veil337's Profile

This is one of my favorite Thai restaurants because it has lots of space for kids and is almost never crowded enough to warrant a reservation. The staff is friendly, and our favorite is the mullet in lime--the spicy and sour soup/sauce and the hot plate just goes with white rice so very perfectly.  The tofu shaped like tiny drums were amazing, and I love the shrimp sauce fried rice. The desserts aren't spectacular, but the appetizer and mains are. Unlike many other Thai restaurants around town, this place doesn't put too much sugar in their sauces, which is perfect for me.Our kids love this place because if you get a place by the window, you can climb up and watch the people and cars in the busy street below. …Read More

This place isn't incredibly busy during lunch time, so I love coming here when I feel like having hot, spicy korean food for lunch. The lunch sets are cheap and satisfying, and I imagine it would be particularly nice to sit in the semi-outdoors restaurant enjoying a hot soup during the winter months.  I had the spicy seafood tofu soup lunch set, and it came with a lovely green salad with sesame ginger dressing that was light and healthy enough to set off the hearty main dish. The service was very quick and friendly, and the food came within 5 minutes of being ordered. The restaurant itself is spacious with a high ceiling and open doors, similar to all the other restaurants on the podium. All in all, a winning lunch option for those who work around Wanchai. …Read More

Restaurant is located next to Sogo and very convenient for subway access. The food was unspectacular but pretty nicely done, and the lunch sets were very reasonably priced to boot. The pork katsu was juicy and tender and lightly breaded and freshly fried, and the steamed egg was light and in the perfect state between solid and liquid, the way I like them.The place was quiet relatively quiet although it was lunch time--the ambience was rather small and intimate, great for catching up with friends and colleagues.…Read More

This is our go-to Sichuan food paradise when we're in TST.  I love the classic Chinese decor and forgiving lighting (when you're stuffing face with super spicy food and sweating from every pore, it really helps to have good lighting ). The spicy clams and the sour and spicy fish go great with white rice, and this time I decided to venture a bit out of my comfort zone and ordered a classic Chinese homecooked dish that my mom used to force me to eat as a child--stirfried pork liver. It was AMAZING, lightly tossed and very juicey and tender. This place doesn't have an option for you to choose your spicy levels, which may bother some people, but I think their spiciness level is actually rather moderate for a Sichuan place, although the dishes are otherwise fairly authentic. …Read More

Friendly neighborhood Indian food place with warm service.  The place is always reasonably busy but not so busy that you need to wait for long for the table.  The food can take a while to arrive at the table at times but actually this is because every dish is cooked on the spot and piping hot when served, and I find that the food always justifies the wait. The presentation for the food isn't always great because the place feels like a family-run place, but the tastes are well worth it.  The prices are very reasonable--lunch for two comes out to about 200HKD. The food generally tastes freshly prepared and the best kind of comfort food imaginable, ESPECIALLY the dessert, like the rosewater-doused cheese balls and the freshly prepared milk ice cream. All in all, a great Indian place for the masses--love, love, love this place.…Read More

Amazingly crowded place on a Friday night--and with good reason.  The volcanic rice (?) is something to cry over, it's so good--at first it just looks like regular rice with some cheese sprinkled on top but when the waiter starts melting the cheese with a small blow torch, it suddenly turns into a melty, gooey, heavenly dish infused with the best kind of cheesiness that cheese lovers would go nuts over. There are other more standard Korean dishes like fried chicken (heavily breaded and so, so fattening, but taste like a sinful, guilty pleasure should taste, packing a powerful flavor punch), rolls and pancake.Best make reservations ahead of time--this place was completely packed when we got there and if not for the fact that one of us had the foresight to make a reservation, we would have had to wait outside in the 90-degree heat for a looong time for a table. Still, I'm sure it's worth every bite of that cheese-infused rice dish.Very noisy, though--not a romantic date spot.…Read More

This is a very small, quiet place that has direct ocean view when there are no enormous delivery trucks parked outside (which happens more often than you may expect). The place is decorated like one of those adorable little Key West seafood huts/bars.  I liked their calamari and fish dishes better than their shrimp--the shrimp tend to be rather bland and just ok, but the calamari seemed very fresh (I love the fact that it's very lightly battered, ostensibly much healthier than heavily breaded fried calamari and closer to grilled, in my view) and the fish was tender and crumbled in your mouth the way the best fresh fish should. Had a little of the chicken, and it's solid grilled chicken which remind me of the rotisserie chickens sold at Whole Foods.We had the fisherman's basket at one point, which contained mediocre crab cake and assorted fried seafood, but it's probably best to order each thing separately--shrimp, calamari and fish and chips. A note to those sensitive to smoke--like all restaurants with no clear divide between outdoor and indoor space, this place tends to be contaminated by smoke if, say, someone sitting at the table right at the door decides to stand up and take a puff of smoke. It's not like the cigarette smoke knows how it's not supposed to come inside the restaurant, so if you're sensitive to smoke, best sit far inside the restaurant, and even then you may not be able to avoid smoke entirely because it's a very tiny place.All in all, I like the slightly bohemian vibe of this place, especially on sunny days when you want to sit inside but still feel very close to the ocean and the sky outside.…Read More

