It was 7:45am. It was a Monday. Humidity above 85%. The weather sucks. It was definitely not a good way to start the week. Usually I would still be in bed at this time under my blanket crouching like a cooked prawn with the air conditioner blowing out cool air at 24 degree Celsius. But not this very morning because there was a breakfast gathering with a few friends. I was (am still) very surprised I can actually get up this early and be so awake when I arrived in Central. Maybe I should try to sleep around 5 hours a night and get up bright and early for a change !? humm ... when was the last time I had breakfast? 3 weeks ago? or was it a month ago? ... o well.

Since we were meeting at Landmark, we were too lazy to walk back over to LFK for some Tsui Wah breakfast which I enjoyed once in a while but it tends to be too much for breakfast in my opinion. Also, we were a bit tight with time so Cafe Landmark was ruled out. Other than Starbucks, where can we have a light breakfast? LE SALON DE THÉ de Joël Robuchon

Note: Not the restaurant which is either LE JARDIN de Joël Robuchon or L'ATELIER de Joël Robuchon; but the Patisserie store on the 3rd floor.

(1) Le croissant aux amandes (Almond croissants) & Le pain au chocolat (Chocolate croissant)
Now, I don't know about you but I think the Almond croissant here is one of the best in Hong Kong. I am yet to find a place that can top it. At HKD 17 a piece, both hands down and two big thumbs up! It was served warm (re-heat with oven on order) and the layers were very thin making it very crisp on every bite. The icing, the almond flakes and the almond filling ... o o o ... yes ... o o o ... so good! The chocolate croissant was equally well done with just the right amount of chocolate filling together with thin and crisp layers. The layers were so thin that you can break through them by a slight touch with the tip of your tongue. How I wish I can stuff the whole thing into my mouth so no single croissant flakes would be left behind (or went to waste). Leave no flakes behind !!!

Next breakfast gathering ... to be decided; but maybe it can be a weekly thing from now on? humm ... maybe I should stop by tomorrow morning and grab myself an almond croissant for breakfast again. A little luxury to start the day! By doing so, at least there is something to look forward to in the morning other than heading back to the office right away ... right? ;)

Likes:

* Le croissant aux amandes (Almond croissant) - you have to experience it yourself! If chance permit, sit down to enjoy instead of buying take-away.
* Le pain au chocolat (Chocolate croissant)
* Le croissant aux amandes (Almond croissant)
* Le croissant aux amandes (Almond croissant) - I mentioned that already right? haha .. well, worth mentioning again and again !!

Dislikes:

* I am sorry, I am still thinking ...

Avg Spending: Below HKD 100 per person

Original Blog: http://jason-bonvivant.blogspot.com/2009/08/le-salon-de-de-joel-robuchon.html

Call me ignorant if you want but not until today did I realize that this place belongs to the same group as Al Dente which I frequent and consider it as one of my favorite casual Italian restaurants in town. The place is more spacious for one but the seating seems equally packed like Al Dente is. One thing I often hear from friends about Al Dente @ Soho was the bad service and I have to agree based on my past experiences of dinning there without ordering any wines. Yes, it is the order of wines that would make the difference. The last time I went to Al Dente was about a week ago and it seemed like their service is improving! Let's wait and see.

Arrived at Cenacolo around 12:30pm for lunch and the place was relatively empty so I picked a table near the wall because it was more spacious. The manager (I assumed he is because of his outfit) asked if I would like any drinks to start with and I replied "water is fine." He then continued, "distilled or sparkling? " and I replied "ice water is fine." He did not show any discontent or anything and smiled back at me even though I did not order bottle water. His simple smile is a big surprise and earn a big thumbs up for this review. I am sure all of you have experienced some unpleasant moments when ordering drinks, particular with water.

My friend and I ordered set lunches with the following items: (1) Soup of the Day - Cream of Broccoli, (2) Greek Salad, (3) Chicken Toscana, (4) Pasta of the Day - Mushroom linguine & (5) Some Pudding as dessert (more like carrot cakes)

(1) Soup of the Day - Cream of Broccoli
According to my friend, the soup tasted pretty good. Strong broccoli and butter taste. However, she raised an interesting question. With such strong or rich broccoli taste in a soup, how can the color of the soup remained white or beige? A good question indeed and I have no idea. If you do, please do let me know.

(2) Greek Salad
Just like any other Greek salad you can find everywhere. Portion wise I am surprised that it was pretty generous. Forgot to mention about the bread but then again just another garlic baked bread. I like it without the olive oil and vinegar because it has enough taste by itself.

(3) Chicken Toscana
My friend gave me a piece of the chicken toscana to try. Chicken Toscana is basically chicken breast stuffed with spinach. It was very good. The side dishes like egg plant and mashed potatoes were all hot off the plate and the stuffing / spinach goes really well with the chicken breast which was tender throughout. A well prepared dish indeed.

(4) Pasta of the Day - Mushroom linguine
The linguine was above average, not only was it al dente, it was hot which is an important factor for a good dish of pasta or for any hot dishes for that matter. Another reason I liked this dish they prepared was the sauce. I am not a big fan of tomato sauce because usually it is overly sour / citrus. The sauce here was rather sweet which I certainly preferred. Again, portion was generous and can certainly fill your stomach and give you a very sleepy afternoon at work. Just a warning for the potential food coma!

(5) Pudding?
Some kind of pudding as we were being told but it tasted more like carrot cakes to me. An overly sweet carrot cakes soaked in syrup with caramel sauce on top. The ice cream did not help but exemplified the sweetness of the pudding / cake. Thanks, but I think I will definitely skip next time.

