[Review 1021] Lumpy but nice egg tarts @ 快樂餅店 Happy Cake Shop

18/03/2011
快樂餅店  Happy Cake Shop
灣仔皇后大道東106號地下
G/F, No. 106 Queen's Road East, Wan Chai
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/lumpy-but-nice-egg-tarts-e2155993

This is one of those small well-established bakeries with its own regular customers; I have walked past it many times, but never really been attracted to it.
The shop has those signature old green tilings on the floor, blackened trays containing bakery.
They sell the traditional items that the local Chinese bakeries do such as donuts, chicken pies, paper wrapped cakes, cream filled hornets, chinese style cookies, pineapple buns and more.
Being an old bakery, I decided to get some paper wrapped cakes and egg tarts.
The egg tarts had a lumpy surface.
The paper-wrapped cakes looked how it was supposed to be.
All their cakes come wrapped in their own personalised wrapping.
I don’t usually get paper wrapped cakes, because you can get them in the UK, but the ones here were interesting and I can understand why they are called paper wrapped cakes, because they are literally wrapped in four separate  square pieces of paper.
The only negative comment was that the ink came off the wrapping and on to the cake.

Egg Tart:
Although lumpy, the filling was quite firm and tasted palatable.

Paper wrapped cake:
Just tasted how it should, the usual chinese cake taste.

[Review 1020] An honest owner that deserves an "icy praise 冰讚" @ 冰讚

17/03/2011

冰讚
灣仔譚臣道5號地下
G/F, 5 Thomson Road, Wan Chai
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/an-honest-owner-that-deserves-an-icy-praise-%E5%86%B0%E8%AE%9A-e2155831

Amongst all the Chinese cafes on Thompson Road, this dessert shop stood out being bright orange.

However during lunchtimes there are crowds of people at the restaurants beside it, so if you are at the entrance of Thompson road, it is probably blocked out of view.

During lunch hours, I doubt people would stop by for dessert unless they serve lunch sets.
Anyway I liked the decoration and the chain of brightly coloured balls on the ceiling.
Not sure how authentic it claims to be, but it did have interesting items such as Honey Aiyu Jelly and Dessert with eight treasures.
The menu was good because it had English.

I got the Honey Aiyu jelly dessert because usually you just find it as a side on snowflake ice and in drinks.


It was a big bowl of Honey Aiyu Jelly in sweet liquid, about 60% jelly and 40% liquid, without the liquid it would be tasteless, same as how grass jelly is served.
The liquid tasted like prune juice, it was slightly sour and refreshing, then it tasted like lemon, although it was meant to be honey. Overall, the aiyu jelly was refreshing and the honey wasn’t too sweet.

As for the grass jelly with sweet dumplings, the liquid for the grass jelly was too sweet, and the dumplings were a bit too floury. The grass jelly was in big chunks.

When I ordered the grass jelly, the owner said there are no strawberries as featured in the product picture.
I really appreciated the honestly rather than complaining there were no strawberries.
Hence that explains my title [An honest owner that deserves an "icy praise 冰讚" IN A GOOD WAY!!!!]
Next time I should try their savoury snacks, especially the fried tofu skin and octopus strips.

[Review 1019] The stars at STAR STREET @ Chez Patrick Deli

15/03/2011
Chez Patrick Deli
灣仔星街3號地下
G/F, 3 Star Street, Wan Chai
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/the-stars-at-star-street-e2155809

Nearby Star Street used to be Chez Patrick with sturdy black wooden frame windows, however it is now the new French Deli in Wan Chai.

Across the road there is Classified, the area is just perfect for European diners.
I prefer the new Chez Patrick Deli, you can just walk in and grab some cakes or delicatessens.
They have wooden shelves with Jam, honey and teabags for sale.

There are native French Chefs there too.

Anyway I got the Vanilla éclair and Hazelnut Bavavois.

Vanilla éclair:
The choux part of the éclair was slightly hard, so was the icy, but inside there was custard cream
Hazelnut Bavavois:
This was quite heavy, but there many pieces of hazelnut in it.
For improvements: They should provide forks for takeaway.

[Review 1018] Expensive fried egg and luncheon meat with rice @ 昌記茶餐廳 Cheong Kee Restaurant

15/03/2011

昌記茶餐廳 Cheong Kee Restaurant
灣仔譚臣道8號地下 8 Thompson Road, Wan Chai
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/expensive-fried-egg-and-luncheon-meat-with-rice-e2155808

This place is famous for fried egg with soy sauce, with a combination of either vegetable curry, luncheon meat, or roasted pork.
The set cost $30 which includes the usual chinese drink.
Basically it is bed of rice with two pieces of fried luncheon meat and a fried egg.
This simple dish should taste nice, but somehow I found the egg overfried and rubbery, and the luncheon meat was very dry.
The other people around me had a nice runny egg, but mine was overdone.
The soy sauce was tasteless.
I think if it tasted nice, then $30 is very well spent, but since it was a bit dry, I felt that I was paying too much since it was only a plain fried egg and luncheon meat.
But then maybe I just happened to get one that was over done, because the people queuing for this place is huge, so it cant be that bad.

