GyuJin    牛陣  

I've walked by this restaurant so many times but have never had the patience to wait, the line is always so long and there's not much to see in the shopping arcade while you wait. So we booked at lunchtime for dinner and the first open slot was 8pm (on a Fri night).

We got there 10 mins early but still had to wait until 8:15pm till we sat down. The waiter told us we had 90 mins for the buffet dinner and OF COURSE the time started when we sat down, but we had no pot and no food.

It is the nth time for my family to visit Gyu Jin at noon. We have lunch many times here because of its deliciouso hotpot and delightful Haagen Dazs ice-cream. Let's talk about this visit. It was the late-lunchtime so we didn't wait long as other gourmets have written on the page.

After all, Gyu Jin is a timed hotpot restaurant. This time, we ordered the 60-min one for $58 each. There are actually many other timed restaurant in Hong Kong which made me rush for the lunch or dinner. But Gyu Jin is an exception. Why? It is told to be timed but who the hell really takes it serious in this restaurant. Once you have told them that you wanna have more leisure time with your friends, the nice waiters will offer you a delighted smile and say 'That's fine'. This is one of the reasons for my frequent visits.

Quickly step into the main characters of this visit - the sliced beef and pork
Sliced Beef
It is thinnly sliced into pieces. Each piece is rolled into a cylinder shape. You may see this as a frault, fooling the customers with amount but covering its nasty taste. However, this is not the case in Gyu Jin. These sliced beef may not be the best ever but it must be of business class if replacing the rank of quality with the classes in an plane.
Sliced Pork
It is the only thing that I really disappointed with. It resembles the shape and amount of the beef but there are small pieces of bones in there. The taste is ok but there are some artificial colour on the pork. The waiter explained to me that there are the marks to extinguish the best and the good pigs. It doesn't really matters for normal customers
Haagen Dazs
I appreciate the all-you-can-eat Haagen Dazs much. There are four flavour chocolate vanilla passion of fruits and strawberry. They are tasty and flavourism. You can just eat them in the whole lunch to get back the cost.

There were also other stuffs like but they were nothing much to talk about.

All in all, this is not the best restaurant but it is definitly a good restaurant.

P.S. Photos lost

This was actually my second visit to Gyu Jin. The reason that drove me to dine there was their Haagen Dazs ice-cream buffet corner, Yum Yum! The queue at the front door was actually pretty long, I waited for more than 20 minutes before the number on my ticket was called.

Gyu Jin has time limited for its buffet - Once you have ordered the broth, you would have 100 minutes to enjoy your buffet. There are more timed hotpot restaurants nowadays which I dislike as it makes dining rush. Well some restaurants didn't really implement it for real but just stating it on the meal and hope some caring customer would obey this lovely rule themselves.

As long as you chosed the broth and the beef kind, everything else was all you can eat - the beef you ordered, the sauces, the veggie, the meat balls, the noodles as well as my lovely Haagen Dazs ice-cream which there was always no end to the queue.

I ordered Kimchi and Shabu Shabu broth base, there was sadly no ingredients in the soup base when served. Hence I went to the buffet counter to get my broth some tomato, sweet corns and tofu for taste.

1) Kimchi Soup
I was rather surprise to taste no Kimchi taste in the Kimchi Soup, it was not even spicy and was pretty much tasteless. Such a Disappointment! I would rather order soy milk if I would have given another chance.

2) Sukiyaki Soup
The Sakiyaki Soup was on the other hand very sweet and tasteful. It paired extremely well with most of the ingredients, especially the beef, mushrooms, wudon and tofu.

3) The Wagyu Beef
The Wagyu Beef possessed the perfect distribution of fats, it was too beautiful that it seemed shining with dazzling light on the table. The beef was soft and tender and was easily chewable. The wagyu beef was real nice but some parts were just a bit too fat to enjoy.

4) Japanese Egg
The egg was best to mix with pure soy sauce for the Wagyu beef. The smoothness of the egg yolk and egg white brought an ultimate smoothness to the wagyu beef, it almost slipped through my throat! The egg sauce went well with many other ingredients as well e.g. Mushrooms, Wudon. My sister commented it was better than the DIY sauce at counter but I thought they tasted differently and served different purpose, so could not be compared together.

5) Haagen Dazs
There were four flavours - Vanilla, Chocolate, Coffee and Green Tea available that night. Without a thought, I immediately dig insanely to get my four scoops, and sprinkles some hundreds and thousands on top with some guilty fat chocolate sauce.

There were also other stuffs like but they were nothing much to talk about.

I did not expect much from this restaurant after reading the review. However, I have to say the beef (Supreme one) shabu shabu was with very good quality. Very good beef and side dish. I will come back again for sure. Service was ok, not bad.