As I sat down and prepared to write something about the Ozone Bar I noticed that Joyce had just blogged about it. Bad. Why should I choose a topic that a NYT writer had just written about?
Me and the other three gang of four went to the newly-opened Ozone Bar yesterday. A fellow member of the gang managed to reserve a table in a quiet corner. (The place did not take reservations and I had no idea how he managed to reserve a table. Didn't ask.) As I was early I ordered a drink and went to the open-air deck. Before I reached the deck a waiter came to me and very politely asked for my credit card. Fine. Not an unreasonable practice given that people were moving around. When I was admiring the view from 480m above ground, the English gentleman to my right turned to me and identified himself as Keith McGregor, the author of An Eye on Hong Kong. He pulled out a MacBook Pro and showed me his work, which only got me to WOW, AH, OMG. One of the photos of which he was most proud was the one that he took less than two years ago from where we were. It was a stitched panorama of 28 photos of the Victoria Harbour that he took with a Nikon D3x from the top of ICC, which was then still under construction. "I just sold it to Mr.X [it sounded like someone I should know but, sorry, I did not register the name] for US$X". Shame that the Hong Kong Tourist Board did not buy it", he said. And he added, "It's not ordinary Photoshop stuff. The software cost me an arm and a leg and I spent many nights on it." We then chatted about photography, cameras, travelling, wine and old Hong Kong (he lived in Hong Kong for some years before the handover). Half an hour later my friends arrived and I returned to our table. A lovely little chat with an interesting man.
What about the Ozone? Service is good and the atmosphere is excellent. Food is so-so but the drink list is impressive. Not cheap but not as pricy as one may think. My only complaint is the elevator connecting the hotel lobby on 103/F and 118/F, where the bar is. It is tiny by any standard. And its high ceiling only serves to make it look more creepy. I can imagine that people with claustrophobia will refuse to walk into that elevator.
4 comments:
How busy is the bar? Is it overcrowded? Do you think that there will come a time in the (near) future when it will be less crowded/flavor of the month? Curious souls (or at least this one) would like to know pretty please! ;b
The place doesn't look very busy at the moment. I guess it will be a lot more crowded once the tenants of the ICC move in.
Thanks for linking to me!
How was the view the night you went? I took my husband and a work colleague and we saw NOTHING. It was like they pulled a gray curtain over the windows. And the outside deck was so foggy / smoggy that nobody bothered going out there.
YTSL -- We went on a Saturday evening, but early. We got a table without a reservation. And while it was reasonably busy, it wasn't packed full.
We had one of the relatively rare clear nights. Before dark, I could see the far away mountains in the Clear Water Bay peninsula from the deck. The place is well above fog line. Unless you want to get a feeling of what is like to live at the peak or top floors of The Summit (one of the two "chopsticks" near Adventist Hospital), don't bother to go on a rainy/cloudy day.
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