place for a tom yum and green-curry fix. Kowloon City, packed with herbalists, jewellers, tea merchants and bird shops, is worth a postprandial look around.
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Kung Tak Lam
This long-established place, which serves Shanghai-style meatless dishes, has more of a modern feeling than most vegetarian eateries and is usually packed out. All the vegetables are 100% organic and dishes are free of MSG.
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Kyozasa Restaurant
For an izakaya experience, this colourful and cosy Japanese restaurant is as close as you'll get in Hong Kong. It has a menu that extends from sushi to steaks via hotpots. There are reasonably priced set lunches. And unlike Gomitori (2367 8519; Shop LG5, Lower ground fl, Energy Plaza, 92 Granville Rd), it does not discriminate - they treat you the same whether you're Japanese or not.
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L16
The Thai food here is not the most authentic - a jaded palate might even find the tom yum and pomelo salad lacking in heat - but it's the location and the sophistication that will get you through the door. Besides, there is another restaurant inside this restaurant. A branch of Zen, an upscale Cantonese restaurant whose Admiralty flagship draws quite a crowd, takes up the inner space. Soya marinated chicken would be highly recommended.
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La Kasbah
La Kasbah is a Frenchified Maghreb caravanserai serving dishes from Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, which effectively means meze and tajine or couscous. It's good stuff but expensive for what it is. The bar, Medina, is open til .
