Cafe Corridor  

Along the buzzling Times Squares in Causeway Bay, it's hard to find any silence around the area. Cafes are normally filled with people, crowded and noisy. Nonetheless, right opposite to Times Square, at a barely noticeable entrance, there's a small cafe that allows you to find a sense of calmness and quietness from all the busy cosmopolitan. Not that I mean there aren't much customers, but it just feels like after walking through that corridor, you have found a quiet corner separating you from the outside.
It's definitely not a big place, but I find the surrounding, with all the wooden chairs and tables, sets a really calming atmosphere and ambience. You make your orders at the counter and the waiters will serve it to your table when it's ready.
It just feels wrong to not try out the coffees at a cafe. I've heard they make good latte art, and I'm anticipated to acknowledge it.
We ordered a cup of Mocha and a cup of Cappuccino. Soon enough they were ready, and served on our table.
The latte art on the mocha was a face but, hilariously, an unhappy face. This unhappy face, however, had the ability to make you smile though as you can tell the latte art was really nicely done and it was beautiful.The mocha tasted great. The blend of coffee and chocolate was fabulous.
The latte art on the cappuccino was really nice too but less impressive than that on the mocha. It was a flower.The cappuccino was good too. The milk foam was rich, and together with the coffee, it made a rich velvety texture, which was totally pleasurable to drink.
I was impressed with their coffee and was more happier to find it totally not pricey at all.
One of the most popular food items here is undoubtedly the All Day Breakfast, and so we had one too. It was nice presented and to our amusement, the ketchup on the hash brown made a smiling face, which definitely lightens you up when you see it.

I used to like this place a whole lot more. But having been away for a year, I guess things change. I ordered a mango banana smoothies. It's more like a frappé than a smoothies... And the "fruit" are just bottle syrup. Okay perhaps there might be half a banana but all I could taste was the artificial syrup flavoring! That's just kinda gross...When I asked for a glass of iced water I was told that the ice would cost me $5.00!It's a nice pla e to hang out but of that's the quality I'm getting. I probably won't be back anytime soon...

It was a Tuesday night when I went with my friend. Saw all the good reviews for this cafe and thought that it would be a good place to have a quick and chill dinner near times square.

ENVIRONMENT

Slightly tricky for first-timers to spot the entrance for this cafe. Indeed, as per its name ("Café Corridor"), it involved us spotting and going through a long corridor to reach the Café

We arrived just before 8pm. The Café was actually very small with quite a lot of tables. When I visited, there were not a lot of customers at all (only 2 other tables were occupied); but I could envisage a very loud and busy café during weekends (perhaps NOT the best place for a quiet chat and a long stay).

The light was quite dim, food and drinks offered all scribbled onto the blackboard with different colours of chalks; the place certainly felt cosy!

SERVICE

Not much service involved, a small café afterall. Order to be placed by yourself at the cashier, but food would be brought to your table.

FOOD

As expected (and thus no disappointment), not a wide variety of food was served. We both ordered the full english breakfast and smoothies. Would really love to try their coffee, but it was getting late and I was not keen to have further caffeine intake for that day. The preparation of the full english breakfast did not take long and we were served swiftly.GOOD presentation. The ketchup smiley face was cute and a very nice touch
(i also saw from other reviews that they did similar smiley faces for other dishes, and of course, amazing latte art!)

The food, however, was unexciting. There was some scramble egg, a piece of hashbrown, a few mini sausages, a piece of toast/bread and some salad. Scramble egg was very mediocre and unmemorable, way too well-done... good that it was topped with pepper and salt (which did not only make it look better, but taste better). Hashbrown was a bit soggy, the cute smiley face made me smile though. Mini sausages were just the normal and uninspiring ones you could easily purchase from any supermarket and cook yourself; I was served with 5 pieces.. hmm.... there was a piece of toast/bread (certainly not just a piece of bread since it was lightly toasted but not reaching the "toasted" level) topped with some melting butter.. salad which is a few pieces of green.

Enough said. Unexciting, just okay.

....BUT I have NOT tried their coffee!!



This "(only)-ok-review" does not mean that I will never return. I have not tried their coffee and would love to!

Despite the not very exciting food (for me, the full english breakfast), this place has its selling points (apart from coffee; a simple, semi-hidden-away, cosy cafe right opposite to times square! ) and its undeniable appeal with NICE latte art and CUTE ketchup "drawings" (which would undoubtedly bring a smile on your face; it did the magic for me).

