SML

It was raining today, so instead of being a decent human being and going for a run anyway, I wimped out and went to the gym to watch the finale of American Idol with the sound off. I did punish myself by doing 15 minutes on the treadmill and 3000m of rowing, but that isn't enough to compensate for watching Ricky Gervais smugly gurning at the cameras.

However, all this exercise gave me an appetite, so I ascended to the dizzying heights of the 11th floor of Times Square, where the SML restaurant takes up part of the Food Forum.¹

SML takes the novel approach of offering all its dishes in three sizes, so you can choose how large a portion you want. It's not entirely clear beyond that what sort of restaurant it aspires to be: it has embarrassingly named beverages like the Falling In Love (cranberry juice, lime and lemonade, which I failed to fall in love with), Greek salads without olives, and scads of pasta and risottos. And burgers, that mainstay of my diet.

I felt that rowing machine followed by burger two days on the trot could not be a good choice, so I had the mushroom risotto (a good meaty flavour, which coming from a vegetarian like me is a little disconcerting). That was good; my accompanying portion of vegetables and hummus was more odd than anything else; slivers of raw carrot are all well and good, but I don't understand why they have to be served in a glass full of ice cubes, nor why a small portion of hummus should be equal in volume to two large sneezes.

However, the staff were swift, food arrived quickly and the whole place was spacious and light, a peaceful oasis from the crowds bumbling around below us.

At 250 dollars for a large risotto, a drink of non-specific size  and a suspicion of hummus I wouldn't say it will be my number one hang-out for the rest of my time in Hong Kong, but if you have a group of people indecisive both about what they want to eat and how much of it, SML's quite a good option.

¹ My recent experience of forums has been on the internet, so I assumed the Food Forum would likewise be full of social inadequates, but no, just restaurants.