[Review 841] Rua de Cinco de Outubro @ October Fifth Bakery

13/08/2010
October Fifth Bakery
大嶼山昂坪市集
Ngong Ping Village, Lantau Island
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/rua-de-cinco-de-outubro-e2108037
Came across this bakery claiming to be a product from Macau, it looked interesting so went in.
The packaging of the biscuits was quite nice, it even had English on it, and more surprisingly they have a website too.

http://www.octoberfifth.com/en/introduce005.html

Its name October Fifth is quite interesting too, although I wasn’t sure if it was meant to resemble anything, it made me think of Autumn festival

According to the company “The October Fifth Street (Rua de Cinco de Outubro in Portuguese) was first known as Si Meng Street a hundred years ago as a bustling street in Macau selling a full array of local products. October Fifth Bakery of Macau offers local flavours for your enjoyment.

The product range offers western items such as cookies, and chocolate egg rolls too!

For the traditional range, there are normal egg rolls, pork floss rolls, basically the type of items you would find in Wing Wah bakery.

I brought the abalone cheese puffs, which is a box of individually wrapped biscuits inside.

It wasn’t really puff pastry as name stated, but an extremely buttery biscuit.
The biscuit was rolled with cheese and baked, and looked like a flattened swirl.

It didn’t taste as good as I hoped for, the cheese was bland, and the biscuit was far too buttery.
The cheese could have tasted stronger, there was smell but no taste.
The biscuit contained sesame seeds.

I think next time, I will probably try the seaweed pastry.

[Review 840] Basic is the best @ 海皇粥店 Ocean Empire Food Shop

13/08/2010

 海皇粥店 Ocean Empire Food Shop
北角英皇道406-408號地下
Shop 1, G/F., Everwin Bldg., No. 406-408 King's Rd.,, North Point

https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/basic-is-the-best-e2108032

At Ocean Empire, there are various congees, the usual ones and the premium ones.

Last time I tried the lobster one which turned out to be pretty crap, this time I tried the mustard vegetable with spare-ribs.

It turned out to be greener than expected, however it lacked taste, even their basic congees taste better.
This one was freshly made by boiling it with spare-ribs, and mustard greens, hence cooked in 10 minutes you can understand why there is lack of taste.

If they had used their regular congee broth and added the spare-ribs and veg it would have tasted much better.
But saying that, it tasted very strong of mustard greens, the texture of the vegetables was just right, not too soft.
It reminded me of chlorophyl experiments!!

[Review 839] First impressions - This is not a review @ Tuttimelon

11/08/2010

Tuttimelon (已結業)
尖沙咀彌敦道100號The ONE 3樓L308號舖
Shop L308, 3/F, The ONE, 100 Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/first-impressions-this-is-not-a-review-e2107583

After seeing the reviews, found out finally it was opened.
However I got there about 5.40pm on a Wednesday evening, and was told they were closed for cleaning purposes, and that they would re-open in 15 minutes.

While I was there, there were many others being turned away,
finally they closed the sliding doors as there were quite a few people who wanted to go in.

I waited for 15 minutes, it still didn't open, so i left.

I felt this was not a good impression for THE ONE, especially when there is not much to see there, especially when they should be in operation, not like they have a sign saying COMING SOON.

Same as Milkissimo, they didnt have the full range of flavours when I went.

[Review 838] Sweetcorn and fish tummy soup @ 原味家作 Original Taste Workshop

11/08/2010

原味家作 Original Taste Workshop
將軍澳重華路8號東港城1樓Food Point K1號舖
Shop K1, Food Point, 1/F, East Point City, 8 Chung Wa Road, Tseung Kwan O
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/sweetcorn-and-fish-tummy-soup-e2107577

There is alot more choice than they previously had, so this time tried the sweet corn soup with fish tummy.

I was expecting sweet corn and fish yummy as the main ingredients, but it was mainly chicken and sweet corn.

Overall it tasted how it should, just felt it should be called sweetcorn chicken soup with fish maw.

www.otw.com.hk

[Review 837] Not too bad and not too good @ 程班長台灣牛肉麵 Cheng Ban Zheung Taiwan Beef Noodle

11/08/2010

程班長台灣牛肉麵 Cheng Ban Zheung Taiwan Beef Noodle
銅鑼灣駱克道463-483號銅鑼灣廣場二期地下
G/F, Causeway Bay Plaza 2, 463-483 Lockhart Road, Causeway Bay
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/not-too-bad-and-not-too-good-e2107481

Saw alot of reviews on this place, mostly on noodles.

Came here to try the noodles, but then found out it was the chewy dough type, so ordered only one, and ordered a bun and starter instead.

Basically they serve the typical Taiwanese items.

The noodles in bean sauce was good, especially the sauce, but those noodles are not my cup of tea, so I am just going to review the sauce.
The sauce was nice and thick, with lots of diced beancurds, they beancurds were slightly dehydrated,hence hard and chewy and the rest of the sauce was made of yellow beans.

