The reviews here seemed pretty good so my friend and I decided to go to Coffee Alley for lunch. As most the reviews mentioned the 60 minute wait, we arrived at 11:30 (thirty minutes before the restaurant opened). When we arrived we were the eigth group in line. At 11:40 there were ten more ables waiting behind us and a few minutes after that the line was going out the door of the building. Luckily Coffee Alley is quite big, so I think most of the people waiting got in immediately once the doors opened.
Atmosphere/Decor:
It was quite nice inside. Very clean. There is an open air kitchen in the middle, which does take up a lot of space, but it looked very nice. We were seated right next to a huge window, so there was a lot of natural light, at least on our end.
The decorations were very nice... modern... tasteful... all in all very good. The menu is even designed to look like a newspaper!
The speakers were playing pop music, but at times it seemed too loud combined with all the customers talking. Granted, we were seated right underneath one of the speakers.
Service:
The service was very average. Nothing particularly good or bad to note. However, one thing that was a bit weird was that all the servers were speaking Mandarin to everyone. I'm Caucasian and my friend is HK Chinese. I spoke in English and she spoke in Cantonese to the servers, but they always responded in Mandarin. It was clear that they understood us, but it was just a bit weird. We even heard the table next to us commenting on this. We think maybe because it's a Taiwanese restaurant? But this is Hong Kong? It wasn't a bad thing, just interesting.
Food:
I ordered the Smoke Chicken Toast Pizza with Coffee Alley Specialty coffee. My friend ordered the Club Sandwich with Apple Lemon Tea. Then we got the Banana Chocolate Waffle to share.
Once we ordered, we had to wait 45 minutes for our drinks. We were almost through our meal by the time they came. The food came very quickly however.
Smoke Chicken Toast Pizza: The word pizza is very misleading here. It's not a pizza, but more like an open faced sandwich with melted cheese on it. Honestly, pretty disappointing. The chicken was quite peppery, but everything else was very bland. The bread choice for this was not very good. It was too soft on the middle and too crunchy on the crust. It tasted like plain grocery store bread... not something I would ever use in a "pizza." It did come with a scoop of egg salad on some lettuce with dressing. That was a pleasant surprise and it did taste good, but nothing to call home about.
Club Sandwich: My friend originlly wanted the smoke beef sandwich, but they didn't have that day, so she ordered the promotion which was the club sandwich. It was also disappointing. Pretty standard... it had lettuce, tomato, egg, ham, and chicken. Compared the amount, there was too much bread, even for a club sandwich. My friend said it tasted very bland if there was no chicken in the bite. Also, they included the skin on the chicken? We're pretty sure that's not normal for a club sandwich. It came in three pieces. In the end, she ate two of the pieces and just the chicken from the last piece. This also came with the scoop of egg salad. One weird thing... the promotion advertised that it came with chips. We assumed that meant either french fries or potato chips, but it came with nacho cheese Doritos (sprinkled on top of the sandwich). ????
Coffee Alley Specialty coffee: Very tasty. The coffee itself had a strong flavor that was pretty delicious. The best part though was that it came with some special rock sugar. The sugar was really, really tasty and it really added to the flavor of the coffee. That combined with the great presentation, I really enjoyed drinking it and would recommend it.
Apple Lemon Tea: When it first arrived, we also loved the presentation. It looked very pretty and delicious. The cup had chunks of apple in it and the idea was the pour the tea on top. She actually couldn't tell what type of tea it was, but it tasted like some sort of fruit/flower/herbal blend. It also came with a small jug of what looked and tasted like small apple pieces with some sort of sweet glaze? Since the tea was already sweet on its own, she didn't even use it. It did taste good, but we have no idea where the lemon was incorporated.
Banana Chocolate Waffle: Most of the other reviews mentioned waffles, so we decided to get one. The one we chose was a waffle cut into four large pieces with a scoop of custard and whipped cream and a scoop of chocolate icecream over banana slices (both fresh and dried) on the side. Also, a small jug of chocolate syrup was included. It was good. The waffle was thick and pretty moist. We enjoyed it a lot, but it's no better than other waffles we've had around Causeway Bay. Since the portion was so large and it came after all our other food, we couldn't finish the waffle.
Final verdict:
This restaurant seems extremely popular from the length of the line. I would reccommend going for waffles and drinks; the sandwiches are not worth it.
My friend and I both felt the drinks were overpriced, but we did enjoy them. It would be much better if there some sort of lunch set or waffle set that made the drinks a bit less expensive.
It all comes down how long you're willing to wait. We only waited 30 minutes, but we arrived before it opened. I'm sure we would have had to wait an hour if we had arrived after.
We will probably not go back there again. Compared to the wait time and the price, I honestly feel the quality is not that great. I'm glad I tried it once though.
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