On Dining - Pigeon Perfection

Roasted pigeon, artichokes, baby spinach & lemon chutney at On Dining

On Dining* is the Upper Modern Bistro crew's second restaurant, a larger (2-storey) and slightly more upscale restaurant and bar in Central, in the same building as Arcane (which is also excellent).

I'd read a couple of times on my friend's blog Diary of Growing Boy about ON's pigeon, so that's basically why we were here. Oh, that, and we were celebrating a birthday.

But more on the pigeon in a second, let's do this chronologically.

Spicy beef & tuna tartare, Parmesan crisps

Having recently had amazing beef tartare with oyster creme, this beef + seafood combo was quick to get my attention. The textures were good - fine, chunky but not too much - and it had a nice cool temperature (I have a fear of overly cold tartare), although sometimes I had difficulty differentiating what was what. Is that a good thing?

Roasted duck Apicius

This duck for two was my parents' main course. The service was in two parts - the breasts were carved out first, then the duck was returned to be cooked further (since breasts cook more quickly) and the legs are brought out.

Roasted pigeon, artichokes, baby spinach & lemon chutney

The pigeon was the star of the show. You can choose full or half a bird - I went for half and it was just right. I love poultry, game birds in particular, so I've had a lot of pigeon in my time. This is, in recent memory, one of the best I've ever had. Perfect doneness - it was medium rare and well rested - and whatever sauce or glaze they put on it is just magical. Most of said magic was from the superbly well-managed caramelisation - it looks just a little darker than typical "golden brown", but it most certainly was not burnt.

Solliès figs, black currant, saffron ice cream

We had a few tiny warm chocolate cakes (excellent) from the bar menu for dessert - which they kindly comped us as we were celebrating a birthday, but we also ordered this simple dish of figs...

Cheese platter

... and of course cheese.

*Totally unrelated, and none of my beeswax, but whoever insisted on the name "ON" really needs to spend some time in 2015 using Google.

On Dining kitchen & lounge
29/F, 18 On Lan Street,
Central,
Hong Kong
+852 2174 8100
Lunch & dinner daily