Tim Kee French Sandwiches     添記法式三文治  

Tim Kee is famous for its BÁNH MÌ , Vietnamese baguette with French pâté , 5-spiced pork belly, salty pork knuckle and vietnamese sausage. I was not sure if it tasted really THAT good, or just because i was too hungry but nonetheless I LIKE IT !

i'm usually not a fan of french baguette but this small place makes amazing vry delicious french baguette with nice vietnamese stuffing. Love the crunchy crust & fluffy soft interior. you wouldn't mind to wait for a little longer to the freshly made sandwich.

I have always wanted to try the baguettes here, but the location is far from the nearest MTR stations.

As I was coming by MTR, I could only choose between Jordan or Austin station to get off.
Made the mistake of choosing AUSTIN even though it was slightly nearer because you need to interchange trains about three times and the trains run on a five minute frequency which I could have walked from the Jordan stop.

What made it worse was that it was raining heavily that day when I got there so I couldn’t exactly give up!

Anyway finally got there and ordered the baguette.
Basically there were only three choices: garlic bread, small baguette and large bagette.

After reading all these reviews on this little bread shop, we decided to head out to check it out for ourselves. Coming from Australia, pork rolls (as what we call it down under) were plentiful everywhere you go. I had a great craving for some

We got there at around 2pm and there were already about 3 customers in the shop. We ordered a big roll ($52) and waited about 7 minutes for it to heat up. All the rolls were ready made which the owner somehow whipped up from under the counter. I couldn't see any of the ingredients laid out like I was used to at home.

Whilst waiting we also bought some cha lua (Vietnamese sausage), nuoc mam (fish sauce like they have in restaurants), and a pack of frozen spring rolls.

So how was the roll?

Disappointing. .

Dry bread, carrot wasn't pickled, not enough meat, not enough variety of meat, too salty, and the list goes on.

Hmmmmm.... Pork roll craving not satisfied.

I'm a big fan of Vietnamese sandwiches so on a recent trip to Hong Kong I went out of my way to go to Tim Kee for a sandwich. I wish I could report otherwise, but our party was unanimously disappointed. The quality of the bread was nothing like a French baguette, and the filling was bland and dry. You can't even begin to make a decent sandwich without a good baguette. I've never been Vietnam, but have enjoyed Vietnamese sandwiches when we lived in Montreal. These don't begin to measure up.

I just came back from a Vietnam trip and was lucky enough to try their local Banh My (french bread with Vietnamese Pork). It was absolutely delicious and with a very complex flavor of meat -including miced and slices of different parts od pork and sauce. I was hoping to find that in HK. We happen to find this shop in Open Rice and was deeply disappointed with the taste and quality of the bread and the filling. If u have never tried the real thing, dont't try it as u won't try the real thing when u get the chance as u can never imagine how good that can be. If u have tried the real thing, don't waste money as it's far from close in price and in taste. The real one in Vietnam was under USD1 and u feel like u r in heaven! The one here is a bit salty and the bread is not the real French bread. I'm very picky and thinks the price should be according to the quality it delivers. When u can spend hkd48 for a very nice bowl of Vietnam beef noodle in HK, why spend the same for such quality of sandwich.

Colonial food is uniquely tasty. Quite true, you can find Portuguese food in Macau, and here we go, the manufacture of French colonial times, Vietnamese Baguette / Bun incorporated the crispy texture as well as the spiced vegetables and meat inside.

Tim Kee is undoubtedly my top recommendation for trying Vietnamese Baguette in Hong Kong. Albeit you have to walk a bit either from Jordan / Austin Road/ Kowloon Station, search for this unspectacular shop near the ex-Jordan Road ferry area. It is easy to find, after we have been walking all through around, when you see “Lo Chiu” Vietnamese food and 7-11, Tim Kee is just right next to the convenience store, opposite to the Vietnamese restaurant.

There isn’t outstanding decoration nor big bill post, but when you spot the light box outside, as well as the openrice sticker (recognizing them for getting more than 100 good comments), you’re at the right spot.

I went there with another friend, at around 6-ish before dinner. After the long walk and search for this shop, we were quite hungry and longed for trying this famous Baguette! We ordered a small size baguette ($22), one serve of Garlic Bread ($5) and one serve of fried Spring Rolls ($12 for 3 rolls).

The shopkeeper (I think he’s the boss) was quite nice, he showed us the two different sizes of Baguettes when I asked him how big they were, his wife showed us a box of Spring Rolls and allow us to choose between the more crispy one ($12 for 3 rolls) and the less crispy one ($12 for 4 rolls). It’s serving like home, probably because we arrived early, before people rushed here and grabbed their Baguettes.

The shop wasn’t big, with 3 spare chairs for us to sit, with a TV to watch, no official tables but 2 small benches near the door. After 5 minutes, the “boss” nicely cut our Baguette into half, and packed nicely with one slice of Garlic Bread in each bag. We were excited when we saw the pack!

Crispy – an undeniably correct word to describe both the Baguette and Garlic Bread crust.
Garlic Bread - $5 for 2 slices, not bad at all, you can smell the Garlic sauce before eating, not oily when you ate it. The sauce was fully spread on the surface of the piece. Surprisingly good.

Small Vietnamese Baguette - $22 – I wish I would have bought the large one, $42, for value as well as the food inside the bun. The large one looks like more than 1 foot long, while ours is around halved. But still, the vegetables inside are mildly sauced, I could smell the spices, the colour of the carrot slices is appealing, what a pity that they put just a few slices of meat inside. We just couldn’t stop eating, fresh and stimulating.