Wanted to  lunch with a few colleagues and Cafe Causette but it was full, so we ended up going here for lunch instead. Best place for business lunches, I think-- the place is rather dark and the atmosphere is consequently a little stifling at times when all the tables are full (the windows are rather small on this side of the floor, unlike Cafe Causette which has giant windows and flooded with natural lighting), but I suppose this makes for flattering lighting. The food is hit or miss but served very fast--came within five minutes of our ordering. We had seafood laksa, which was served warm instead of piping hot the way I preferred, and rather bland (low on salt, probably for health reasons). The hainanese chicken rice was very good,and I love the fact that you can order either dark meat (drumstick with bone removed) or white meat (breast), as I love drumsticks. The normal minced ginger sauce, sweet soy sauce and spicy sauce all blend together to shower the tender dark meat in a medley of distinct and complementary flavors. The chicken rice itself was infused with chicken flavor and could be eaten by itself with no accompanying entrees. The only slight failure was in the chicken soup, which wasn't sufficiently intensely chicken for my taste and seemed a little diluted and watery with vegetables...but overall the set was great.I missed the olden days before they reduced their menu options...the current lunch options are, I assume, old favorites, and like most people, I come here not for the food but for the convenient location and the always reliable service.…Read More

This is one of the many standard Japanese food options around the Wanchai area, and as part of my favorite Japanese food chain, this particular restaurant does a fine job of living up to their usual standard--not spectacular, but respectable seafood with decent ingredients. My favorite part about this place is that the wait is never too long. What really stood out to me was the steamed egg custard, which didn't have too much of MSG and was subtly flavored with seafood. The tempura was done very well, lightly battered so that the taste of oil doesn't overwhelm the flavors of the shrimp and other materials inside. …Read More

This is our go-to seafood restaurant in Lei Yue Mun--have never gone to another one in the vecinity since a colleague recommended Happy Safood to us, and have always had great dining experiences here.  I love the great open spaces, the ocean view and the generally efficient service. On this particular occasoin, we had a big lobster cooked two ways--sashimi and lobster noodles.  The lobster was very fresh, and the noodles were very filling and coated in thick, flavourful sauce and topped off with pieces of tender lobster.  We also had some other dishes, but my favorite is the very spicy snail cooked in a pot of wine and spicy oil.   The meal came with a papaya tofu fish soup that my three-year-old absolutely adored, as the soup was fresh and the tofu was cooked long enough so that the flavor of the soup merged with the tofu entirely.A word of warning is that during dinner hour, sometimes the waiters are rushed and the food may be served rather slowly. Thus, better build this into your dining schedule. A better bet is to come during lunch time--no reservations needed for lunch, usually. …Read More

Great lunch place in Central--reasonably priced and generally has space for last minute walk~ins. The lunch sets contain the usual soup, salad, Italian food entrees and dessert. The food is generally nice and quickly served, so it's not an issue if you need to eat in a hurry. I liked the salad which was well~tossed and fresh, and the halibut with asparagus was particularly tender and juicey, covered in fresh, sour pureed tomatmoes. Generally, the wait staff here is a little overworked and the ambience of the place a noisy, darkly lit canteen, but the restaurant has a fun, slightly boisterous air which makes it a fun casual lunch option among friends and colleagues.…Read More

Possibly the most boisterous and happy dim sum meals I've had in a while--there was a huge line in the front of the restaurant but our large party got very lucky and a table happened to open up when we got there, so there was no wait time. The dining area is spacious and, what I love best of all, has lots of natural lighting from large skylights in the ceiling. The kids were absolutely mesmerized by dancing sunlight reflecting off the crystal chandeliers.There are some cute , instagram-ready dim sum dishes--pig-shaped sweet buns, fish-shaped tofu jello and all that,  but none tasted anything out of the ordinary so those are good to look at and for entertaining the kids with, not much else. The real dim sum dishes (the shrimp dumplings, the chicken feet, the beancurd dumpling in soup, etc), however, are quite spetacularly good. The deep fried squid tentacles are so tender on the inside and so crispy on the outside that I felt as if the squid was still alive five minutes before being dropped into the deep fryer. The pepper steak is very juicy and not overdone as some chinese stir fry steaks tend to be.  The chicken feet are plump and full of cartileges, and the deep fried tofu is very juicy and soft (not the super hard and dry kind which are easy to fry but not so easy on the taste buds). My favorite dish is the Typhoon Shelter style egg plant, which is sliced egg plant stir fried with deep fried, minced garlic and tastes as awesome as it is unhealthy.  My second favorite dish is the roasted pork, which had very suculent pork and crunchy pork skin which, when dipped in the standard mustard sauce, burst with juice and flavor.The whole place is very family friendly and there were lots of kids running around.…Read More

