Bo Innovation. The 3-star playground of Alvin Leung.
Within these cerulean walls, the demon chef preys on your darkest foodie fantasies. The food is all the culinary debauchery you can imagine plus a little more.
The bread course is the first to touch the table, and it lands suspiciously, street-food Egg Puffs peeking from a paper bag. The sweet dessert becomes a savory ham sandwich with chives and the legendary Yunnan pork.
The first course of Corn is elote in gestalt. A pudding-cream glues the kernels into sweet surrender, and a gentle flash of Pat Chun vinegar highlights the corn.
Clever. You experience the meticulous arrangements before you even taste the food. Prepare for your next dish from your pull-out drawer of silverware. It creates a strangely significant sense of autonomy, the ability to select your own utensils without relying upon the swiftness of a server.
Watch the lights flicker on under a powerful vial of shrimp oil.
See it, breathe it in as it sweeps across each preparation of Brittany Lobster. Let the floppy slices of shaved truffle fold over each morsel of sweet lobster meat and slivery tartare.
The oil brightens the lobster with fishy umami notes, and the creamy whipped potatoes add a slip of silk to the texture. Resist the temptation to eat everything separately - the collaboration of flavors turns exceptional unimaginable.
A Hokkaido Scallop. Tender and meaty, soft but mighty. The peas are along a similar vein, and their sugar submits to the Shanghai vinegar.
Let the Foie Gras awaken your list for the liquid liver. Charcoal mantou encase and isolate the fat, making room for the structured theme of the bamboo. Add pomelo pulp for contrast.
The plating honors its purpose as the scaffolding that built the city.
You can’t look away from these, the X-treme XLB. A fragile yolk of seaweed houses a savory broth within. The wrapper is thin and slick, and it easily gives in your mouth. The bubble bursts to and your mouth fills with porky soup.
An imperial cup carries a palate cleanser of juices pea flower, a dash of citrus, and a dab of mou tai. The green creates a refresher that gives finishes both gentle and lush.
A supple block of Haida Gwaii Black Cod lounges across mushroom cliffs, waiting under an umbrella of Iberico ham. Almonds add a little nutty savor, and they sail across pork broth sea.
The Suckling Pig Leg will make you feel dirty despite its skin so clean. The skin is so crisp it splits without shearing, and the white meat of the leg simply floats away on your tongue.
There’s a sharp salad of raw greens in a spunky vinaigrette when your palate needs a reset.
And there’s a red-hot roasted pineapple with Sichuan peppercorns when you need to be more seduced.
A chicken bowl for the Chicken Rice. A ricey soup or a soupy rice? It tastes like risotto but they use no cheese or cream.
Dried abalone and dried foie gras are shaved on top at tableside.
No Shark Fin.
They found some agar strips to approximate the texture. It’s gelatinous and stringy, like jelly vermicelli, a humane dessert I can eat with zero guilt.
Even their post-dinner Jasmine Tea is transforming.
The pod blooms as the tea steeps.
Bo Innovation is as seductive as it is fascinating. This tasting menu scratches an itch so deep you didn’t know you had it, and it opens a world of flavor and skill the likes of which you’ve never seen. This kitchen cooks up a powerful combination of everything I’ve ever loved: science, food, and fat.
