PepperPiglet的个人专页

I ordered the hand cut noodles in a mala broth with two options. The brisket was meaty, the tripe was thinly cut and nicely chewy. Not much tendon, looked more like braised fat. The peanut dressing really hit the spot too, crunchy and fresh and a lovely complement to the soft chewy noodles and mala broth. Perhaps needed more herb dressing but I’ll ask for more next time. If you’re ever in TST and need a hunger to fill, you gotta try this place at what was one of the busiest side streets in TST, but sadly many small shops closed down. Very well priced at $70 for a large bowl. Interior was functional but as good as you’d expect at any fast food noodle place. …查看更多

Great location helped us get off to a great start - it’s just a stone’s throw from Times Square, just as you cross over the flyover towards Wanchai. We came here as a party do 6 on a Friday night in June. Arriving just before 7pm it was quiet. But by 7:20pm it was full and loud, as you would expect! The decor is an homage to 1960s Hong Kong with murals of yesteryear, a large neon lit sign in the style of a pawn shop, distinctive retro green/grey wall tiles, and green painted window frames, which I later discovered is a Pantone called HK Tram Green. You’d think having a hotpot in the summer sounds crazy but the AC is on Arctic mode when you get in. Once you start cooking, you get into the groove and the ambient temperature is just right.When you arrive they give you a tray of condiments and herbs that you can scoop into a separate bowl. This is a must! The seafood was really fresh and the beef options (fatty vs more muscle) were delicious. We had the drunken chicken soup broth and a separate fish and century egg broth. The first soup won hands down but the second also enabled you to eat with a more “clean” taste with the food cooked. At the end of the meal they served compliments try jelly and evaporated milk, and also a koi shaped mochi cooked in the broth and then covered in a peanut dressing called 糖不甩 (Tong4 Bat1 Lat1) which was surprisingly very tasty! We spent roughly $520 per head and had quite a few bottles of Blue Girl beer. And hand on heart, I was blown away by the excellent service at this place. Every waiter and waitress was courteous, friendly and enthusiastic. And there was also a waiter who spoke English only. This was one of the best serviced local Hong Kong restaurants I’ve been to in a long time, so thumbs up! Great place, great food, ambience and service. Will definitely visit again. …查看更多

I got a takeaway French lobster soup from Ichijuissai from Central Market and it was disappointing to say the least. You get some pieces of lobster on top but the soup base is a tasteless congealed mess. There is no depth in flavour. There is a lot of thickening starch but not a lot else. I had high hopes for this soup but it simply left a bland taste in the mouth. This could so easily have been a different review had they bothered to cook the broth with lobster and prawn shells for a couple of hours, and mixed some meat in the broth. Instead you get a few shreds of lobster and the rest of the pot, factory made warm liquid. I won’t be trying the other soups.…查看更多

I visited the old Koon Thai in Central before it closed down and their Hainan chicken and rice was passable. So, I was hoping to at least get a similar standard at the Heng Fa Chuen branch. I ordered two afternoon tea sets of Hainan chicken rice and soup as a takeaway. To say I was disappointed is an understatement. The rice was so wet it tasted like congealed congee and the chicken was dry and chewy. The dryness of the chicken could (sort of) be excused as it was coming to the end of their afternoon tea set (5:30pm) but serving congealed rice in Hong Kong at any time of the day is frankly, laughable and unforgivable. The soup was salty and had one small chunk of gourd melon. Plus, there was no thick soya sauce included with the rice, one of the key condiments you would expect with Hainan chicken. Just some strange brown garlic oil. Avoid at all cost (avoid most of the restaurants in Heng Fa Chuen if you can, there really is no Quality Control or CARE being applied to most of these restaurants). …查看更多

We had decided to order our Sunday dinner via Food Panda: a burger ($148), a sole fillet with mixed vegetables in a cream sauce ($85), and poutine fries ($78). For this price with the poutine, expectations were high. Unfortunately the whole meal massively disappointed. Firstly, it was delivered over 40 minutes late by some guy on a bicycle who couldn’t be bothered to take the lift up to our floor. The food had gone cold on delivery. The poutine was just a lumpy mess, the sole fillet tasted like it had a tablespoon of salt thrown in. These two dishes were completely inedible. The burger came with about 8 fries at the bottom of the container. It was tepid warm, the beef was actually ok. However, i ended up with no meal to eat and over $150 out of pocket for the experience. How this place can charge $78 for frozen fries and soya sauce with a half a slice of processed cheese is beyond me. I called the manageress and she blamed everting but her own quality - from the delivery guy (who said he waited a long time) to the fact that we ordered a takeaway. Deeply disappointing. Next time I’d rather go to the supermarket and get a packet of instant noodles. Cha Chaang Teng sub-par food for high street prices. …查看更多

