LGB Cafe  

I was never a big fan of macarons, I thought they were only targeted at people who have no palate or people who has difficulty in tasting sweetness.

The other day I had some of La Xxxxxx Xx Xxxxxxxx's macaron, I thought it was really good, because it was the first time feeling good having macarons, and I thought no other macaron could be better...

until I had this, the macarons of Le Goûter Bernardaud.I didn't know which flavour I had since it was a gift from a friend of mine, I'm guessing it was Framboise (do correct me if I'm wrong), the strong flavour of it fills my mouth quickly and the scent of it was great.

I liked the colour of it as well, not that I would want to wear clothes of this sort of colour i.e. pink, but I do like macarons in these colour, as opposed to.. Green? Purple? Blue? They just feel completely wrong to me. It is not the crispiness nor the crunchiness of it that made me like it, but the fruity filling of it made it less of an artificial product.

I'm not suggesting macarons or whatever desserts aren't "artificially cooked" or natural or whatever.

Thing is, I must say the raspberry filling tasted just perfect.

I finally caught the flu... the macaron flu

Gwailoguru Rating: 6/10 (Western Cafe)

*In One Simple Sentence:*
Fresh coffee and Snacks for quick fix

*Insider Tip:*
Get their "bonus card" and a free

Visiting Details:
Food rating: 7/10
Service: 4/10
Ambiance: 5/10
Price: HK$30 pax
Serving Tab Water/Tea: No-No
English Menu: Yes

What we really liked:
Very convenient location for anyone working in the IFC2 office tower, good fresh coffee
And what not:
The service personal could be nicer

Summary:
Service
Especially in the morning hours there are a lot of people here getting their coffee, cappuccinos and espressos on to start off their day with, means there's little time for the service personal to chitchat or socialize. It's pretty much "Order - Money - Coffee - Go".

The Place
The Place caters obviously everyone working in and around IFC2. There are little places to sit down, but at least you can bring your clients here for a chat / coffee or simply give yourself a short timeout before heading back into the office

I'm not sure if I was suppose to put this into another category. Anyway...

This kiosk has the best hot chocolate in town! I'm not sure if it's Manjari or the Viagra (sorry don't remember the V name) one, but the milk chocolate light chocolate. I tried both, the dark one is slightly sour when it was made with real dark chocolate. I think they use some valhrona paste to make it. I really appreciate how the staff takes such great care in making them, especially one of the managers - who I saw taste testing some of them before he gave them to the customers, hygineically with a seperate spoon. It was marvellous. Ever since I had my first cup, I frequent this shop on a weekly basis - just indescribably the best hot chocolate in town (slightly better than McDonalds, much better than fuel, starbucks, small private cafes etc)

There is one thing I hope the customers are aware of before making their trip though, is that one of the staff is a very bad hot chocolate maker. Not to be racist, but just want to identify this staff - she's the chubby short philippino woman who is at the kiosk most of the time. When the kiosk is less staffed on Friday afternoons (off peak), and she made two of my hot chocolates. The first time I bought it, I'm not sure if she wasn't trainned or whatever, but the hot chocolate she gave me was literally milk and chocolate SEPARATED! I kept drinking and felt like I was drinking just milk (for $31?!). So I drank about 3/4 of it and asked her to remake it because this wasn't the usual hot chocolate I get. The colour was also significantly lighter. What happened next was outrageous. She refused to at first saying I drank half of it already, but I insist that it's because I can taste NO CHOCOLATE at all. She "remade" it for me in the end (what happened next is outrageous, readers prepare) - pouring my HALF DRANK hot chocolate into the jug, added a bit more hot chocolate and steamed it together (yes, the coffee you drank right now probably had contents from my saliva in it!) - I was outraged, but since it was my own saliva, I just took it without saying anything. The hot chocolate however, still taste disgusting, so I just trashed it in the end.

Three or four weeks later, I unluckily ordered a hot chocolate made by her again - thought she won't be making it because other staff was around. Equally tasteless. Since then I wouldn't order anything if she was near the espresso bar. Just now I bought another one (desperately praying that she won't touch my hot chocolate, and thank God - she didn't) it's perfectly fine. The other baristas were all perfectly fine. I hope LGB could reimburse me with a gift certificate by pointing out how they can improve - and make sure she's trainned or don't touch hot chocolates - and keep their steamers clean. Just want to illustrate what I said above with photos:

I had my private language class with my teacher that day at 1PM, but she was late for 20min. I found two empty seats in LGB and waited for her.
Since I had many belongings with me that I didn't want to just leave them on the table unattended to go get a coffee, I waited in my seat while keeping another empty chair for my teacher.
The staff there came to "CHECK" on me for every 5 minutes! I had already told them that I would certainly order but I wanted to wait for my friends to come first.
The last "CHECK" made by their manager was the worst of the worst that u can find in HK nowadays. She was the only one wearing completely black uniform (wearing glasses, short hair) and had the worst and rudest attitude among all the staff there. So I believe that she was the manager or at least the slightly more senior staff there.
She came to "check" on me with her very rude saying, tone and manner. I explained to her that my friend was late and I could not leave my belongings unattended and went to buy a coffee. I asked her unless you could help me to order in my seat. She said no, then just, literally, THREW the menu on my table and walked away.
Finally my teacher came and we both went to order separately. It happened it was always the "BLACK" woman who took our order. Even it was just a takeaway service (we order, then bring the stuff to our table by ourselves), she could still show her unbearably and unbelievably rude attitude to me and my teacher while taking our orders!
If you can't let people to occupy the seat without buying a drink, I can understand it. However, if there is any time limit, you should have placed a signage on the table to say so, but NOTHING was put there!
And if your guests have already explained to you that they need to wait for certain reason before they can physically go to order, be a little bit understanding and patient, unless you can take the order without the guest walking to the cashier!

