Initial Cafe  

It is a nice café integrated in a shop which selling clothes. The decoration was appealing and it was comfortable to spend time eating at Initial. There was tap water provided in the restaurant, they are filled in a tall and lovely bottle.Spaghetti took a little time to be ready. Tasting the first bite without breaking the egg, the spaghetti was instead very creamy and a bit dry. However, it was added with many ingredients which were mainly small slices of squid. With an half-boiled egg placed on the top, the egg yolk helps balance the creamy taste and makes it to be a perfect dish. In fact, the sauce was outstanding and tasty, but the texture was not strong enough. What upset me was the quality of the spaghetti, it was a bit hard to chew and was not soft enough. Also, the portion was quite small as you can see, it was not suitable for a girl, not to mention for boys. Costing nearly a hundred dollars for such a dish, the portion should be larger. The shop also offer tea set and full breakfast, could come and try again someday.

i visited this cafe because the decor caught my eye, i adore the the rustic, vintage, shabby chic style. for me the ambience & comfort of a dining setting is important, and initial cafe (as are their fashion stores) was wonderfully decorated.

:: menu ::
their menu is a selection of modern fusion food... with a selection of salads, pasta, noodle, steaks, dessert & drinks. they have a tofu salad with sesame & lotus root (sounds so good); pumpkin, potato, egg & japanese fried white bait with mashed potato; tomato soup with beef chuck & japanese noodle; grilled ireland rib eye steak with mashed pumpkin & mushroom cream....

we ordered two lunch sets (which comes with soup/salad, pasta & coffee/tea) & dessert...

:: entree & drinks ::
pumpkin soup
garden salad with japanese salad sauce
green tea
iced coffee
strawberry smoothie (very yummy)

:: main ::
linguine with sea clams & white wine
black ink spaghetti & seafood with mushroom cream sauce

whilst both dishes were nice, the linguine gets a special mention because it was great. the sea clams were very fresh & the subtle flavour of the white wine was wonderfully infused into the dish... i'd highly recommend trying this pasta.

:: dessert ::
to top it off, we had banana waffles with ice-cream, this was delicious.
the waffles tasted freshly made

As I was in the area, therefore decided to try out this cafe with a friend on a lazy weekday afternoon. I have heard about this place for a quite some time but somehow just didn't had the motivation to walk in for a coffee, but my friend told me this is not a bad place for tea, so we went.

My initial impression is that its quite a casual cafe which is stylish in terms of the overall renovations. It does surprised me that their menu is much more extensive than I would have expected. Since it is for afternoon tea and my friend wasn't feeling so well, so we only ordered the followings:

Green tea with milk - my friend's drink which looks pretty good but she said it wasn't quite hot enough and the green tea taste wasn't rich enough.

Latte - My coffee - nice coffee art, nice and rich but just not hot enough...was a bit disappointed.

Banana Chocolate Tart - This is quite a nice mix of both tastes, smooth in the mouth, I enjoyed it much.

Tiramisu - Small portion, but it does look quite nice, but standard.

All in all, this is a nice cafe for one to spend a quiet afternoon with a nice cup of coffee however, the hot drinks really need to improve so that they are actually hot enough. Will definitely come back again if I am in that area.

I always shop at Initial therefore I was intrigued in trying their cafe as well. I really liked the interior design and the atmosphere. The food was good but not extremely delicious. I especially liked the waffle in the Brunch Set ($49). The latte was nice too, but not the best. I want to try more of the special drinks when i visit again.

I would definite visit more often if it is situated in a more convenient area for me, i.e. Causeway Bay.

The only bad point I would like to mention is that the amount of time they took to prepare and cook the meal. We were the only customers there but they took over 40 mins after we ordered. So if you're looking for a quick lunch, this is not a good place.

The cafe is a part of a boutique so it benefits from the nice decoration.

The coffee seemed to possess traits of artisanal/local roaster and not the Italian style one could find at Coco, Fuel and other Italian brands.

My ristretto/espresso from four different occasions during early February 2009 and early May 2009 showed signs of good coffee but was short of body and other tastes I enjoyed elsewhere.

I think the word 'hollow' explain quite well my feeling toward espresso/ristretto at Initial. I believe the weak and watery taste of the coffee had nothing to do with barista as my cup came from three different barista over different occasions. Not that it was really bad but this is probably the style of the bean which is locally roasted. It may also come from the dose and the freshness of the bean. BTW, lot of coffee drinkers I read about likes this style of bean and the coffee at Initial.

