Suzuki Cafe Company     鈴木珈啡館  

There are only so many restaurants that you can stop at within LCX when you're a bit tired from walking and with a baby stroller, so we picked Suzuki Cafe based on what looked like a spacious place and views.

Set lunch for 2:
- Soup of the day was curry mussel
- Beef brisket rice and a black truffle shrimp pizza
- Dessert was a tiny, non-descript fruit custard tart accompanied by an espresso.

The mussels tasted like smoked mussels out of a can, the rice didn't have any sauce except for what clung on to the bits of brisket and tendon and the pizza had overly sweet dried shrimp overpowering the taste of everything else. For coffee specialists, the espresso was nothing special.

The poor service was what really stood out from our visit:

1) The lady at the front demanded - it wasn't even a polite ask - that we leave the stroller at the front door where no staff would have been watching it. After we said it folds flat, she "allowed" us to fold it up at the door (because there actually is little space between tables once you get in) and at the table, took great pains to point at the exact point on the floor that we could leave the stroller - exact, not an inch off the point. It was just easier to laugh at the comedy routine.

2) One waiter spent time listening to jokes on his communications headset and looking at other staff, laughing to himself. He did stop to ask us twice if we wanted to spend $25 each to upgrade to a drink other than the espresso.

3) When we asked another waiter if we could have some water, he glared and said that they only served bottled water pointing at the room temperature bottle of Italian mineral water on the table and stormed off. The tag around the bottle had some cute attempt at a greeting inviting you to purchase the bottle of water especially chosen and brought to you by Suzuki. Even a convenience store offers chilled mineral water; a 5 star restaurant would chill its mineral water and certainly offer you normal drinking water without fuss.

If you're there for the view, ours was blocked by a cruise ship so you have to pick your day.

I have had dinner with my two girls friends in there. Actually, their interior design, setting and atmostphere is prefect for friend gathering. The waiter arranged a table near the window for us, then we could enjoy the beautiful scence of victoria harbour. There is a free Wi-Fi to customer. I think it is good.
However, I don't really satisfactory with the dishes. We order 3 dishes, one crab spaghetti, korean style rice and snack set. I think Korean style rice is too salty. The texture of spaghetti is too soft. The snack is too oilly. Total for all is around $300. I think it is not worth for this price. Next time, I won't go there for dinner, may be only go there for a drink.

Usually I know what I want to eat, however today was clueless, so randomly walked into to this place.

Even with the menu, I was clueless on what to choose, mainly because the dishes were Hong Kong style Japanese food. The sickly rice pots, and overly creamy pastas. I got my inspiration my from a pair of Westerners and got the set with Ribs, the other with chicken in Sake.

The table was too small, so the set that was served in a box, had to be taken away, and the little dishes placed on the table.
For the starters, the salad comprised of rocket lettuce, red lettuce and Japanese vinegar sauce. The scallop and asparagus was tasteless, but tasted ok after dipping it in vinegar. The prawn and pork dumplings also tasted good.

The spinach and baby scallop soup was quite good too, there were about 4 scallops in the soup.

The mains were not as good as starters, the ribs were a bit dry, and the chicken was just boiled frozen chicken thigh with fat chicken skin.

Finally the honey jelly was very good, light and refreshing.
The only disappointment was the cruise liner blocking the sea view.

I went there yesterday afternoon for a quick coffee and sat in the leather sofa outside. The sofa is uncomfortable as it is much lower than the table (I got a headache afterwards) and there was lots of food, chips etc under the table for some reason. We ordered Sumiyaki coffee which we had before in other Suzuki shops but it was a big disappointment. The coffee was lukewarm at best, very diluted and surprising they dont have coffee cream. The bill came out to be HKD 92 before tips for just 2 cups of coffee. I have had better coffee from American Airline flights (that shows how scarily bad their coffee is). Will not go there again!