Didn’t have any preconceptions of this place, having walked by many a time. This time, I’d just completed a long morning browsing and shopping in Ikea and so I treated myself to a late lunch. There were some good set lunch options. I had assumed it was a typical gauche mainland restaurant, judging from the design outside, trying too hard to be cool and lavish. But to my surprise, the place was rather nice once you walk in and behind the bar area, and even more surprisingly, it’s a Singaporean-origin restaurant. The dining area is a mix of 2 and 4 pax tables, together with a series of 2 pax tables put together to form a long row. Unless your lucky to get the smaller/group tables, if you go alone or in pairs, you’re likely to sit in the rows, but it wasn’t a problem as the tables were reasonably wide. And of course, as a SG restaurant, they had hainan chicken as one of their signature dishes. I would have gone for that had the beef brisket and tendons not caught my eye on the menu and persuaded me to give this place a try. That (the hainan chicken) will be my choice of dish next time. Suffice to say, I was surrounded by 4 people who each had Hainan Chicken (the more expensive chicken leg looked a larger portion and more tempting) and the chicken looked waxy, glistening and meaty. So this time I went for said beef brisket and tendon noodles, a side of chilli chicken claws and a cup of SG milk tea (which uses sweetened condensed milk as opposed to evaporated milk in HK). The chilli chicken claws (cold) were medium spicy (packed a decent kick), with a little cartilage left in them. They were soft on the bite and simply one of the most delicious cold (deboned) spicy chicken claws I’ve ever had. Top marks! The beef and the tendons came in two large pieces each on a bed of noodles and garlic flakes mixed in an oyster sauce derivative, with a salty chopped mushroom as a side condiment, and separate bowl of chicken broth. I was impressed with the meats. These were the biggest tendons I’d experienced eating at a restaurant in Hong Kong. The meat and tendons were both very tender, moist and succulent. They would give most cha chaang teng/noodle stores in HK a run for their money. But of course they would, this dish cost $72 as opposed to $35-40 normally charged in the cheaper noodle stores. However, this dish just fell slightly short of top marks overall as the noodles were just a little too soggy and over cooked. I prefer my noodles with a bit of “bounce”, and this sadly lacked that secret element. The sauce was was just a little on the too rich side as well. The service was very good too, attentive, even down to separating the evaporated and condensed milk into separate mini jugs as I didn’t want the tea sweetened. The tea also was tasty, but next time I’ll hold off from ordering this until I’ve nearly eaten most of the dishes as it was the second thing to be served, after the chicken claws. Drinking tea and the chicken soup at the same time isn’t the best combo, and you don’t want either to go cold so you have no choice by to drink them interchangeably. Overall, a good first trip, definitely coming back. …查看更多