The spring rolls are ready when we were eating our Baguettes. Well… a bit disappointing, the spring rolls were not hot enough, a bit raw, and not as crispy as the buns. Meat and carrot minced inside, not heavily spiced. The specialty of this shop is not spring rolls, but the Baguettes!

We almost finished our dinner and more customers came in a row. (See the picture) I saw most of them ordered the large size, and shopkeeper politely asked them how many slices they would like it to be served. Some of them take away and ate in the car, some stayed, stood and ate in this small shop. Crowded and homely.

Recommended for those who like Vietnamese food, and those who don’t.. cos’ you might be in love with Vietnamese Baguette once you taste it. I will go there again, and don’t have to search every shop around again. =]

I have been buy takeout at 添記 for almost six year. I must say I did not go there very often, buy once for a while I will have the desire to go there to have their Vietnamese French style sandwich.

The bread not the greatest of what I tasted (the owner did not make it; it purchase from bread supplier) but he spray some water before reheat it on his oldies oven, this I am sure not many Chief or restaurants did that. This simple step make the bread so different. Which makes the bread crisper.

For the filling is just normal meat, like pork, pate, and some pickled veg. but once put everything together it come alive. Who needs Wagyu beef, Japanese pork or Foie gras. This taste just as good.

But the price of the sandwich is getting more expensive. But same as everything now we eat. Don’t change anything just because the cost of the material is getting increase, because once change the winning formula, the whole thing may loose.

And sometime does need to wait for long time to have the sandwich, so try not go there rush hour time or you are very hungry. It is “big M ” nor “de-la-French” take away

I am disappointed, it is worse than I expected.

So I had read all the reviews and recommendations and went there to try it out. It's late afternoon and not that busy, although there are a couple of people that are ordering multiple sandwiches to go. It may be the luck of the draw that he just didn't pay that much attention to my single order, my problems are as follow:

- It doesn't looks anywhere near the pictures show on every review.
- I don't think it contained much carrots and vegetables.
- The sandwich outer shell is harder than I like and doesn't seems to be fresh.
- The end result is a rather dry hard messy sandwich.

Since I don't live in Hong Kong and don't have much time when I am there, I will not want to waste my time & effort to go over there again.

i want to try this bread long time ago because i love french bread very much
small french bread: the bread is really crispy and warm. there's 4 different kinds of meat inside, the only thing i dont like is it included the fatty part of the meat. plenty of carrots and cucumbers is what impressed me most. i think the sauce is a bit too salty but over-all, this bread is tasty.
lemonade: it is made of fresh lime as it contains lime seed and its too sweet but it a great, fresh drink to cool us down in such a hot day.

It has been one of my goals to hunt down this particular secluded shop for years. Today, I finally made it and ooh-la-la!! I am definitely coming back for more!
Yes, the area is dodgy and quite a walk from Jordan station, but for a mere HKD 21, you get a lovely warm and crusty baguette stuffed with a savoury mix of various Vietnamese coldcuts made of pork (Vietnamese style pate, salami/bologna which the owner cured himself), pickled carrots, cucumbers and tomatoes; seasoned with the legendary Maggi sauce and ground pepper. The contrast of flavours and textures makes it the perfect summer food in town. Very good bánh mì indeed and it was well worth the sweat.

After going to Australian Milk, we continue to explore to this ... old district, and we keep searching. While we wandered around all the car repairing shops and just about to say that the eatery should be nearer to crowded area ... we found it!

A very old snack shop with a stack selling indian edibles, the owner was leisurely watching Indian channel in putonghua and eating papaya

We ordered one medium sized french bread. My love grumbled why he is eating papaya when we made the order ... actually waiting the bread to be grilled. Then he stuffed with many ingredients. Yeah, sour veggie, salted meat, carrot, pate ... very rich indeed and the favor is unexpectedly good! The highlight should be the bread, hot and crispy.

I saw the Japanese tour guide also recommend this ... but the place is ... even locals find it hard to find

Want to try this shop ages ago. Finally today have chance to try the viet. french bread and garlic bread.

well we order a long one. The long one (full size) cost $30, and short one (1/2 size) cost $16. The garlic bread cost $4. the french viet bread was very good. very tasty and the bread is so crispy . with the match of carrot makes the bread not too dry. The reheat the both the veit french bread and garlic bread for us. we wait for a few minutes.

We like it so much. very crispy and tasty. as the bread was too crispy, therefore i was so dirty after eatting it, as all the bits and pieces of the bread fall onto me.

will try it again!

altho it says it's small size,actually it's not small......n there has many ingredients in da sandwich:青瓜,蘿蔔絲,扎肉,朱手,嚼肉.n 4 da bun,it's quite crispy!$15 each,it's worthy!^^

To balance the crying-face comment, I'll post mine here.
I average patron Tim kee about 2-3 times every other month.
If you don't like Vietnamese (french) sandwich, no matter how good they are, you won't like it but that doesn't mean it deserve a crying face.
Anyway, back to comment, consider I am a regular diner there, and have tried over various Vietnamese sandwiches in over 40 restaurants (in New York and California), this Tim Kee is actually just OK, so-so, not excellent.
However, consider there is no much Vietnamese sandwiches available, at reasonable price (most are HK$25+ ???? I think it's overpriced), I found Tim Kee is acceptable, and that's why repeatedly I dine there (another reason, I live in Jordan also).
The best Vietnamese sandwich I tried, is in New York china Town, next to 88 Eat Broadway, the store is "Saigon" (in Chinese "Sai Kung Min Bao"). Try it if you ever go to New York, and they sold out soon (by 3pm-4pm or so), closed every Monday.