Holly Brown  

好少响中環食甜品,盲中中入左呢間試

We ordered 綠精靈 in the largest sizes,mints ice-cream "stir-flied" with chocolate chips and brownie...

It is quite sweet and quite over, we can't eat the brownie as it is already too sweet

The Waffle is soft and hard which not same like freshly made...it should be crispy

The place is so comfortable to seat and chat

Holly Brown is a café that offer excellent coffee, frozen yogurt and ice cream. Foods are aright too, isn’t it great a place that you get that Holly Brown offer this all in one package.

Cuisine: European
Food rating: 2/10*
Service: 3/10
Ambiance: 4/10
Price: HK$78pax

* Food Rating: 6/10 is equivalent to 1 Michelin star, 8/10 to two Michelin stars, and 9/10 or 10/10 to three Michelin stars

Parma ham with truffle oil risotto (2/10)
I personally think that the Parma ham is a marketing strategy, rather unnecessary. When you are cooking with fine ingredients, you have to use the best of the best. The one Holly Brown used was lacked class. I am more than happy to settle with Bacon or Pancetta. The risotto was slightly under cooked. The sauce was very nicely done, where the mushroom absorbed the truffle oil thoroughly, it was a great flavour journey. The coffer and frozen yogurt are the must try food and beverage at Holly Brown. If you are looking for a quick western food, Holly Brown will certainly to the job for you.

Give me a thumbs up if you like it!

This coffee shop attracts me by its fine latte art and gelato yesterday. And I tried there tonight~~ As my hubby is coming back soon, I'm trying to find a good dating place

Coffee Latte is always the one that I'll try to evaluate a coffee shop. The coffee marker was very nice. I asked him to do a pretty hard latte art, the bird! Quite nice and neat free pour~ The coffee tastes strong enough, guess it can meet my hubby's requirement. Would update his comment later~I also tried their gelato. Looks good and also tastes good. Well... it'll be a plus if they can let you choose flavor instead of set menu. What I really wanted to try was the coffee on the rock. Maybe try it with my hubby later~~The enverionment there is morden and relaxing. Should be a good place for weekend afternoons~ Definitely will come back by myself or with my hubby~~

as it looked much better than their new york cheese cake, i picked this one for my breakfast.the bottom base was crispy and with right amount of butter,
not too much.
i love the blueberry part and i thought they were quite enough too~!
the texture was NOT SMOOTH AT ALL,
but the cheese flavor was strong enough,
quite good,
this experience seemed better than having the same product in starbucks.

as i found that their fry gelato was super nice,i revisit them to have their OH FUDGE today.
the chocolate ice cream was really rich,and bitter not too sweet,
tasting much better than coffee gelato.i love their brownie very much,
and was fried into the gelato in an excellent size.the best part was the chocolate chips because it made the whole dessert tasted like black forest cake,
if wine soaked cherries were added,wonderful tea~!

This is one of the difficult notes I put up on cafe in Hong Kong. The main reason is I had a very high hope on cafes that has both well thought decoration and good coffee; it doesn't have to be that one is less likely to enjoy a nice cup of coffee in a decently decorated place. However, this is still my rule of thumb so far and Holly Brown was no exceptionMy first encounter with Holly Brown was when it opened the door to the public in early July 2010 with much fanfare. Experienced and award winning barista and a Italian descent roaster lured away from Australia join a team to open some phenomenon cafe in Hong Kong with no expense spare, sort of. I got from its default blend at the time a sort of citrus/flowery ending, making me think of Illy when I had the drink and I think to myself this may be how Illy should taste like 3 days after roasting. Only a month later, things turned south for coffee enthusiasts. The cup grew darker with ashy undertone coffee lovers talked among others if you want an ashy cup, go to Holly Brown. The blend profile stays pretty much more or less the same until these days I keep on asking myself why they won't return to its glory start.Things continued to go downhill for me at Holly Brown. I once had a cup of espresso with a "black hole" in its crema. I was once told that they hadn't adjusted the grinder and would like to serve me a new cup after I raised an issue of an acrid/undrinkable cup. I had a barista froth its milk drink with its steamer so loud so fast like a turbo boost of a hot rod car started to kick in when one revved up an engine to pass other cars but, hey, this is milk frothing, not a car racing. I had a barista continue to grind the bean into the doser that was totally full of coffee ground while wiped the old ground into the portafilter to brew espresso for me; not sure whether this is what barista does to trick its customer that it grinds the bean "on demand" which is the practice among the good Indie cafe. All these were done by recent award winning baristas.

I was very painful when I wrote this note, thinking that if I kept it to myself, nobody gets hurt. Nevertheless, Holly Brown will sink into oblivion for coffee enthusiast nobody will care and recommend having coffee at Holly Brown any more like what most coffee enthusiasts that I trust told me these days. I am actually on the verge of giving up on Holly Brown for good coffee though I'll try to visit the place to check whether they improve. So far, it's the same. The saving grace for this cafe is its freshly roasted coffee which continues to provide some nuances amidst the dark/ashy tone that has no charm at all. Mind you that my comment is pertaining to the one in Central only as I have a good experience with its K11 branch in Tsim Sha Shui though I like to try out more before I wrote about the place.