The tofu in sesame sauce, was tofu straight from the container, with the logo still on it.
The sauce was slightly sweet and sour, the same as the sauce at Watami and the thinly sliced cucumber complimented it well.

Finally the crispy bun with strawberry sauce tasted so fake, I should known being a Taiwanese place they would probably use the syrup for drinks instead of jam, even the colour was bright red.

Overall, I just felt that this place is just a casual restaurant for people to have some quick noodles.

[Review 836] Absolutely rubbish @ 浦和日本料理 Urawa Japanese Restaurant

10/08/2010

浦和日本料理 Urawa Japanese Restaurant
灣仔蘭杜街4號A舖
Shop A, 4 Landale Street, Wan Chai
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/absolutely-rubbish-e2107176

Was given a flyer when I walked past, so studied the variety for the All u can eat lunch buffet. It costs $160 per person plus 10% service charge.

For that price, you can get reasonable all you can eat food at places such as Kaneda and this place in Central.
I chose this menu, because the menu was quite extensive, eg sea urchin handroll, goose liver on toast etc.

When I sat down, there were not many patrons there, the waitors laid our table with sauces and green tea.
I looked at the All u can eat menu, it was so flimsy, it was sheets of paper inserted into a plastic album, it had English, Japanese and Chinese, and it was hard to turn the pages as they kept sticking together.
The English-Chinese translations were a bit messed up, some meanings were different.

Anyway like any All you can eat places, I was expecting some pieces of paper for you to tick or write which dishes you want.

At least 4 items were not available, it should have been taken off the list or before we sat down we should have been told.

Unavailable items:
Spicy whelk meat
Pineapple and pumkin salad
Scallop cutlet
Goose liver on toast

When items were served, some items were served sparingly, only piece of surf clam with generous pieces of other sushi.
For the sea urchin handroll, only one was served per order.

If they had two prices for lunch and dinner, they should have separate menus instead of misleading people.

Ordering was difficult, I had to flick their flimsey booklet and order, usually the first round, you want to try everything, but the problem is their booklet pages are stuck together and it was a task trying to remember what to order.

The translations were messed up too, some of the chinese and english were different.

The menu was slightly misleading too, because some paid items were also on the all you can eat page, but you get charged for those items.

The fried items came first, some were overfried, especially the tofu, looking like a cochcroach. The banana tempura was worth trying.
The salmon sushi was not that good, because there was still silver membrane left on it.
The clams were totally tasteless, despite it was presented nicely with fake sharksfin.

The congee was ok.

Overall the environment was ok, the staff were ok, only the availablity and menu was misleading.
The price was too expensive considering the low range of choice.

The paper lantern was interesting, the paper slowly ripping off leaving the lightbulb.

[Review 835] Tiny birds anyone @ 廣東燒味餐廳

10/08/2010

Tiny birds anyone
廣東燒味餐廳 (灣仔)
No Link

I am quite surprised that no one has written about this place, its been here for quite a while.

In a way, this shop is located on a street full of bus stops, so people are either walking along this road, waiting or getting off buses like a train station.

When I went in there, it felt like some place where people were waiting, most of the patrons were mandarin speaking, maybe it is related to the "Guangdong" part of the name or the food.

For food, one of their roast combinations is quite unique, that when I saw a picture of it from another branch, I immediately knew it was from this place.

Also those tiny honey roasted yellow flower birds (蜜燒禾花雀), are served here, which dont seem to served elsewhere.

The roast set I got contained crispy roast suckling pig, chinese red sausages, honey roasted chicken wing and salted egg.
The whole combination was so good that even for a picky person like me, there was nothing that I didnt like in that set.

Basically the stars of this dish are meant to be the in house roast suckling pig and chicken wings, and for the red sausages and salted egg, they cant really go wrong as they are sourced from food suppliers.

The roast suckling pig had an even layer of meat and fat, and most importantly the skin was crispy.
The red sausages were slightly dry, but still tasted nice, and the chicken wings were slightly hard but manageable to eat and rest tasted how it should.
The roast set cost $40 which is slightly more expensive than other places.

Also tried the tiny birds merely because they looked cute.

At that size the giblets were probably still in there, so I tore off the tiny legs and upper torso, and it tasted quite nice, although there were some little bones.
I also tried eating a whole one including the giblets, and it had a slight bitterness to it, tasted like a chinese wax sausage, with a crispy tough exterior skin and soft insides bursting out!

The sauce for the pork was runny, and could have been fresher, as it tasted a bit sour.

Then I tried the chicken livers, this was slightly below average because they didnt taste fresh and were rather hard, over roasted and burnt.

As for the soup, it tasted a little strange. The chinese dishes are ok.

Overall the restaurant is ok, but feels like China, and the person at the pay desk could have been nicer. With this attitude, it turns away potential customers.