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2013-07-06
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無印良品在港首間Cafe。簡約裝修, 環境不錯;服務員非常有禮;食物選擇不多。質素不錯但性價比很低。Good serviceNice environmentAverage food.Poor value for money. Less meat, more vegetables:Queuing up for organic vegetables is not my ideal way of spending a Sunday afternoon. My wife was interested in trying this newly opened Muji Cafe so being the good husband I complied (I managed to persuade my wife not to try this for dinner the night before. A boring lunch is more bearable than a boring dinner.) Much to my surprise, even at 2:30p.m., we ha
簡約裝修, 環境不錯;
服務員非常有禮;
食物選擇不多。
質素不錯但性價比很低。
Good service
Nice environment
Average food.
Poor value for money.
Less meat, more vegetables:
Queuing up for organic vegetables is not my ideal way of spending a Sunday afternoon. My wife was interested in trying this newly opened Muji Cafe so being the good husband I complied (I managed to persuade my wife not to try this for dinner the night before. A boring lunch is more bearable than a boring dinner.)
Much to my surprise, even at 2:30p.m., we had to queue for more than 10-15 mins.
You can have a look at the menu while you're queuing, the theme here being "Nutritious, Healthy Food" and "Less meat; More veggies." Sounds expensive already.
System:The system of purchasing food is a bit similar to Starbucks. First you queue for a table. After you get a table, queue at the food counter and choose what you like. Pay at the cashier there and then. After you finish, I think you're supposed to hand your trays back to the staff.
Although the menu featured twenty main items, I saw less than half of those actually available at the food counter.
Standard 4 items set (HK$98):
This was what my wife choose:Two pieces of chicken chunks: This was covered in what appeared to by sweet Thai style chilli sauce one uses for dipping prawn cakes. The meat was extremely tough. MacDonalds or KFC serve more succulent chicken pieces. Bad start.
Vinegar marinated bitter gourd, egg plants and carrots: This was just like some appetizers you get for free in many Japanese restaurants. I'm not sure whether the bitter gourd was from Okinawa or not. It was quite bitter but had a strong liqourice aftertaste. The egg plants and carrots might have been from Japan. Not bad.
The black seaweed (hijiki) is yet another typical appetizer at Izakayas like Hoka Hoka or Fuji no Sahi. It's apparently good for your hair. Those were mixed with some turnip sprouts. This combination was rather weird. At least the sprouts were fresh. Again, not bad.
Nasu with fried pork: These were marinated in a bit of miso. Again, fresh vegetables and decent pork meat but nothing wildly different from most authentic Japanese restaurant in town.
Miso soup: The miso soup was similar to a "tonjiru" (miso soup with carrots, burdock, onions and slices of pork) served at Ootoya. The quality was good. The miso was fairly pronounced . The veggies in it were crunchy too. Good. (You can purchase the miso soup at Muji.)
On average, it's about HK$18-20 for each small scoop of "appetizers". Not value for money.
Less meat, Less vegetables:
I wasn't interested in pay HK$98 for four small scoops of veggies. Fortunately, there was something which looked more substantial - "Butter Mixed Vegetables Chicken Curry." (HK$80)It's supposed to be "North Indian Style" curry with veggies and chicken chunks. When it arrived, I was fairly disappointed with both the amount of curry sauce and the amount of meat and veggies in the curry.
Felt rather different from the photo.
The curry seemed to me to be a lighter and milder type of S&B curry. It wasn't spicy at all. To be fair, it was fairly smooth and had some buttery taste. However, it only had a pathetic amount of chicken in the "chicken" curry: just one small piece of half a chicken chunk. Less than ten pieces of veggies. In my humble opinion, this is bringing the "less meat" concept a bit too far.
You could choose between normal rice or "10 grain rice". Similar to what you could get at most health food shops nowadays. I'm pretty sure MUJI sells that too. The rice was pretty soft and fluffy. It was good.
As part of the set, you could choose an item from the food counter. I choose pork belly in vinegar sauce. The pork was good. It reminded me of the black vinegar dishes served at Ootoya. Again, the portion was rather small. If this was part of the "4 Item set", it would mean about HK$18-24 for two slices of pork belly.
The miso soup was similarly good.
Nevertheless, because of the poor curry, I was not happy about my set at all. I finished the whole set in 15 minutes but felt pretty hungry afterwards.
Sweets:
The caramel pudding came with a cup of lemon tea. The taste of the lemon tea was too strong. My wife couldn't handle it.The caramel pudding was not significantly different from those one could get in most super markets. Is this worth HK$66? I'm not sure. Having said that, it is a comfy place with good service.
Less is not more:
My wife's lunch set with the pudding set came down to HK$166. For a similar price, you could get unlimited refills of fresh veggies AND unlimited cooked dishes at "Vegi" (TST branch - but that was a while ago.) I consider the price here a bit of a rip off.
I will not consider returning. I thought long and hard on whether this should be OK or a Crying face. My wife thought it was OK (perhaps because I paid.) To be fair, the quality of the food was OK. But the price wasn't.
You've been warned.
Other Info. :
4品及甜品餐約共$165。 以差不多價錢在Vegi已有無限素菜和熟食放題。(曾在TST店吃過, 不知現在還有沒有。)
(The above review is the personal opinion of a user which does not represent OpenRice's point of view.)
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