喜喜冰室 The Match Box
25/02/2010
銅鑼灣Fashion Walk加寧街8號地下2B舖
Shop 2B, G/F, 8 Cleveland Street, Fashion Walk, Causeway Bay
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/a-new-old-neighbour-at-cleveland-road-e2065497
When I first saw pictures of the chicken pie in the middle of green pea soup, I thought it was interesting, same with the banana and walnut pancakes. I was not sure what type of restaurant it would be.
The restaurant is newly opened hence not many reviews on it so far. I was guessing it would be a Chinese café trying to be Western because it calls itself “bing sut” similar to Star Café, I was expecting that type of food to be served, yet the pictures of pie and pancakes were totally different to that sort of food.
It is located in Cleveland Street where all the high-end street level restaurants are, so I thought it was a bit out of place before I went.
When I got there, there was already the media there doing an interview so decided to dine there later.
From the outside, it doesn’t look like vintage Hong Kong, however there was a cute section where it sells soft ice creams on cones, egg tarts, hot dogs for passers by.
The restaurant's name sign is very neonlistic and changes colour.
Went there later and sat down, was greeted by some ancient song, the other songs were not so irritating, but because of the song I noticed the décor and the staff uniform that this place was trying to imitate old Hong Kong.
I was not sure if the food was old style, but they had sugar cubes which was fun putting it in the drink.
They had beef tea too, I was puzzled what it was, then I realised it was BOVRIL!!!!
I had that same familiar feeling again with all Chinese café’s, the chinese menu, one of them had English so it was ok.
For food, the prices were slightly higher than the usual Chinese cafés, which makes sense being in the neighbourhood of Cleveland road and Kingston road.
However if you thought you found a cheap place by avoiding the other high end restaurants, this is NOT the average Chinese Café but one with EXCELLENCE!!!
Ordered the set with chicken pie in pea soup and banana pancakes, and the roast pork, fried egg with rice.
Chicken pie in pea soup:
Very wholesome soup with green peas and pulses, that is not too salty or strong.
The chicken pie was better than I expected, the pastry was crumbly with chicken, ham and mushroom inside it.
I was given ketchup, but I don’t really put ketchup with my pies unless they are tasteless, in the end I signed my name on the edge of the plate with ketchup and had it with the pastry.
Roast pork, fried eggs and rice:
The eggs were fried perfectly and runny in the centre, and the soy sauce was rich and thick, but not bitter like the soy sauce served with Hainan chicken. The rice was cooked just right too, distinct grains of rice that was not too soft or too hard. The whole dish was so delicious, especially mixing the rice, soy sauce, egg yolk, it tasted so good.
Banana pancakes:
These are the American pancakes not the thin British ones, it was topped with thick caramel sauce, walnuts and slices of banana. The pancakes were nice and soft and were so well matched with the banana, walnuts and sauce. If there was more sauce it would be better as I thought there was not enough.
The set with pie and pancakes was not that filling for me, so ordered scrambled eggs with toast, this was not as good as the one from Star Café, I should have ordered another dessert instead.
Anyway, the food ordered by most people were baked pasta’s and rice’s, it didn’t really look that good so I would recommend the rice with egg, and the instant noodles.
The instant noodles are imported from Japan and they give you the sesame oil from the packet with the old folding scissors as shown on this pic
http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/photos.htm?shopid=41969&photoid=397967
Apart from the restaurant, the Restroom is also worth visiting too, the female one has a nice mirror with light bulbs surrounding it, very good illumination for stage makeup. Also those old green tiles and the old style taps.