[Review 1017] Cosy or Alfresco lunch under the trees, ur choice! @ 穌棧 Cafe y Taberna

16/03/2011
穌棧  Cafe y Taberna
灣仔廈門街25號地下
G/F, 25 Amoy Street, Wan Chai
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/cosy-or-alfresco-lunch-under-the-trees-ur-choice-e2155626

Café Y Taberna was first opened in Tai Hang, a cosy place for coffee, cakes and burgers.

The menu is illustrated on a chalkboard with drawings.

Now another branch of CafeY Taberna has emerged on Amoy Street of Wan Chai, the exterior, name and fonts remain the same as the Tai Hang branch, however the food is slightly different.
The food served at Wan Chai for lunch is purely Thai, there are various lunch sets that range from noodles and rice inclusive of drinks and dessert for about $40.

During the early hours of lunch, it was already filled with people and queues outside, yet I saw the waitress bringing food from the restaurant across the road.
I initially thought there was another building nearby where people could go out to eat, however it turns out the waitress in the silver waistcoat was bringing food to the sit out area across the street.
The other noodle that was ordered tasted nice too, it was egg noodles with chicken in satay sauce, it had rich satay sauce with lots of crushed peanuts.

For drinks had the longan iced water, which was quite healthy since a lot of drinks in hK are too sweet, but this one was just right.

The dessert that day was coconut pudding, not the orange agar jelly I was expecting.

For takeaways you do not get dessert, but you are paying the same price as dine in!!!

While I sat there, I saw someone who ordered takeaway asked where the dessert was and the waitress snapped and said “EAT IN – HAVE, TAKE OUT, DON HAVE”

But anyway expect a very busy crowd there during lunchtimes!!

[Review 1016] Japanese Curry Shop by Flipino's @ Curry Bee

16/03/2011
Curry Bee
銅鑼灣謝斐道524號地下
G/F, 524 Jaffe Road, Wan Chai, Causeway Bay
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/japanese-curry-shop-by-flipinos-e2155624

Bee Japanese Curry Shop has been a long-standing Japanese curry in Causeway Bay.
As the curries looked quite Japanese I assumed the Japanese opened it, but it is actually opened by the Filipino’s.
Initially I didn’t realise until the waitresses spoke in English, then the name occurred to me it could be Filipino ie Joli bee and Bee Japanese?
Anyway ordered the soba in curry soup, as not many places have soba noodles in curry soup.
The curry sauce was not watered down and relatively thick, the spiciness of it was slightly too spicy for me, but it was nice having soba in curry soup.
The noodles were topped with various Japanese mushrooms as garnishing and the soba noodles were slightly different to the regular ones, they were not uniformly extruded, some where wider in width than others.
The spinach in the noodles were surprisingly nice, they were sweet with a sugary stem which soothed the spiciness of the curry.
The milk pudding that came with it was meagre, but tasted very nice and milky.

[Review 1015] Getting “Dressed” with an Avocado Smoothie @ Dressed

14/03/2011
Dressed
灣仔皇后大道東202號 QRE Plaza 地下1號舖
Shop 1, G/F, QRE Plaza, 202 Queen's Road East, Wan Chai
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/getting-dressed-with-an-avocado-smoothie-e2155207

Saw some interesting smoothies, so got the Minted Avocado smoothie.

The other interesting one I wanted to get too was the Raspberry cheesecake.

There are nine smoothies to choose from and they mostly contain vanilla yoghurt and simple syrup.

On the poster, the nine smoothies were:
Mango tango (Mango juice, Apple juice, apple, mango and syrup),
Minted avocado (Avocado, mint leaves, milk, vanilla yoghurt and simple syrup),
Peanut butter and jelly (banana, strawberry, peanut butter, vanilla yoghurt and simple syrup),
Gingered pear (pear, ginger, milk, vanilla yoghurt and simple syrup),
Pretty peaches (peach, mango, milk, vanilla yoghurt and peach syrup),
Banana and berry (Banana, mixed berry, apple juice, vanilla yoghurt and simple syrup),
Raspberry cheesecake (raspberry, cream cheese, milk, vanilla yoghurt and simple syrup),
Fruits of the forest (blueberry, strawberry, milk, vanilla yoghurt and simple syrup),
The classic (banana, strawberry, apple juice, vanilla yoghurt and simple syrup)

I don’t usually like mint, because it is fake mint syrup or artificial flavouring, but here it is fresh mint that tastes Ok, same as the minted pea soup at the Limehouse.
The smoothie had a cooling lime mint colour, and it was thick with fine icy particles in it.

Although it was quite a heavy smoothie, it was very healthy in the sense that it was at the right sweetness level, it was not syrupy sweet, and you could taste each of the elements, ie the avocado, the vanilla yoghurt and the sweetness lingering.
The mint couldn’t be tasted at all, which was fine because I didn’t like mint anyway, and overall, you could also taste the slight savouryness of the avocado.

I was really surprised by it, and went back for the Raspberry cream cheese.

Getting “Dressed” with a Raspbry cheze cake Smu Fi
http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/commentdetail.htm?commentid=2156979