Bedu launches a festive turkey menu with a twist
Christmas is coming and along with it a flurry of turkey-based dining options across Hong Kong.
However, this early in the festive season I wasn’t feeling quite up to the full roast potato and Brussels sprouts extravaganza and so it was a delight to receive an invitation to review a seasonal menu with a twist.
Bedu, the Middle Eastern specialist dining spot on SoHo’s Gough Street, has welcomed a new chef this month. And he has set to work creating a deliciously creative Festive Chef’s Menu.
Bedu falls under Hong Kong’s Meraki hospitality group and takes its dining inspiration from the cuisines of Persia, Jordan and Turkey. The restaurant’s moniker is a derivation of Bedouin, the name for the nomadic Arab tribes that hail from the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East.
Ali Ahmadpour, who has taken up position as head chef at Bedu, most recently held responsibility for Middle Eastern cuisine at Shangri-La’s Barr Al Jissah hotel in Muscat. Iranian by birth, Ahmadpour had previously worked his way up through the industry via some of Iran’s most popular kitchens.
Ravenous from a day of meetings and a steep climb to Gough Street from Queen’s Road, both myself and The Bloke were keen to tuck-in.
Proceedings began with a presentation by the wait staff of the Bedu spice box – aromatic sumac, baharat, za’atar, dukkah, saffron and smoked paprika are all ingredient staples at this dining hotspot.
Taste buds sufficiently whetted, we were presented with a colourful plate of dips and a pile of fluffy flatbreads warm from the oven. The lentil hummus was the standout for me, closely followed by the beetroot labneh. The Bloke happily mopped up the chickpea hummus and tzatziki.
We then moved on to the most divine slice of creamy baked goat’s cheese encased in a filo pastry, oozing with honey and scattered with crispy potato.
Next up were two jet-fresh oysters with crushed pickled apple and then two incredible Persian meatballs in a delicately spiced shakshuka sauce. The moorish meatballs were so fragrant that the guy on the neighbouring table immediately summoned the wait staff for his own dish. (Ahmadour confided to us later in the evening that he’d used his mother’s special recipe).
Feeling fairly sated by now, we moved onto the main dish of turkey tagine with Moroccan apricot sauce served with fattoush salad (think lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, radishes and mint) and roasted Bedu spiced vegetables. The steaming tagine was beautifully cooked, the turkey falling apart as we forked up delicious mouthfuls.
Feeling that perhaps I couldn’t manage a pud as well, I spied Ahmadour approaching our table to personally deliver a serve of Baghlava, an Iranian take on baklava with filo pastry, pistachios, caramelised banana and cream, and felt it would be rude not to attempt at least a mouthful. Of course, once you’ve started on such a confection it’s very difficult to stop and soon our final plate was licked clean.
Bedu commands a delightful spot in SoHo, a perfect people-watching spot at the bottom of Shing Hing Street with an open-air frontage that makes the most of this cooler time of year. And with a host of delectable dishes to boot, it should be top of every Hong Konger’s autumn dining bucket list.
The Festive Chef’s Menu is available from today, priced $520 per person. Bedu, 40 Gough Street, Central, bedurestaurant.com.