A very tiny space that looks like a bar from the outside, but is in fact a nice quiet friendly little restaurant during lunch and as well as great for happy hour and dinner time drinkfests. The hkd98 lunch sets are a great deal with a soup/salad and an entree. We had two lunch sets and two regular entree items and everything was delicious. The mushroom soup that came with the set lunch (you can also order salad instead of soup) was so great, piping hot and thick and buttery, we ordered a regular sized one after tasting what came with the sets~just full of pureed mushrooms and a must for mushroom lovers.The sole filet on risotto was fresh and tender--my three-year-old loved it. The risotto was on the salty side and the fish was lightly seasoned so they work very well together. We also had beef bolognese, which was very cheesy and fun to eat. My favorite was the seafood angel hair pasta with lobster bisque--the enormous shrimps are very nice but every angel hair is also coated with heavily alcoholic lobster bisque and coated in tiny strings of crab meat.  The whole dish is just one indulgent celebration of yummy seafood and makes you think of the sea in thebest way possible.We also had seafood risotto coated in inky squid ink which was filled with clam, shrimp and calamari.  It's a solid dish, although it didn't have any "wow" factors like the angel hair pasta did.This is a very nice lunch/brunch option,  and i can't think of why it's not more popular, but then again, there are lots of very good western food options in k-town so perhaps there's just too much neighborhood competition.  I've ordered food from this place via online dining platform a few times and they are consistently good--there's no noticeable difference between the …Read More

With so many spicy food options popping up all over the western district like umbrellas in a downpour, this is definitely one of the better ones, not just in terms of freshness of ingredients but also in terms of hygiene, presentation and tastiness. I love this chain--the food quality is very consistent across all their branches.The restaurant is very spacious, with large tables suitable for big parties (which makes sense considering Sichuan hotpot is best enjoyed in large groups so you can all sweat together).  My favorite was the ox tongue, which was cut very thin and took two seconds to cok and marbled with juicey fat...all other ingredients are fresh and came quickly.Serving staff is very nice and attentive.  PS: A minor annoyance which is, I think, common to this entire restaurant chain--they don't offer paper napkins freely, and no cloth napkins either.  Napkins /tissues are fairly necessary to eating spicy food because very few people can mananage to eat super chili oil without sweating rather profusely, and for people who don't carry packets of napkins around, I think you have to pay for those small paper napkin packets from your waiter. Of course, when you're shelling out hundreds and thousands for a meal, it's not a huge deal to pay, say, HKD5 for napkins, but it just takes away from the friendly vibes of a place and makes the restaurant seem rather calculating and mean. -.-;;   I expect to pay for paper packets of napkins in lower end places and have to use cloth napkins in higher end spots, but for this type of place (not shabby or cheap), it's always a surprise when the wait staff tells me I have to order napkins like appetizers. O_O…Read More

This place was recently renovated in the last year or two and both its menu and decor underwent a considerable upgrade.  I'm a sucker for pandas (who isn't?) so the panda theme of the restaurant, with panta paintings, panda bowls and panda cups, were just adorable bonuses on top of the generally amazing food.We ordered a handfull of food-on-a-stick as an appetizer, and it was so fabulous--it came in a huge bamboo enholder, covered in chili oil, and it's a surprise what's at the end of the stick when you pull one up. The sticks held abalone, beef tripe, fish balls and other yummy things. I ordered a bowl of delicious pork soup that was milky with bone marrow goodness and filled with carrots and other healthy veggies, which acted as a nice balance for the intensely spicy appetizer sticks.The rest of the meal was a blur of chili and a benumbing sense of goodness...it's hard to describe, but for a while there, you sit at the table, and the redness of all the chili in your dishes rise up to meet you and take up your entire universe, and everything else disappears. There's just you, and the chili, and whatever ingredients you decide to dunk the chili oil in that day...and you feel an overwhelming sense of calm and become at peace with the universe. My favorite part of the meal was how big the bowl of rice was--the trend of having tiny bowls of rice in HK is super annoying (esp b/c I usually need huge bowls of white rice to wash down the tasty, spicy dishes), so when the big, piping hot panda bowl of rice came to the table, I was all misty-eyed as if catching up with a long-lost friend....a friend I then proceeded to stuff down my face. A somewhat odd foot note to an otherwise very happy dining experience--the restaurant provides free dessert in the form of jellos, and one of the customers apparently didn't eat hers before leaving, and the waitress for that table kept grumbling about how wasteful it is, etc. in the back, loud enough for half the restaurant to hear...I have no problems with the service, it's just a little odd to see wait staff this upset over wasted jello... …Read More