For my cappuccino, the milk/coffee taste combination was good. Initial is famous for its latte art and it didn’t disappoint me at all on this front for the past three times I’m there (no milk drink for my 4th time there)

Nevertheless, I’ve never felt its milk texture velvety, just ranging from a little bit sweet at the right temperature to way too hot almost scald my mouth. I felt as if one frothed the milk to microfoam consistency then add water. The foam cap felt weak/fragile at best.

Initial also offers filtered coffee. However, I didn't see anybody order one so I doubt about the freshness of the bean for filtered coffee. I think they carry Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, Yemen Mocca Mattari and one more bean I can't remember (Maybe central america like Guatemala or Colombia?) Anyway, if you want to try, ask the barista how fresh the bean is.

So, it might be worth it to drop by for a nice combination of boutique and coffee, particularly if one does not want to go to Time Square for Cafe Corridor or it's way after 10PM when Crema Coffee closed.

:]]
nice place to chill out, i had a light lunch with my frd and really enjoyed it
the settings are great, but a bit noisy for its location.

great coffee , great service
but there's still room for improvement on food as there is limited variety of food

lastly, very surprised by the price! the bill was roughly 60 per head! (Y)

Had tried some more coffees at Initial Cafe's coffee and I now think its only fair if I upgrade them to an EQUAL NO.1 Cafe in HK, along with some other ones.
I guess there are 2 reasons.
1) Is that I actually found the baristas to be quite consistent in 'coffee making' than some other shops in HK, especially those with rotating baristas.

2) 2ndly, on some later visits, the coffee(s) did not have some inherent problems which I spoke of previously, especially the slight lingering bitterness bit which affected prior experiences. However, the bit where the milk can still overpower the coffee a little still holds true, although luckily for them, the blending characteristics here makes it work with milk very well.
The coffee served at Initial Cafe is actually quite unique in Hong Kong, I've had similar 'proximity styles' of coffee locally, but here its blended and roasted very well as a PACKAGE together and I've not had it anywhere else in HK yet. It has a malty, caramel, hazelnut, roasty character, plus slight savouriness to it, with a 'long lingering albeit monotone' finish. Due to the 'quoted' last reason, I think its much better in the milk coffees than their Espressos, as the rather complex yet too close in profiles flavours are able to be drawn out slowly through the milk dilution? The tongue simply can't detect the multiple layers in the espresso in its strong state, with only subtle differences between its hidden characters - does it make sense?
If anyone has been to New Zealand or Melbourne - to me, Initial Cafe's coffee tastes nearly identical to certain cafes over there serving Coffee Supreme coffee.... I can't remember if its the signature Coffee Supreme's Supreme blend or another blend (Victoria?) off memory, but I've certainly had the same experiences from shops utilizing Coffee Supreme over there...
If that last bit helps anyone at all, wanting to know what to expect
UPGRADED TO EQUAL 1ST COFFEE SHOP IN HONG KONG.

Just watched an episode on 'Mose's Chan's' TW Special - Coffee Review which featured this Cafe as well as Coffee Assembly (Central/Sheung Wan) and CREMA (TST East). Since I haven't written the review about here, thought I'll chip in with my comments, but only on the Espresso Machine coffee. Personally, I'm not a big fan of Siphon coffee so I haven't tried it (usually, all the wrong flavours extracted as well as the right flavours)
The Espresso here is pretty good and likeable - agree with Borislee that CREMA might be slightly better however. Probably one of the best ones in Hong Kong although the back palate has too much of a bitter note. The same extends to the milk based coffees....
Caffe Latte - served in an ultra big cup, this milk coffee comes with 'poured' latte art, which is sometimes great but sometimes shabby. Flavour reminiscent of roasted hazelnuts, salty/savoury caramel, slighty bitter finish. A good coffee base but due to the large cup they serve it in, even with a bigger espresso base, the milk overpowers the coffee just a tad thought not as obvious as Cafe Corridor.
A decent attractive aroma, in fact quite a long lingering finish although I'm slightly perturbed by the bitter note which overwhelms after all the other flavours are gone.
This is actually a great coffee! Although, I'd stop short of recommending it highly to everyone, especially the milk coffees, because it has too much milky taste (coffee cup size related) and an unresolved finish.