This post isn't about the food. It's about the appalling service we received at this restaurant. For the short form summary, scroll down to the end. The long storyFirst time visitor with my wife and baby, and with another family who kindly booked the table for us for a dim sum lunch. Excluding our baby (who dididn't eat), we had 4 adults and 2 children in the party. As we entered the building and into the foyer, there was no sign as to where the restaurant was, we had to ask the security guard who guided us down the corridor connecting to the foyer. Admittedly there was a large sign next to the lift, but you wouldn't be able to see it from the front glass doors, and 30 metres down a dark corridor. The illuminated sign next to the lift, and additional A4 posters in the lift boast about the restaurant being a Michelin star restaurant. But as soon as you enter, it makes you wonder how such recommendation was given by the prestigious international food guide.  The look and feel of this restaurant is no different from any other 1980s or 1990s banquet restaurant - and it hadn't looked like the decor had been updated to reflect that it's 2018. The place was functional, and the tables were well packed in to fit as many people as possible.  During our 2 hour stay, we were served by two people, one at the start, the other midway through. We arrived at midday on Sunday (day of posting), and only 3 tables out of about 25 were occupied at this stage (the restaurant seemed to be split off into another large section).  At the table we were given a stack of multi-coloured menus to pick from, all in Chinese. Our friends didn't read Chinese, and my Chinese is limited, save for the usual dim sum courses. We were also given 2 other menu booklets, and before we could ask the waitress about any recommendations, she disappeared. It took another 5 minutes to grab her. Several dishes in the main booklet were 'not available' (not even an explanation as to whether they had sold out, but just 'not available', which could be interpreted as, we can't be bothered to prepare those anymore). The most obvious 'not available' dish was the deep fried tarot dumpling, which any banqueting restaurant worth their salt, would sell.  She was also on a mission to sell us several dishes that the group as a whole weren't interested in, such as the char siu, and wouldn't take no for an answer at least 4 times. She also stated that the restaurant doesn't sell stuffed sharp tipped peppers (which my wife asked for) and would we settle for some char siu!  Reluctantly we said yes, if they don't sell it, but she came back a few minutes later and said that they do sell stuffed sharp tipped peppers!  Given the confusing array of menus, we asked her to write down our order for us . All the while she was trying to rush us with our ordering, and kept threatening to walk away if we even breathed in between calling out dishes - at this stage, the restaurant hadn't yet started to fill.  She promptly made one more appearance 5 minutes later, to sell us some unappetising food on a tray that she seemed desperate to offload. Then, poof! She disappeared. Our food came in piecemeal fashion and with large gaps of time. During this time, a new waiter comes along to serve tables around us. We realised there were a couple of dishes missing that we asked the waitress to take down, and asked the new waiter to follow up our order. One was chilli oil dumplings, the other conpoy stir fried e-fu noodles. He disappeared for 10 minutes and comes back with a print out of our order. The dumplings were on the list, but not the e-fu noodles. We highlighted this to the waiter and asked him to take down a few more items, to which he gives us another stack of menus. All the while, the expression on his face was, 'why are you inconveniencing me? Just eat your food and go'.  This was pretty much the attitude he had with us, half turning each time he arrived at our table, as though he was about to walk off midway through our conversation.   At the end of the meal, he states that there is free dessert for our party of 6, either Tong Yuen sweet dumplings in sugar cane soup, or red bean paste soup. We ordered 5 Tong Yuen dumplings and 1 red bean paste.  He comes back with 6 red bean paste soups and says, 'no tong yuen available'!  And to top that off, he still missed another of our extra dish orders, and in usual banqueting restaurants, you could hear the immense clatter of plates and dishes thrown in the trolley of dirty dishes. The food? It was generally ok, but nothing that overwhelmed us to earn praise. The highlight were the deep fried spring rolls, surpisingly good, the baked pork char siu pineapple buns tasted a lot better than they looked (if you want top notch char siu pineapple buns, head down to Tim Ho Wan above HK Express Airport). The rest of the food we ordered was no better, no worse than you'll find in any common banqueting restaurant across the length and breadth of Hong Kong. But no way does this restaurant justify a Michelin star or other recommendation, nor their inflated prices, particularly with the sub-standard service received.  The owners need to retrain their staff, motivate them, pay them more (to reflect the overpriced menu), and should have at an extra 2-3 waiters. Many of the staff were in their 50s and frankly looked jaded and weary from having probably worked at the same restaurant for many years.  And the whole place sorely needs a facelift, a full on makeover by a F&B consultant. Whilst it's possible to book a table, the subsequent appalling service drags the whole experience down to nothing more than a regular cha chaang teng. At least with the latter, there's no service fee or pretences of what they are.  The short story - summary: - Incomprehensible menu system, and staff giving attitude when you ask them to write down the food for you- Dishes missed out from order list, and some not turning up at all- Food not to the standard of Michelin. - Service was painfully slow (lack of staff)- Quality of service not congruent with the prices charged (high), nor the supposed Michelin star - Decor and overall ambience is much like any other standard Cantonese banqueting/seafood restaurantWhat other Michelin restaurant expects you to write your own order down and charges you 10% service charge! Also, the average per head may seem low for dim sum, and Michelin star restaurant at that, but of our party of 6, two were children aged 7-8, so we didn't order in volume. Most dishes were $45-65. Avoid. …查看更多