This reminds me of the rule of success and the importance of "positioning" and "packaging".

And I hope this reminds us - do not underestimate each and every little touch and act you did, you could have made someone smile

Let the joy in your heart overflow and water everyone you meet.

=)

Haven't been back here for a long time, in fact, too long. If my memory serves me right, this place has been around since Times Square was built, and even before all those Starbucks and Pacific Coffee have sprung up all over town.

Despite its small size, it has a very friendly and cozy feel to it. People would come for a quick bite, a quick cup of coffee but at the same time for the magazines available. Basically, people would come here for the coffee and cakes, and not to do homework and spend time on the sofa (there is none here).

Went for a double espresso and a Baileys cheese cake, something I felt like having after a less than satisfying lunch. The place was still well patronized at 2:30pm but the good thing about this place is that the turnover is very fast. I was already seated even before the coffee was ready. The cheese cake didn't have the taste of Baileys and was also a little small for the price but then the aroma and taste of the espresso made up for it. No complaints there.

As I walked out, I was immersed in a gratifying sense of deja vous, a pleasant feeling that this place is surviving well in a very materialistic Causeway Bay. Hong Kong should have more dreamers like the people who own this place. No intention of conforming, no intention of floating along aimlessly, they are just there to do what they set out to do - making coffee for people who want to escape the maddening crowd of CWB. May this spirit live on!

This is my first review on openrice, so I guess i will start off with a cafe.

I found cafe corridor on the CNNGo website which rated the cafe as one of the top 5 new coffee hot spots in the city, so I visited it tonight wanting to knock off an essay for college.

The atmosphere was a small, friendly, honest, busy café which was quite welcoming.
Decor includes artworks on the walls such as lomography and word arts. One thing that stood out was the size of the tables which was tiny( it could barely fit my 13 inch laptop and a cup of coffee beside it).

I had a cappuccino. First look was alright, simple art, about 0.5 cm foam on the top, and smell was mellow. The taste was not as good as i expected as it wasn't served with fresh full cream milk and i remember the time of heating the milk was very long, which ruined the silkiness of the milk. Apart from that the flavor of the coffee was great, roasted just right giving a strong toasted hint. It would be a good cup if the milk was done correctly.

Not quite for customers who would like to study or work in there where it seems to be a stop-by place, as the environment does not calm.

Thank you and there will be more reviews shortly.

There was a time period when I received the odd bad Espresso's or Cappucino's here - as they seemed to be either really burnt during the Espresso Extraction or, the Blended Beans lacked aroma and flavours. So sometimes I never finished the drinks and thought it was just a waste of money...

Now that Corridor have changed to a New Espresso Machine (I think? actually I never notice these things much, its often not the bottleneck) but most importantly, also recruited a very damn good Barista these recent months, not to mention Felix seems to be roasting the beans better than ever, as the beans flavours are starting to finally leap out from the cup rather than staying muted - so I'm in love with Cafe Corridor again.
Note that I still haven't taken up the courage to try their Espresso again yet! Hope they'll be good as well!

Finally I found a place where I can thoroughly enjoy a nice cup of mocha! After reading the comments from you openrice fans, I decided to give this place a try!!

I must have been spoiled for nice coffee in Australia. So each time I come back to HK for holidays I am always looking for some decent coffee. I have tried so many different cafes and coffee shops their coffee were nowhere near my expectation.

Thankyou for a nice cup of mocha this afternoon and I will definitely come back to try the food and bring my friends along next time!

Cheers

One of my favourite place to have great coffee.

This cafe is called Cafe Corridor for a reason; you'll need to walk through a long corridor to get there. Some say it's not an easy place to find, but you just need to really look and you'll get there. It is a cosy place, with about 7 tables for two indoors, and a few more seats outdoors for the smokers. For such a small place, you can imagine how noisy it can be during peak hour or lunch time.

They've got a lot to offer, from all day breakfast ($48) to avocado on toast ($30), as well as apple crumble ($30) etc.

I never have sugar in my coffee, and I can understand why some must have sugar in theirs - because the coffee is too bitter. Good coffee should never have an exceedingly strong bitter taste, but just the right amount.

Cafe corridor is up there with the likes of Batch and Baba Bhutan in Melbourne, if I may say so myself; they've got the beans, the temperature and the pattern spot on!