Likes:

* Generous portions for all dishes
* Friendly Staff in general (but not very experienced for a few of them)
* Well prepared pasta and stuffed chicken, will to try other dishes next time

Dislikes:

* Environment / Seating rather packed
* Small Tables
* Temperature Control (front door always remain opened)
* Overly sweet dessert

Hi!

I am new to Openrice and just came back to Hong Kong after living in the US for 10+ years. 請多多指教!

If you have lived in Manhattan, you probably realize how hard it is to find good dim sum places in Chinatown. If you want slightly better versions, you will need to go all the way to Flushing, but that doesn't even get you good dim sum like those in Hong Kong.

That said, not every dim sum place in Hong Kong is great. There are too many chain establishments that serve cheap but mediocre dim sum. In my opinion, it’s totally worth it to pay the extra dollars to have great dim sum like those at 富聲.

Everyone seemed to rave about the 叉燒 @ 富聲. So when we had lunch there last two weeks ago, we ordered 3 different 叉燒 dishes: 和哥叉燒, 酥皮叉燒包, and 傳統叉燒包 . The 和哥叉燒 was definitely one of the highlights of the meal. The fatty portion was soft (鬆化)and flavorful while the skinner portion was still tender without being dry or stringy. The honey glaze was slightly sweet without being cloying. It had less char than the 叉燒 I had at 西苑 which I found to be a bit bitter in taste with the char. Personally I prefer the 叉燒@富聲 but that's just a personal preference.

The 酥皮叉燒包 and the traditional 傳統叉燒包 were great but not as spectacular as the plain 叉燒. That's because 1) the buns were quite small (the pictures made them look big) and 2) the 叉燒 pieces were chopped up too small with too little inside. The sauce was plentiful so flavorwise it was still terrific, but it lacked the texture (口感)of biting into the 叉燒 pieces. (I recalled the buns being bigger and with more fillings in the past. Was it because of 金融海嘨?). Next time I may order the 和哥叉燒 and tuck in the pieces into the 酥皮包 to “supersize” my 叉燒包

A good dim sum place can't just survive with 叉燒包 alone, and sure enough 富聲 offered other scrumptious dim sum:
- 七味豆付 was extremely good, crispy outside and silky inside;
- XO醬煎腸粉 was soft and thin with the right amount of soy sauce (XO醬 on top), not a bit oily;
- 素菜包 was a surprise because they were hot and full of fresh vegetables and mushrooms with just a touch of sesame oil to enhance the flavor;
- Even standard items like 蝦餃 (big juicy shrimps inside), chicken feet, and 春卷 were steamed/fried fresh and hot. Overall we were very impressed by the 點心 here.

For desserts, we had 脆麻花, 薑茶湯圓, 楊枝甘露. I think the 脆麻花 were quite good as they were freshly fried, warm and crispy. The other two were decent but nothing to right home about.

Service left a lot to be desired. They missed two of our orders (one being the dessert) twice and it turned out that they didn't put in the orders at all. For the desserts they even suggested us to cancel the items and pay the bill at once as if they wanted to kick us out to turn around tables. We were there on Friday and I couldn't imagine what their service would be like for weekends. This was frustrating because the poor service ruined the otherwise superb dim sum lunch.

Overall, 富聲 may not be the best dim sum place in town, but I will certainly consider it as one of the top-tiered dim sum restaurants.

早在吃Fatburger前就留意到這店，漢堡令人失望嗎?不怕，除了美味奶昔，還有多款精美蛋糕安慰我!
　
灣仔店所有糕點均由北角店生產，大家近在灣仔亦能一親總店風采；不過個人對Teresa印象其實只一般，反而更欣賞灣仔店安靜寧默舒適的環境，連女店員也份外斯文親切，與前一晚Zoe帶點高傲的態度很不同。超喜歡它將蛋糕分為大小不同份量，大的$29-32件，小的才$23件，是日眼闊肚窄的貪心couple就選了：
　
Oreo Banana Cake($23)-試過北角店，對其招牌marble cheesecake不以為然，今趟可以試些新奇口味，如這款曲奇+香蕉的組合。造型可愛迷人，不過其實頂層的Oreo餅是稔的，Oreo餅粉也不夠香，底層又是香油味而非天然香蕉味，唯一較令人欣賞是薄脆的朱古力撻底。
　
Lemon Cheesecake($23)-又一款很精緻的甜品，可情況同上，檸檬香油味始終不夠天然檸檬清香吸引，而Teresa那較淡不太香的芝士餅而非我杯茶，吃到一半就不太願意繼續，後來不想浪費才全數清掉。
　
Bailey's Mousse Cake($23)-名字十分吸引，可惜濃烈的咖啡味完全的蓋過酒味，吃到最終還是分辨不出百利甜酒有否存在過。較濃厚的質感，令人容易感覺飽滯，龍很快就投降了，又是我來解決吧!
　
Lychee Mousse Cake($29)-大小餅其實不盡相同，很多時細餅會少了一厚餅底，所以這款還是選了大的。荔枝口味比前幾款明顯清新很多，慕絲餅層也夠柔滑，算是較好吃的一款餅，不過與早一晚的Zoe則無得比。
　
另外由於餅店不返飲品，是絕對歡迎外帶飲品的，是日揀了消脂的紫葵山楂，略為減低罪惡感。整體而言，幾款餅味道只屬平平，不過環境、氣氛、服務都令人滿意，在此渡過了很愉快的下午，也值一個笑臉!