I tagged along at The Silver Room  to a group of 5 with my wife, as she had been invited by friends for a catch up dinner. But I almost didn't. "We are meeting at a pasta place called Silver Room. It's in Tin Hau," she said.  That really didn't light my fire. You see, I have a few Italian friends living and working in Hong Kong, but not one has mentioned this place to me. The usual suspects, like Isola in IFC, Carbone in LKF Tower,  the now defunct La Piola, or Otto e Mezzo, of course.  But some place in Tin Hau? Nah, mate, not me.  You're havin' a laff, aren't you? But at the last minute, I had a change of heart and asked my wife to add me in to the mix.  Boy, was I glad I did. On arrival, we'd almost almost missed the location, even though it's set on the ground floor of Tsing Fung Street, just a few blocks from Exit B of Tin Hau MTR station.  The entrance consists of 4 giant brushed-metal (steel?) doors that were at least 15 feet high. Out of the 4 door panels, just 2 were open, so it was easy to walk by without noticing it. There were no obvious signs outside.  The inside of the restaurant was dimly lit with cream-coloured high back leather seating, and very high ceilings. Not many covers, around 25 from recollection. And the waiter explained that the restaurant is actually part of the hotel, directly above it, the name of which I didn't bother asking (but I have now googled it and found out it's part of a boutique hotel called Tuve).  The cynical side of me was thinking that perhaps I hadn't made the right decision to tag along. At 7:45pm on Friday, my wife and I were the only customers in the restaurant. Not long after being seated, water from the air conditioning ventilation above  started to slowly drip on my shoulder. The waiter seemed to think that wiping the ventilation opening once with a long mop would solve the problem, but a few minutes later, I felt another drop. The number of wine options were limited, around 6 from each of red and wine, not that that was an issue. To my mild disappointment, however, most of the wines were from Chile (I'm not a big fan of wines from here).  I asked for a glass of Australian Pinot Noir. Sold out.  A glass of Chardonnay? Sorry, sold out.  But here's a glass of Prosecco for you and your wife, on the house. Well, ok, don't mind if we do!  Not long after, our friends arrived, and we asked to be seated elsewhere, as one of the friends also had water droplets from the aircon. It wasn't as though we were fighting through hordes of customers that evening, so the waiter duly and happily obliged. Despite the hesitation over the lack of customers, the leaking aircon, and a surprising lack of alcohol, things started to change for the better. Obviously, the good company helped! We learned that the head chef is Japanese, and some of my wife's friends (she and they are Japanese) had been to this restaurant and raved about it, suddenly gave me a lot of confidence in this place. Perhaps that's why my Italian friends haven't checked this place out. And they so should!I have been to Italian restaurants in Japan, and one thing I can say is that these places are as good as any, or most restaurants you go to in Italy.  Their passion for Italian cuisine, their dedication to the craft, the ingredients, and precision engineering make for a tremendous and authentic dining experience. So the fact that some Japanese friends came here regularly gave me a a lot of hope. The menu wasn't long, all printed on an A5 sized sheet, about 4 dishes for each of the appetisers, the primo and secondi dishes, as well as dessert. The waiter explained that quite a few dishes are seasonal and are likely to change on a regular basis. As a party of 6, we ordered one from each of the appetisers and primo dishes, and 2 main (secondi) dishes (beef and iberico pork options).  What took me by surprise was the prices of these dishes ranged between $200-almost $400 per dish. That puts it in the Isola et al range of prices, but without the white table cloth and view of Hong Kong harbour.  Immediately your thoughts are, 'this had better be good,' claws out ready and sharp for criticism. The first thing to be served was squid ink bread and slices of white bread, both piping hot and straight from the oven. The bread was super soft, sweet and delicious to taste and to smell. Simply delicious. This was accompanied by a complimentary hor d'hoeuvres which tasted like ground olive paste on rye crackers.  With hindsight, not a great idea as we wolfed these down, meaning we really struggled to complete the dishes towards the end! Without spoiling the fun, I won't go into nth degree detail over each dish. But one thing I would say is that one of the primo dishes we ordered, a Tagliatelle with summer truffle simply blew the whole group away.   Each pasta dish was cooked perfectly al dente.  But the quality of the ingredients they used (flour and eggs) to make their pasta (it was all made on site) was incredible - both fresh and flavoursome (you could taste the delicious pasta separately from the sauce, I kid you not).  I can say with much certainty, having tried pasta in Italy, the UK, Europe, the US and all over Asia, this is one of the best pastas I had ever tasted.  The tortellini filled with duck came along (a seasonal dish), and had a tough act to follow. I enjoyed it very much (whilst others thought that was the star of the evening), but not as much as the tagliatelle. Perhaps at that point I was starting to get quite full.  We also had one dish of the Papperdelle with braised wagyu beef cheek in red wine sauce. Again, the pasta texture was perfectly made. However, I found the sauce a little too rich and sharp for my liking. Others in the party really enjoyed the sauce. The iberico pork with grilled asparagus, I thought, was also very tasty.  Out of this and the slow cooked beef, the pork was superior. But we were so full from the previous dishes (the portions are quite large) that we weren't able to finish the main courses.  There was also a selection of anti-pasti (cold cut meat) which were fairly standard fair, with some crushed olive on bread (avoid that as it will fill you up, at the expense of the better dishes). I would definitely go again. And next time, I'm having an order of summer truffle Tagliatelle all for myself!  This is one of Tin Hau's best kept secrets. Granted, it was far from perfect. There are quite a few things that need to be improved (as indicated above), but some of the pasta dishes are simply outstanding.  Just a side note about the toilet, it's outside at the back.  You first have to go outside, walking along  a dark grey pebble dashed floor. The restroom itself is also pebble-dashed on the floor and ceiling, and has a pointy ceiling. The description sounds strange, but the whole style works, I was really impressed. And it was clean too!Photo credit: goes to my wife, I didn't take pictures that evening. One of us should have taken a picture of the taglietelle, but we didn't. Sorry, you'll have to go try it for yourselves. …查看更多

