Café de Coral or was it Café from hell?

Another Hong Kong food post. Don't worry. It's the last one. I'm a bit sick of it myself.

Okay, this happened on the day we went to Disneyland. We left Disneyland in the late afternoon to go to Tung Chung which was just two MTR stations away. Hubs wanted to look for sneakers at the factory outlets. Our intention was to go back to Disneyland at night to catch the fireworks.

We decided to get our dinner as well. The shopping mall we were at (I think it was Citygate) was huge but none of the expensive restaurants called out to me. Finally, in desperation, we ate at McDonalds. The fries tasted different by the way, less crispy.

After our meal, I was attracted to a walkway which led to another mall. Hubs saw a sign for "Café de Coral" and he said some blogger had recommended it and it was too bad we had already eaten because it was a place he wanted to try. I thought about it and I didn't want hubs to regret not eating at Café de Coral. I mean, we were there so I decided that we should go have a light meal at the cafe since we were never going to be in the area again.

Upon entry, we saw the menu on one wall and I decided to try C1 while hubs opted for L4. The menu had English translations so I was very happy about that. We had to order at the cashier and pay immediately. After payment, the cashier gave me a piece of paper with our order and waved us off.

I walked further in and figured that I had to go to the kitchen counter to hand over my order chit to the kitchen crew. Hubs went to get us a table. It was free-seating. A male kitchen crew took my order chit away and started putting stuff on a tray. The default drink for my order was a milky concoction which I didn't want. The other options were iced lemon tea or just tea. I tried to explain to the male kitchen crew that I wanted iced lemon tea and discovered he couldn't understand any English or Mandarin. After a lot of pointless exchange going nowhere, another male kitchen crew popped his head from behind and asked if I wanted "black tea". He spoke Mandarin! Black tea was close enough so I accepted it.

My order of French toast came and the kitchen crew waved me away.  I told him I had another order but he kept waving me away. I pointed to the container of fulfilled order chit and asked for mine back but of course he didn't understand a word. I decided to look for hubs. I was kinda close to tears already. I told hubs that I was not given his order and the order chit was taken away from me. We went back to the counter and I kept pointing to the order chit bin until eventually, the kitchen crew found my order chit and he gave me hub's order which consisted of a glutinous rice soup, a chicken wing and a samosa. Except I was given two items instead of three. The samosa was missing. The male kitchen crew kept pointing to some Chinese words on the order chit and asked me what it was. It was very puzzling. He kept asking me what the words were. I had no idea how to read the words. We were going nowhere. Finally, the head waitress was summoned. She scolded the kitchen crew for not being able to read the words. Actually, neither could she. She made a phone call and the person over the phone told her what it was - curry something. The samosa! After telling the kitchen crew what the missing order was, the head waitress left. Hubs went back to the table and I stood waiting.

Eventually an older female kitchen crew started talking to me in Cantonese. I couldn't understand what she was saying. Although I understand a teeny tiny itsy bit of Cantonese, the locals speak rapidly in bursts. Couldn't catch a word. I looked around for the Mandarin speaking guy but he had disappeared. Her voice grew louder and louder and I wasn't sure if she was scolding me. Probably. Eventually, another female kitchen crew was summoned from the kitchen. She was literally pushed towards me. I heard her protesting in Cantonese that she couldn't speak English. Anyway, she used some hand gestures to indicate that I should go, sit down and eat. The missing samosa would be brought to me. I don't know how I understood her but I did. So I went to sit down.

I don't know how I could still smile because the inability to understand the crew or get myself understood really wore me down.

Eventually hub's samosa arrived. He must be the first person to ever order it. I think hubs enjoyed his food.

My tea and french toast were quite horrible. The french toast strangely had peanut butter on it. Who puts peanut butter in french toast? Later I realised that the menu did state that the french toast came with peanut butter. I was too blind to see it.

The restaurant is really spacious and comfortable. If only the food tasted better and I didn't have to go through hell to get it.

The funny thing is the next two days, nearly everywhere we went in Hong Kong, there was a Café de Coral.

Tim Ho Wan

There are so many Tim Ho Wan outlets in Singapore that it's a bit ridiculous to go to a Tim Ho Wan in Hong Kong. Right? But someone, I forgot who, once told me the Tim Ho Wan in Hong Kong makes better food than the branches in Singapore. And the selection is far wider. Ridiculous, right? I felt outraged enough to seek out a Tim Ho Wan outlet in Hong Kong.

We were on our last day and time was not on our side. In the end, we went to the outlet at Central because it was convenient. Except it was so hard to find.

We kept going back to this map but it was no help. Eventually we asked a guide working at the mall and she gave us directions. We still missed the correct escalator but hubs saw another escalator further away and once we figured that out, we managed to find Tim Ho Wan.

