[Review 1084] Excellent roast in the blues of Tin Hau @ 15+J Roaster

26/04/2011


15+J Roaster
天后英皇道25號景星中心地下1號舖
Shop 1, G/F., King's Commercial Centre, 25 King's Road, Tin Hau
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/excellent-roast-in-the-blues-of-tin-hau-e2165135

Its quite interesting that two roast chicken shops have both opened recently. I am not sure if they are related, but its good there are two options to try and compare.

15+J Roaster is located in Tin Hau, conveniently near the MTR, you cannot miss the ocean blue shop, there are seats in the restaurant too.

They offer roast chicken fast food sets, which include sides with a choice of coleslaw, rice or potato wedges. The style is quite similar to the US and UK ones.
It reminded me of chicken I had at Sham Fast Food, which also included coleslaw.

Roast Sai Kung also offers roast chicken on a rotisserie, but the choices at 15+J are better and the price is reasonable too.
REVIEW AT ROAST SAI KUNG:
http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/commentdetail.htm?commentid=2166368

Plastic gloves are provided in both places.

The cake and breakfast menu offered here looks good too.

Anyway for the meals, there is a choice of roast chicken or ribs, which comes with dipping sauce, there are four sauces to choose from.
Sauces: Ooh-la-la (spicy), Terigoma Sauce (Japanese grilled sesame sauce), 15+J Signature sauce and Sweetie Fruitie sauce (sounds cute!).

In the end I got the half roasted chicken with Ooh-la-la sauce and the 15+J Signature sauce, the sides I chose were the coleslaw and genki rice.

The chicken was roasted nicely, and there were lots and lots of herbs and spices.
It tasted like Indian chicken tikka, actually it did taste like Indian roasted chicken.
The chicken was nice with or without sauce.
Shame I didn't take another picture of the spices.

Ooh-la-la:
I expected this sauce to be red because it was spicy, but it was a light mustard yellow, it didn’t look spicy, but it was spicy!!

15+J signature sauce:
This tasted like smoked barbecue sauce with some herbs.

Coleslaw:
This was very finely shredded cabbage and carrots, the tastes was creamy, the best in Hong Kong.
The local ones are just sugary and mixed with salad cream.
Genki rice:
This was a healthy mix of red rice and brown rice with sweetcorn. Not sure why it is called Genki though, it doesnt look Japanese.
It would have been great if it was seasoned with cumin or paprika, or cooked in Mexican style.
Tomato and onion soup:
The soup tasted how it should, there was plenty of onions in it.

Overall I really liked their chicken, and it would be cool if the ovens or rotisserie with chickens could be seen from outside, it would attract lots of customers.
The service here is really good and the waitress is very pretty.

[Review 1083] Steamed pandan cake @ 鮮麥鮮飽店 Fresh Oat Bakery

25/04/2011
鮮麥鮮飽店 Fresh Oat Bakery
北角炮台山電氣道168號柏宜大廈地下
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/steamed-pandan-cake-e2164443

Got the steamed pandan cake for $6, the taste and smell is exactly like the ring shaped ones from Singapore, but it was dry and hard which is really weird for something that is steamed!.
I think this point should be improved on, the reviewer before my review also commented on it being too dry.
Apart from that, it would taste exactly like Singaporean ones but the texture is slightly different, the Singaporean one is not so dense and has the chiffon cake texture.

[Review 1082] Nice chinese font that looks like a curly L @ 爽爽麵店

25/04/2011
爽爽麵店
元朗鳳攸北街5號順豐大廈地下5號舖
Shop 5, G/F, Shun Fung Building, 5 Fung Yau Street North, Yuen Long
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/nice-chinese-font-that-looks-like-a-curly-l-e2164442
I havent been here yet, so this is not a review, but I plan to try the chicken in wine.
Also the restaurant name looks really nice, the 爽爽 looks like two curly L's.

SSG's to eat n recommend list:
chicken in wine

[Review 1081] Treasure corner and massive Ganoderma mushroom @ 楚塋小食

25/04/2011
楚塋小食
將軍澳毓雅里9號慧安商場地下A35號舖
Shop A35, G/F, Well On Shopping Centre, 9 Yuk Nga Lane, Tseung Kwan O
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/treasure-corner-and-massive-ganoderma-mushroom-e2164386

In this mall, it feels like those surreal malls in Tin Shui Wai with those little snack shops selling the usual fishballs and fish shai mao that are cooked in portable steamers or warmed in a rice cooker.