After all, it's just about $20-30 consumption to sit on the chair provided. What's the point to be SO RUDE to the guests?

LGB, good luck to your business if you will keep this woman manager in BLACK and run your tiny cafe like that! I used to visit yr cafe quite often with a card to collect the stamps for every order. Not anymore as your "excellent" service successfully drove your clients away!!!! My first time to put a cafe on my blacklist!

after tasting several pastry from them,
i was super confident to try out their coffee opera and chestnut tart today.
however,
i found myself too late!opera was sold out,
so,
chestnut tart only!the gold flakes was super beautiful,
the sweet chestnut piece on top was larger than you can see,
not too sweet,
and soft enough.sugar powder on chestnut mash would not make the tart too sweet,
but much more pretty.
the chestnut mash surprised me a lot,
because the taste of wine was super strong,
even stronger than taste of chestnut,
which I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!!inside was whipped cream, baked almond cream ( cake base working like sponge ),
everything combined so well to give so an excellent blend of ADULT FEEL of dessert kind,
but tart still too hard like their SUMMER BUBBLE TART,i would still come for their coffee opera,
but hope they could improve the recipe of their tart base,
as their biscuit base under pastry cakes ( like PEACH MOUSSE LAYER CAKE & EARL GREY CARAMEL LAYER CAKE ) was done wonderful~!

new items~! new items~!so famous of their lemon tart,
it was really the choice that was going to be sold out quickest,but i wanna try their new item today~!
SUMMER BUBBLE,
the name was already refreshing and cute enough,
which its name tag mentioned it to include citrus chiffon,
mango squares,
mandarin and milk chocolate ganache,
and bitter chocolate biscuit.
HOWEVER,
it was not true!!!what i grabbed today,
was a CUTE jelly ball on top of a HARD HARD tart,
but still nice to take $30...
a layer of dots dots transparent jelly with beautiful orange spray on one side,
a chocolate leaf was stick on the tart with a dash of whipped cream.
there was NO chiffon at all,
but the sour passionfruit jelly state mousse was yellowy below the transparent jelly,and the juicy fresh mangoes went VERY WELL with the jelly.
a thin piece of chocolate sponge was laid between wet mangoes and delicious milk chocolate ganache,
and it was SUPER GOOD to have a spread of dark chocolate on the butter cookie tart to add in bitterness to this CUTE, SWEET & SOUR tart.
BUT...
BUT...
BUT...
the tart base was really super SUPER HARD~!
i ate it separately with my fingers finally cuz i really couldn't manage to finish it elegantly with my fork~!ah,
to add~!
they put my tart into the box,
but with no paper at all to separate the tart and box?
so strange so i gave their hygiene marks a TWO only~!

Family wanted to have chestnut tart, so searched online and found this place, which had decent reviews. All the individual cakes / tarts are $30 each, which isn't expensive per Central standard.

Chestnut tart: Strong chestnut taste with a smooth texture. The best thing about it is the tart doesn't have a lot of cream in the middle, which a lot of places do. The only improvement would be making the actual piece of chestnut less sweet.

Lemon tart: A mixture of sourness and sweetness, with a firm yet crunch and not too buttery crust. Would recommend it for those who savor something less sweet and heavy.

Opera: Strong coffee taste and not too sweet, which is perfect for coffee lover. Also a good, smooth texture.

I'm actually a bit surprised at the high quality of the cake and tarts, as there weren't that many reviews online (but there was actually a line during lunch hour, for sandwich, dessert, and coffee). I'd recommend this place to improve its service, however. The cashier lady was a bit absentminded and wasn't paying attention to customers (eg. I gave her a credit card, she rang up my bill, began serving another customer, and asked for cash / credit card again...) What a waste if food is great bu with mediocre service...

service was not good enough,
choice of product was in great variety with different salads, 鹹點pies, pastries, muffins and scones.
$30 for a piece of cake in such a huge size was super worth in central,
and so i chose$30香桃慕絲蛋糕today for dinner.sponge cake layers唔會好乾身，
but 覺得唔夠鬆,
peach jelly layer味道太甜.
整體係worth$30的.

Dinner booked at 8pm, felt a bit hungry and want to sit down to chill a bit without alcohol. Cafe is the best choice, esp I need to have a media interview over the phone, better to eat something or woould be too hungry to talk.

Although it has been here for long time, haven't tried yet and at around 6pm, there were only a few people. Ordered the Mocha Manjari among other choices and a lemon tart.

The mocha manjari is fine, as expected. Got energized by the dark chocolate. However, the tart is very disappointed. The base is too hard and no taste at all

Service is not proactive. I didn't read the name of the tart and thought it's mango tart, the cashier only told me they don't have mango tart without telling me that's lemon tart or introduce other choices....just repeated they don't have mango tart then kept silence. I walked back to the fridge and checked the name again myself to order It's just very simple service, to let the customers know what else is available....

Wondering if the customer is a Western guy, will the service more proactive?