There were 2 queues outside the restaurant. One was to pay and the other one was for entry. We had gone through so much trouble to find the restaurant so we queued up.

While in the queue, we were handed an order chit. Since we were familiar with Tim Ho Wan food, we knew what to order. There were menus with photos available as well. The food selection looks more or less the same as what we get in Singapore.

The restaurant was incredibly cramped. We didn't get our own individual table and was stuck in a community row. On my right were four large Filipinos. On my left was a large Chinese man with two women. They spoke Cantonese.

After we got in, the queue outside grew even longer!

We ordered two cups of Chinese tea (HK$3 total) and were given two empty tea cups. When I asked for the tea, the waitress said to take from the teapot on the table. When hubs tried to take the teapot closest to us which was from the table of the Cantonese customers, one of the women held on to the teapot, scolded him and wouldn't let hubs have it. So hubs had to take the teapot from the Filipinos who didn't mind. It was very weird. In Singapore's Tim Ho Wan, none of this shit will happen. The waitress pours tea into our tea cup and if you need a refill, you'll just have to ask for it. Sometimes, a waitress goes around refilling your tea anyway.

Steamed rice rolls stuffed with barbecued pork or as we call it in Singapore, Chee Cheong Fun. In Singapore, a different diluted soy sauce is provided. Here in Hong Kong, you're expected to use the regular more concentrated soy sauce placed at each table. I half expected a fight with the Cantonese women over the sauce but they didn't raise any objections. Seriously folks, eating Chee Cheong Fun with regular soy sauce just ain't right.

Deep-fried beancurd sheet roll filled with shrimps. I notice the beancurd is very crispy despite the light colour. This was delicious!

Steamed dumplings chiu chow style. I didn't know hubs didn't like this and ordered it. When I don't like any food, I announce it to the world but hubs keeps it to himself.

 Steamed rice with beef and pan fried egg. Hubs was quite shocked by the tiny size of his order.

 Pan fried turnip cake. Unfortunately, Tim Ho Wan's turnip cake is NOTHING compared to Dimdimsum.

Sweet potato soup. I love sweet potato soup but I didn't understand why I ordered it. Maybe I wanted something comforting? Honestly, all sweet potato soup tastes the same.

We noticed the 4 Filipinos couldn't eat any of the chicken feet. They ordered 4 plates! Perhaps they were misled by the name on the menu - "Phoenix Talons with Abalone Sauce". Guys, you do know phoenix aren't real. In case you're wondering, I'm in the "never ever gonna eat chicken feet" camp. My mother used to tell me eating chicken feet is good for the skin or was it a cure for arthritis? Anyway, I decided not to believe her.

Oh, something wonderful happened while we were eating. The Cantonese women and guy companion had finished their meal but continued to sit at the table chatting. One of the women had left and they were waiting for her to return. A waitress came and ordered them to leave. The woman tried to explain that they were waiting for someone but the waitress would have none of it. She said there were so many customers waiting and they could wait outside the restaurant. Ha ha. It made hubs' day.

Three new customers came to take their places - two Cantonese speaking men and a Caucasian lady. The guy who sat next to me wore a mask and only took it off to eat. I kept wondering if he was afraid to catch something or pass something? It really bothered me. The waitress brought a new pot of tea and placed it beside me and guess what? The guy sitting next to me immediately grabbed it and placed it far away from me. You've got to be kidding me. I don't think the Cantonese speaking customers understand how the tea system in Tim Ho Wan works!

Another interesting thing happened. A single lady sat beside hubs after the Filipinos had left. She ate a few items and she had brought her Starbucks coffee in. (so daring) When she left, the waitress made her take the Starbucks coffee container. And then the staff realized she didn't pay and someone had to go chase her. There was Cantonese shouting and I expect a lot of embarrassment for someone.

Not a bad price for a very full meal. We definitely over ate. Other than the sauce for Chee Cheong Fun, I think the food in Hong Kong and Singapore are exactly the same. What we do have in Singapore that's different are the monthly specials.

Address:
IFC Mall MTR Shop 12A, Central

Read about my trip to Hong kong here:
4Days 3Nights in Hong Kong
Tea at Australia Dairy Co
Breakfast at Capital Cafe
I heart Dimdimsum
Tsui Wah Everywhere
Mido
Goose or duck?

Goose or Duck?

It would be insane to visit Hong Kong and not eat goose or so I assumed. That probably explained why we went to a lot of trouble to seek out roast goose.

I've never eaten goose before. I've eaten duck. I don't think I can tell the difference between goose and duck and guess what? I'm right.