This snack shop got my attention when I saw [sin jook guen] those steamed beancurd rolls with fillings inside that you get in dim sum places.
I ordered it, but she said it was sold out, so then I looked at the other available items.

The choice was endless, even for drinks they had "cream soda flavoured shaved ice-drink" but the colour of it wasnt pale lemon.

In the end, I reduced my choice down to two: cuttlefish spring roll and mixed vegetable spring roll.

The rest I will try next time.

While waiting for the rolls, I noticed these GIGANTIC GANODERMA MUSHROOMS (Lingzhi), the diameter was the same as a normal football, because beside it were some footballs hanging on the wall!

I wonder what a football would be doing in a snackshop!
I gathered the Ganoderma mushroom were not cooked to be sold, so it must be for the shop owners personal use!
Anyway, I figured their food should be good, because of the range and the owner likes delicacies.

The crabmeat and pork rolled in seaweed looks delicious too, almost everything can be found there, sweet waffles, chips, potato cakes, pearl teas, even grilled chicken satays in a tiny vicinity like that~

The fried vegetable roll, was just simple glass noodles, julienne black fungas, carrots, vegetables wrapped in beancurd skin and deep fried, it was crunchy on the outside and soft and moist inside.
The julienne vegetables were dipped in egg before it was wrapped, making it firmer when fried.
The taste was not bland and tasted like those vietnamese crabmeat and egg nuggets.

The cuttlefish roll was also good too.
I'll be back to try the fried lobster nuggets with cheese and squid and sweetcorn rolls.

[Review 1080] The ginger spices over the apple @ Ginger Bakery

25/04/2011
Ginger Bakery (已結業)
灣仔莊士敦道55號地下
G/F, 55 Johnston Road, Wan Chai
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/the-ginger-spices-over-the-apple-e2164385

Before this place opened, the shop was already attractive and stuck out from the street.
It had a nice ocean blue background with a simple white logo which represents a slice of cake, the top of the cake logo is actually a "G" for Ginger bakery.

Anyway after it opened I bought a few cakes to try on my first visit, I was not given a 10% discount card for my next visit, however on my second visit, I was given one, but that time I had already tried everything as if I would want to come back when there are so many new  places to try.
The staff were OK, but perhaps slightly too pushy, as soon as you enter they expect you to be buying and know what you want.

Lime chiffon tart:
On the label it said Lime chiffon tart, but it actually looked like a lemon tart and the colour was like lemon.
The taste was more lemon than lime.
It was not sour either.
The texture of the filling was mousse like, with the fine mousse bubbles popping in your mouth.

Apple crumble:
It would have been great if it came with a scoop of ice-cream or perhaps some whipped cream or hot custard.
Anyway, the apple crumble was quite hard, and the crumble came off the apple.
The apple was slices of apple and not the soft cooked apple I was hoping for.

[Review 1079] Nice relaxing place for tea and photographs @ kindergarten

24/04/2011

kindergarten
大坑新村街35號地下
G/F, 35 Sun Chun Street, Tai Hang
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/nice-relaxing-place-for-tea-and-photographs-e2164383

A very nice place for tea and taking pictures.
I would have preferred more options on the menu.
The impression that left with me was the special shaped sugars such as the jigsaw pieces, red and white hearts, miniature bottle of maggi sauce, miniature bottle of tabasco sauce, red wooly tea set and other cute things.
Although the pancake was quite sweet, it was nice and chewy, a bit like a crumpet.
The drinking straw for the mocha was metal, and a spoon in one!
I am not sure if this place still offers pasta that was in the earlier review, but I want to try that next time.

[Review 1078] The bread could have been better @ 博洛尼亞 BO-LO’GNE Café & Bar

24/04/2011

博洛尼亞 BO-LO’GNE Café & Bar
中環鴨巴甸街41號
Shop 1, G/F, 41 Aberdeen Street, Central
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/the-bread-could-have-been-better-e2164381

I have always wanted to try this place for the famous layered bread.
I got the plain toast with butter and jam, and the other one with apple and ice-cream.
The toast reminded me of danish pastry, except that it was made of yeast and flour and basically it was bread.
The butter and jam looked really lame in the dish.

The apple one was disappointing, because it was the same bread, but the piece of bread they used was hard, stale and tough.
I found lots of almond flakes but I could hardly find any apple which must cost them a fortune!