Ma Thai     馬泰   (Closed)

Went in thinking I was dining the Happy-Hour session according to their menu shown and also according to their POS system it was 14:00:53

We went to Ma Thai for dinner with a booking for 7:00. We got there, and they said that the table was with people eating their dessert. Gosh! We said," But we made a BOOKING!" They made us wait and said it will only be 10 minutes yeah yeah yeah, after 20 minutes, they said, "OK, come in please."

Our booking was for 6 people, and they gave us a table for four. They said, "Wait here. The table you will be in is almost done." We said that we had booked and if the restaurant was FULL, they should have called us and we would have made a booking elsewhere, but they said the table was almost done, and we asked them how much longer we had to wait in the 4 people table, they said, "We don't know!" Peeved were we.

We sat down and we looked at the menu. TEN minutes later, they finally moved a table for two over to that table for four.

We ordered, and got our food, but it did not come really quickly, either. We thought seriously that they should have given us some FREE dishes for their absoulutley BAD service, but they did not even give us any rebate or promotion.

The food was good, expecially the pork neck, Hainan chicken and the beef with glutinous rice.

WHAT KIND OF SERVICE IS THAT???!!!

As mentioned in my earlier review, I would revisit this place to try either the Laksa or the Buk Ku Teh.
So this time I tried the Laksa, just to compare with the other places I had before.

For a bowl of Laksa, it was priced at $60, which is the average Laksa price in Hong Kong for a seafood one. As shown on the picture, the seafood, were the frozen ones as expected with no taste, boiled and placed on top of the noodles when served.

The prawns were the peeled types, which were convenient, the only draw back, is that it doesn’t have that prawn taste.

Anyway tasted better than I expected, the soup was much stronger, it was thick and full bodied, creamy, but not too strong of coconut.
The noodles were the thick white ones like spaghetti, they were soft and flavoured from the soup.
The tofu was slightly harder and chewier than preferred, the soup was not spicy at all, so anyone who cannot eat spicy laksa, can try it here.

For dessert I had coconut banana fritters, the batter was just right, light and crispy, inside with pureed banana, and topped with lots of desiccated coconut. The sweetness was acceptable.
Quite a good dessert too.

Finally there is some real Asian cuisine in Hang Hau, a suburb part of the Hong Kong offering Malaysian/Thai food.

Originally wanted to try their Laksa and Buk Ku Teh, but I gathered I could try these later as a quick dinner in the future.

There is a wide yet limited range on the menu, a wide selection, but not all available, most probably due to the location, the people in the suburbs will probably choose the basic and ordinary dishes known to them, rather than adventuring on specialised dishes.

Anyway we ordered the dinner for two, which includes a starter platter, soup, choice of 2 mains courses with rice or roti.

Our choices were as follows:
Starter platter
Soup
Scrambled egg with baby oysters
Hainanese chicken
2 x Rices

Some of the staff were quite efficient and ready to explain their dishes and some were just doing their job.

Anyway first to arrive was the Scrambled egg with oysters, very fragrant, and lots of oysters in it. There was a dish of chilli sauce accompanying it too, which went well together, and tasted like the Big elephant brand chilli sauce.

I scoffed the egg with rice as I was hungry, but the order of the dishes arriving was a bit messed up, after stuffing myself with that, I was a little bit full.
I would have preferred to have the appetiser first, which would be more appetising, but the order of the dishes arriving were:
Scrambled eggs with oysters, soup, rice, starter platter and then the chicken.

The soup was placed on top of those artificial heaters, and it was scary, because the little burner kept making crackling and exploding noises, so I sat well away from it.
There were two choices of soup, Tom Yum and Seafood, so I got the seafood, which tasted strong of seaweed.

The starter platter contained thai style chicken feet, crispy roll, prawn cake, and fish cake.
The chicken feet were quite spicy, the prawn cake tasted ok, and the fish cake, I never like due to the herbs in it.

The Hainanese chicken was slightly dry, and the sauces were not as good as other places.

As well as our table, it seemed the scrambled egg with oysters was a popular pick, they were serving many tables with this dish.

But for two people, it was a bit too much, or it may have been just right, if the order of food arrived accordingly. It included a dessert too, which tasted of coconut, and a chewy texture like the chinese desserts. All that food for $202.

This restaurant has a wider variety of Thai, Malaysian and general Southeast Asian food, so there is something for everybody.
They also have some Indian chefs making roti and curry in the display area near the entrance.
I also like the Nasi Lemak (coconut rice with anchovies, beef rendang, fried egg, peanuts, cucumber) very much. It reminds me of the ones I had in Malaysia.
Their lamb shank curry is also a good choice.
The restaurant can get crowded, but for a mid-priced restaurant in a shopping mall in Hong Kong, it is acceptable.

It's a very good option if you are in Hang Hau area.