At the current state, the OK signal was given on a relative basis to those horrible cup I get from cafe that use imported bean but considering its pedigree and things, this is more or less pushing the limit I almost want to give it a crying face. I may not get a decent treatment there anymore if I drop by after writing this comments in the future. However, I would rather they know and change than they become just another cafe with a nice decoration. At least their K11 branch can give us some hope on Holly Brown. At least most of the experienced barista that joined Holly Brown with a fanfare at its opening is still there. To this end, I can only pray its K11 branch won't deteriorate like the Central branch and the Central branch improves soon.

Holly Brown is one of the cafe's which is an ideal place to meet up with friends. Although their coffee is not entirely my type of preferred style, they do make some pretty interesting lunch and dessert options.

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The full English breakfast tastes great but it was served stone cold!!!
It was brought to my table with fork and... Spoon.
the waiter promptly reheated it for me and the meal reappeared with steam from the scrambled eggs but the rest of it - tomato, (soggy) toast, mushroom and sausages were as cold as the salad.
Makes one wonder if they simply cook a whole batch for the early morning crowd and then have it briefly reheated (or not) for the later crowd (950am).

I'm not a coffee drinker but tea served with a whole cup of freshly boiled water, one should know, is not drinkable for the next 10 mins or so.
This place might live up to its fame for good coffee, with good comfortable seating for /informal work/social meetings but don't expect anything beyond that is my experience.

Mind you I love the Internet access which I am on right now

I visited this place 6 months ago, how much has changed. It is packed at lunch hour. I know why too. A lot of people have raved about their coffee, with Italian roaster and champion baristas but pasta is what I came for today.

The cashier recommended me try the Lobster Angel Hair and I sure was not disappointed. I had tried this dish before at some 5 star hotel and I can say this is very close to that standard. For a lot less too at $118. I remember paying over $300 at the hotel.

Interestingly they have some inhouse music video which shows latte art etc. Very Clever.

This is the best coffee in Hong Kong. If you like a strong cup of fresh roasted coffee this is it. Coffees here really gives you the caffeine buzz unlike all the other "coffees" in Hong Kong.

Food is secondary but we usually have the ham/cheese/tomato toast. Can't go wrong with that. Used to have a very good strawberry cream cake and tomato brushetta but not anymore unfortunately.

we first came here for the gelato. i chose the Make Your Own gelato, and i picked coffee gelato with whipped cream and brownie.it's smooth and well-mixed. and i liked the cone. i will definitely try their other combinations next time.
we both agreed that this place is a pretty nice place to sit, so we then bought a cup of coffee and sat down.i ordered a cup of flat white for myself. i liked the lovely latte art on it. the coffee tasted great, and the milk foam gave a really good texture to the coffee.
what i like about this place is that it's a great place to sit and that it has lots of food available. you can merely have a cup of coffee, or you can grab some bites like cakes, muffins, tarts, sandwiches, and toasts, or you can even have pasta or risotto, and then you can have a light dessert by having a cup of gelato or frozen yogurt. doesn't this sound wonderful? this is my new fav place to hang around, and more importantly, it's affordable.

Froyo with sponge cake topping, served in a waffle cone

It was not in the menu but we asked if they can make an Affogato. As Holly Brown sells both coffee and ice cream, they can do it. We had it with milk flavour ice cream, usually we would go for vanilla, but we wanted to try something new~ Well, it did not come in the most traditional way, but it tasted good.

It is worth a try and it costs 46HKD.

We drove to Holly Brown at around 2:30pm and the coffee house was still quite crowded. We didn't have to wait too long for a table.

We hadn't had lunch yet and we ordered a salmon and egg sandwhich, angel hair carbonara, penne al pollo and a mushroom bruschetta.

The bread for the sandwhich was too normal. It tasted as if it came from a supermarket. The egg was cold. I had it heated but the egg was still cold.

The angel hair was good. It was just right.

The penne pasta taste well.

The mushroom bruschetta was too spicy for my taste but the bread was quite crunchy so it was aright.

However, the penne pasta and the carbonara took way too long to arrive. We were very hungry and the waiters kept forgetting our order therefore we had to remind them twice. But they were quite nice.

The coffee (flat white) was ok; not strong enough, particularly in Australian standards. I expected better from the reviews. Fuel is better even though it is more expensive.

After lunch, we ordered three medium sized gelatos; vanilla thrilla (vanilla gelato, pie crust, fudge brownies), mochalicious (coffee gelato, oreos, chocolate shavings) and a crazy berry (milk gelato, raspberries, blueberries, maybe strawberries).

They were really good We really enjoyed it. A waffle cone was also delicious. The price was quite reasonable (cheaper in Italy).

Overall, it was quite good. They need to train their staffs. Polite but forgetful. Will come back for the gelatos.

Wow! I'v been to them all, but this ones the best! Finally you can see the coffee actually being roasted!

Being an Australian, this is kind of thing that I'm used to seeing. For a coffee nut like me, this is like heaven! After speaking with the coffee roaster, Domenico, he recommended one of their many single origin coffees for me to use at home. He ground it fresh for me,[ the correct grind!!] to use in my Italian stove top peculator and was very helpful in explaining how to operate my equipment properly. I then ordered a flat white, a drink made famous in Australia. It was so richly flavored and finished with perfect latte art by grand barrister champion, Tracy. They actually put the correct amount of espresso coffee relative to the volume of milk in the drink you order. So in this situation, you actually get what you pay for!

Wish I would have found this place sooner!!!