First review on Openrice and regrettably I felt compelled to put this on.  I've been to La Taste for lunch at least a dozen times over the last few years. I wouldn't say their food blows my mind.  Functional, at best, with service that leaves a lot to be desired, particularly at lunchtimes when it has a real canteen feel about the place.  On Good Friday afternoon, I took an American friend over for a late lunch. It was 2:30pm and I wanted to show my friend some roast goose and rice from Yat Lok (一樂) on Stanley Street.  Unfortunately, there was a group of tourists lining up outside waiting to get in, and we were hungry.  So I suggested going upstairs to La Taste. There were some menus outside promoting their mid-afternoon snack deals.The place was about 1/4 capacity. When we sat down, there was no mid-afternoon snacks menu and I asked where they were. "Our mid-afternoon menu doesn't start until 3pm," said the waitress.  But you've got the menus downstairs?  "It's another half an hour. You can go somewhere else if you like," was the response. Fail number 1. REgrettably, we decided to stay as we were too hungry to move.  So, we ordered and shared a Vietnamese baguette, stuffed chicken wings, chicken curry and boiled rice. The stuffed chicken and baguette was surprisingly quite tasty.  The chicken wings had pork and herb stuffing, deep fried.  And the baguette was served warm, and the the crust was light and crispy.  As we were busily chatting away and eating the curry, I started to feel something wasn't quite right with the curry as I tasted something light and plasticky.  I spat it out, and discovered several layers of cling film/cling wrap wrapped into a ball. I was horrified!  I beckoned the waitress over and her instinct was to offer a replacement curry even though we'd eaten all the food and most of the curry had gone! She then asked us to wait a moment whilst she consulted the manageress. A few minutes later, the manageress arrived, said sorry and would we like a replacement curry!  For the uninitiated, the kitchen would simply use the same curry in a large pot which had been stewing the plastic for hours (you can see the curry had turned the cling wrap a brown colour).  I pointed this out (the plastic turning colour) to the manageress, which she acknowledged.  We were then offered to have the curry taken off the price.  I suggested to her that in these circumstances a restaurant elsewhere would ordinarily not charge for the whole meal (and it wasn't a large meal).  She then counter-offered by saying that she would also deduct the cost of the rice!  So that meant we still had to pay the balance of $180 for the other dishes. I really wished I'd walked out there but was shocked at the response.  My friend was baffled as to what was going on as the conversation was in Cantonese.  This shock later turned to anger that I could have swalled the several layers of plastic and suffered serious health injury.  I'm sorry I've had to write this review as my first review but I am still furious by the restaurant's total lack of compassion and the sloppiness of their kitchen staff (which is reflected in their waiting staff as I've experienced the wrong orders from them on several occasions).  The food quality and taste is patch at the best of times, and the service is always a let-down.  I won't be going to this restaurant again. Pepperpiglet will write something more constructive for his next review!Note: for service, I wouldn't even give it a rating but I am compelled by OR to do so!…查看更多