Located on the ground floor of CentreStage on Bridges Street, you can’t miss the new massive restaurant Oolaa, the latest venture by Castelo Concepts, the group behind other established Soho restaurants such as Wagyu, Cru and Jaspas. Oolaa is absolutely huge, with over 6000 square foot spread out over dining rooms, a bar area and an open kitchen. On a recent weekend, all 6000 square foot of the space was packed, giving the place the happening vibe of somewhere new and exciting, helped by the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that encase the restaurant and allow curious passerbys to peer in.
Food
Oolaa is an all-day dining venture and accordingly the menu is huge, with something for everyone. Although the size of the menu is impressive, the spelling mistakes that litter it is disconcerting. To start, the Cobb salad (spelt “cob”) will disappoint anyone who has ever tasted Wagyu’s excellent version. While it comes with a flavourful flame grilled beef, it is also missing avocado, bacon and blue cheese, three ingredients that are intrinsic to a Cobb salad. No amount of unevenly cut onions (some are slivers while others are veritable chunks) and peppers could make up for that. The other starter, the crispy duck tart (note that it is the tart that is crispy, not the duck) with spinach and lentils is marginally better, although any duck flavour is completely overwhelmed by a fruity balsamic jus. The mains are an improvement, with the blue swimmer crab lasagne with abalone sauce an unusual but delicious take on the traditional meaty tomato fest. It is a tad one-note in flavour and a kick of spice or a stronger herb such as cilantro might give it more depth. The “cracklin’” pork belly from the meat section comes with a delicious buttery sweet potato mash, but that is unfortunately the best part of the dish. The pork itself is full of flavour but dry and the skin is chewy and tough rather than crackling, as promised. The s’mores (spelt “smoores”) come deconstructed with crackers, a giant melted marshmallow and a bowl of chocolate sauce. Those whose childhood included s’mores will probably find Oolaa’s take nostalgic and charming, for others, it just seems like a sickly sweet concoction.
Wine
An extensive wine list featuring wines primarily from Australia, New Zealand, France and Italy. There are 10 whites and nine reds by the glass while the bottle section is helpfully separated by characteristics of the wine, for example “light-medium bodied and fruity” or “big n’ bold”.
Service
While the restaurant is still quite new, the staff need to familiarise themselves with the menu and ingredients more. Also, the large space means that it can be quite hard to get the staff’s attention.
Price
Dinner for two will be about HK$800 and up, excluding wine.
Promotions
There are currently no promotions available.
Dishes
Overview
Dress code
Casual
Breakfast hours 7.00am daily
Lunch hours Noon-3.00pm, 11.30am till late on Sundays
After a couple of drinks there last night, we considered staying for dinner but after seeing the menu we opted for the always excellent steak frites in Press Room. The menu offered standard Wagyu/Cru/Jaspas fare - over reaching and underwhelming. The bar however was good and would recommend as a place for drinks. Won't pass complete judgement until I've eaten there, but given the slim likelihood of that, I'm content to order Asahi draught.
Good wine-by-the-glass choice - particularly the 2007 merlot. Generous in size, excellent in texture and flavour - the carpaccio of wagyu beef. But the lamb shank needed at least another hour of slow cooking before its final warming (?by microwave rather than oven), the carrots firmer than al dente, redeemed to a small degree by sweet braised fennel and tasty dauphinoise. I would have liked to tell someone/anyone about the lamb dish, but no-one asked "how was your meal?" All a bit impersonal.
If you do not mind getting treated like dirt, go to this restaurant.
Their food is great, yummy tasty...amazing deco...but their staff is extremely rude and have no issues telling you off.
We had called the restaurant to make a reservation and a female staff answered telling us that no reservation could be made and we should just come on over and we can expect to get a table in 15 mins. We drove from Kowloon to HK side and upon arrival, we were told that the wait will be over 1 hour long. Due to the rain, people were not leaving their tables.
We had our 22-month toddler with us and there is no way we could have waited. We spoke to the manager, Aidan, and kindly requested he do something to help out (a table by the bar side) as we had called before coming and we have a little kid with us. He basically said that was not his problem, cursed and asked us to get the hell outta there.
This was not the first time we had been to Oolaa so it was shocking to get such treatment from the manager. He was clearly having a bad day but it was completely inexcusable behavior.
After informing the Oolaa HQ office about this incident, we get an email offering us a free meal!
So as i said, good food but just put some cotton balls in your ears as the manager can lash out on you anytime and apparently no one in the higher management will do or say anything to the staff and will simply offer you a free meal!