Originally we wanted to go to Yat Lok (another famous roast goose place) at 34-38 Stanley Street (because it's cheaper). After forever, we found the tiny little space and there was a long queue outside it. The inside looked quite cramped and hubs said it didn't look that inviting to him. Plus the queue was really long. Serves us right for going right in the middle of lunch time. We decided to walk to Kam's Roast Goose instead. The restaurant was slightly larger and looked more pleasant. There was a far shorter queue. In fact we got in quite quickly after being issued a queue number. Don't ask the cashier how long it will take because she will say: don't know, don't know. But she spoke English! And yes, the menu has English translations.

Lemon tea in Hong Kong comes in all shapes and sizes. It's actually regular black tea with two slices of lemon and you put your own sugar. Our meals also came with one side dish each. We chose cucumbers and fungus.

I was craving something soupy and ordered noodles. Perhaps it was a mistake because wet roast goose is just wrong.

Hubs ordered his with rice. In Singapore roast duck rice is something we can find in most food courts.

 Not a cheap meal.

Hubs and I couldn't tell the difference between goose and duck. It's like we have no taste bud. There's a Kam's Roast in Singapore but it sells duck instead of goose due to import issues I'm guessing. We're definitely going there one day.

Address:
G/F Po Wah Commercial Center
226 Hennessy Road, Wanchai

Read about my trip to Hong kong here:
4Days 3Nights in Hong Kong
Tea at Australia Dairy Co
Breakfast at Capital Cafe
I heart Dimdimsum
Tsui Wah Everywhere
Mido

Mido, Mido wherefore art thou?

The only reason hubs and I went to Mido Cafe was it was in the lonely planet guidebook on Hong Kong. It is "Kowloon's most famous tea cafe despite passable food and service."

Since it was near my hotel, Silka Seaview Hotel, we had to eat at least one meal there. We decided to have breakfast there before our trip to Disneyland.

With the help of google map, we set out looking for it. On google map, it was only 100 metres away. We walked and walked and couldn't find it. Finally hubs said we should go back to the hotel to re-orientate ourselves. We started on our route once more, starting at the hotel. We walked past our hotel, took a few more steps and stopped because hubs wanted to check something. Suddenly hubs looked up and Mido Cafe was right in front of us!

Apparently, Mido Cafe is right next to our hotel. It was so funny. If hubs hadn't looked up we would have walked round and round and never found the cafe.

Mido Cafe is a very old cha chaan teng. The interior has the mosaic and old-world vibe, like time stood still. It could do with a major cleaning or two. It has two stories. We were told to go to the second floor. The cashier is on the ground floor.

 

Everything is good here. The staff speaks English and there is a English menu as well. Although the cafe sells a large variety of food, we opted for a fried breakfast special. It was good but I felt the chicken wings were a bit old. Hubs couldn't tell the difference. I particularly loved the french toast. Speaking of which, I'm craving for some french toast now.

Address:
63 Temple Street
Yau Ma Tei exit B2

Read about my trip to Hong kong here:
4Days 3Nights in Hong Kong
Tea at Australia Dairy Co
Breakfast at Capital Cafe
I heart Dimdimsum
Tsui Wah Everywhere

Tsui Wah Everywhere

On our Hong Kong trip, we went to Tsui Wah restaurant not once but twice. It wasn't because the food was that fantastic. There were outlets everywhere and the first one we went to at Mongkok was open 24 hours. How convenient is that?

Tsui Wah restaurant is not a small business. It is owned by a company which is listed in the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd. It has a website which recommends its own Top 10 dishes to try! The prices, unfortunately is pricier.

This is the 24hour branch at 244 Portland street we had our dinner at. It took us a while to find it. The menus had photos and English translation and the waiters speak some English. I thought we had struck gold.

Then I was delivered a wrong order. I had ordered ice lemon tea but was given a iced milk tea. I really dreaded having to communicate this with one of the staff. Then I saw a waitress returning a glass of ice lemon tea grumbling the kitchen crew had made a mistake. The guy in the photo above heard about it and he started scolding the kitchen crew. I was thinking that's my lemon tea! I brought my iced milk tea to the waiter and told him I had ordered iced lemon tea. I was thinking, isn't it so clear our orders were correctly made but handed to the wrong tables? But the waiter was possibly tired. Instead of acknowledging a mistake was made by his crew, he was quite rude to me and only became convinced I was given the wrong order after I showed him the order chit. He took the iced milk tea from me and said OKAY-OKAY to me rather loudly. Man, I was pissed. Anyway, I kept an eye on him and true enough, he gave me the exact same iced lemon tea that was returned by another customer. Yup, I drank it.

The iced lemon tea was delicious by the way. It's quite different from iced lemon tea in Singapore which is usually very weak in taste.