Cafe latte costs $28, $24 for takeaway, and if you have your own cup (like my Keep Cup), you get a great coffee for $22! Tell me that is not good value.

Kudos to Cafe Corridor for doing it right, and doing it with passion.

On a recommendation from a friend that this was the best cafe in causeway, and potentially in hong kong, I went for a try. Many things on the menu looked tempting, but for a first visit, I decided to just try out the hot chocolate. It was actually quite ordinary. Nothing to really write home about, but I guess its their coffee and food which gets the rave reviews, so I'll have to try it again soon before making any final verdicts... bonus points for their foam art tho... apparently a strong suit...

I am sure a lot of "open ricers" are a coffee addict like myself~ I drink at least 2 cups of coffee everyday~

I have to confess that I usually get my cup of coffee at those chain coffee shops for my own convenience.

my friend and I both didnt want to go to those chain cafes (over crowded) that evening so we ve decided to stop by cafe corridor for a cup of coffee.

this was my 4th visit to this cafe and i must say it was by far the worst experience ever.

we ordered two cups of mocha and scone.

we waited for a long time for our drinks to come (the cafe wasn't full at the time) and they even delivered our drinks coffees to the table next to us(who arrived later than us and also ordered 2 mochas).

both of our mochas arrived to our table warm and didnt really have a slight taste of chocolate at all.

scone was very plain and dry even with the given butter/cream.

after having our cups of mocha there that evening, both of us kinda regretted for not getting our cups of coffees at one the regular chain cafes just across the street at Times Square.

This was the café I considered the best on the Hong Kong island and second to Crema in TST East. I used to recommend everybody that there’s no excuse not to have a really good coffee if you’re in Causeway Bay. Also, their food offering was the best I had among cafés.
My latest visit this afternoon kinda confirmed the food part. The apple tart tasted quite nice but it still maintained a "slow" food culture. The coffee, however, was lagging vs. its superb past.
It’s my understanding that Café Corridor changed the coffee blend from Acqua to a darker roast Terra some time between my last visit a while back and this one. Felix, the proprietor, told me a long time ago that he himself preferred a lighter cup of Acqua blend, particularly for espresso/ristretto but the darker roasted Terra blend was more economical for café operators as it easily punched through milk based drink. In a way, its ristretto was still quite nice but I missed lots of nuances in cups I had had at this café.
My Capp was served with chocolate/cocoa powder and, if this happened, I typically ordered a new one without the powder. However, I hit my ceiling today for caffeine so I tried my best to tell you what was in the cup.
The temperature of the cap was quite high but still within the right temperature range. The milk texture was superb like in the old day but the sorrow latte art was nothing close to nice ones I had in the past there. The coffee punched through the milk much better which was in line with the Terra blend but I really missed a more mellow Capps I had in the past at Café Corridor which came from lighter blends.
While I still considered Café Corridor one of the best café in HK, the gap is getting narrower with Soft Aroma and Coco Espresso breathing on its neck despite a different style. One good thing is that the shop was jam-packed during my visit and I hope they consider going back to their glory past with a lighter roast blend.

Tried the Latte and introduce my friends to try Cappuccino. Very nice espresso base. Temperature is just fit. Foamed milk is so smoothie.
After that I tried another single shot of espresso, its more than perfect!!!

After reading some good comments on Openrice about this café, my gf and I decided to explore it.

The light, music and decoration made it a cosy and relaxing place. We ordered latte, latte macchiato, French toast and spice and ham spaghetti.

The taste of the latte were just right, not too strong and not too light. If it could be a bit hotter would be perfect! (Maybe it was the A/C blowing too hard =p). The French toast was one of the best French toasts ever had!! (of course, it’s not the typical HK-style one) The syrup was not too sweet which was good! The spaghetti looked and smelled good but the taste was a bit too light.

Not to mention that the service was great! The waitress and waiter were both nice and friendly.

My gf and I would definitely visit again!

had lunch there with my fren

we can choose the pattern on the latte, i chose panda n it was super cute haha

food looks gd as well.

we ordered all day breakfast n omelet rice

the smiley on the omelet makes me feel so happy la

i'd like to take this opportunity to thank all customers for your long-being support especially, Cat小黑貓, who kept introducing this small and smoky shop to her friends. i was shamed as i knew some of you didn't have a good time in the shop.
thank Cat小黑貓again for clarifying some mis-understaning to the others.
we'll try our best to improve the defects by not just saying, but action.