Hubs ordered the pork chop burger which he has already tried in Singapore. I guess he thought it would be different in Hong Kong. It's just pork in a burger bun.

I fell prey and ordered the Swiss Sauce Chicken Wings on the top 10 list. It should be removed from the list, in my opinion. I'm quite a terrible cook but I believe I can cook chicken wings way better than Tsui Wah's. The wings were also cold.

I ordered the Sizzling King Prawns fried noodles, also on the Top 10 list. I rather enjoyed it until the sauce ran out and the noodles don't taste good without sauce. The prawns didn't taste fresh but I countered that with low expectations.

You needn't wear gloves to eat the noodles. But very necessary when you eat the chicken wings.

On another late night, we went to a Tsui Wah branch on Hong Kong island with my nephew.

He said we had to try the crispy bun served with condensed milk and he was right! It was so delicious. Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. It made me rather full though.

I also ordered this Kagoshima style pork cartilage with instant noodles because we hadn't had dinner. I didn't like it at all but hubs liked everything at Tsui Wah. So he finished it for me.

This was hubs' order - Malaysian beef brisket curry with rice. He seemed to enjoy it.

This was our Tsui Wah experience, not too bad in my opinion. A wide variety of menu selection and branches everywhere.

Read about my trip to Hong kong here:
4Days 3Nights in Hong Kong
Tea at Australia Dairy Co
Breakfast at Capital Cafe
I heart Dimdimsum

I heart Dimdimsum

Hello,

Yup, another food post of my 4Days 3Nights visit to Hong Kong.

After spending one whole day at Disneyland, we went back to Yau Ma Tei intending to call it a night. But we kinda got lost walking in circles and we also kept talking about getting a late night snack. Most eating places were closing so we eventually decided to walk to Mong Kok to look for Dimdimsum which was open till 2am. By the time we found Dimdimsum, we were exhausted.

I had heard about Dimdimsum from my friend and I did not bother to do any research. I think sometimes it's good not to let other people's experience taint my expectations. The place was small and nearly filled. We were lucky to get a table right away. We shared a table with a lone diner.

Right away I could tell this place was going to be nice because we felt welcomed.

Our waiter was pleasant and didn't bark at me when I daringly asked for a English menu. Much to my surprise they not only had a nice English menu, there were photos of the food as well! Honestly we weren't that hungry but we couldn't leave Hong Kong without eating some dim sum. We ordered 5 items and as all the items came in 3's, it was a bit too much food for the two of us.

One interesting thing about the order chit provided. If you see [o], it contains internal organs/offals. Don't say they didn't warn you! (check out items 18 and 19)

Radish cake (3 pcs). I have an extreme fondness for radish cakes and I had no regrets ordering it. It was superb. I am rather exacting in how I like my radish cake cooked and the softness of the "cake" is just perfecto. Hubs said it was salty but I disagreed.

 

Rice flour rolls with BBQ pork (3 rolls). In Singapore we call this chee cheong fun. Dimdimsum's version unfortunately did not match my high standards. I think the problem with how Hongkongers eat chee cheong fun is the sauce they provide is not the same. In Singapore we eat it with 2 or 3 kinds of sauce. A light sweet soy sauce, a reddish sweet sauce and chilli sauce. Also the skin could be a little bit softer. I ate 2 rolls of this and felt my stomach bursting. Chee cheong fun can be rather filling.

Stuffed Bean Curd Wraps in Mushroom Soup (3 pcs). This was so fantastic. I would love to eat it again. The "soup" tasted very good. Yum, yum, yum. If I close my eyes and think very hard, I swear I can still "taste" the soup.

I think this is Shanghai Soup Dumplings with black truffle (3 pcs). The skin was rather thick so not good in my opinion. I think Din Dai Fung's steamed dumpling set the standard for little steamed dumplings for me.

Chiu Chow Style dumplings (3 pcs). I think we regretted ordering this because I was too full to eat any and hubs had to finish it and he didn't like Chiu Chow dumplings. My bad.

At Dimdimsum we were served 2 cups of tea. I'm pretty sure this tea is for drinking because the waiter topped it up. (I drank it)

When it came time to pay, I went to the cashier to do it. Hubs gave me some notes and all his coins which we desperately wanted to get rid of. Hong Kong currency has these strange $1, $2, $5 coins and we didn't want to keep them. The cashier understood immediately that I wanted to get rid of my dollar coins and she took all the coins from me and a few notes. How nice of her! We left extremely happy.

Address:
112 Tung Choi Street, Mong Kok

Other outlets: Jordan, Wan Chai, Sha Tin, Whampoa

Read about my trip to Hong kong here:
4Days 3Nights in Hong Kong
Tea at Australia Dairy Co
Breakfast at Capital Cafe