Flaming Frango + Godiva

I came across this restaurant on either Sassy or another food site featuring new restaurants. This is definitely not a cheap cheap restaurant but looked interesting because their main dish is something called piri piri chicken – something I have no idea what it is. It sounded interesting enough though so my friend and I decided to go give it a try.

It’s all the way on Staunton Street by Feather Boa (btw, has that place finally shutdown yet?), so it was quite a trek especially in the hot weather. We were sat on a high table and was told there is no set menu, however they had a promotion where upon ordering a main from 2 specified sections you get a soup and a non-alcoholic drink. My friend used to live in London and she said the place reminded her of Nando so she was quite happy we went to give this place a try. We got the chicken thigh, and for sides we got the mashed potato, Frango rice, seasonal roasted veggies and “shoestring” fries.  

 

This is what I thought of the food…
Mushroom Soup: Was ok, my friend didn't seem to like it though because it was sour.
Piri piri chicken: I liked the taste as it was slightly spicy and went well with the coriander sauce and spicy sauce. Problem is whatever chicken they were using was too small and it was obvious that we were gonna be hungry afterwards.
Mashed potato: Was fine but I don’t like how they had chunks of potato in it (I know some people like that).
Shoestring fries: Er, they weren’t really shoestring fries… but nonetheless still quite tasty so I liked it.
Frango rice: Subtly flavored. I liked it but my friend did not.
Seasonal veggies: Our least favorite of the sides as it was extremely uncooked and hard.



Conclusion: My friend and I agree that the good wasn't bad but not sure if we would go back since the portions aren’t exactly big for people from Europe and Canada (we eat, a lot). Our meal ended up being around $150 which was reasonable, but then again not so reasonable since we weren’t full. In fact we had to go to Godiva for a soft serve afterwards to satisfy the rest of our appetites. Thoughts on the Godiva soft serve? Well I had to try it since it’s been seducing me for weeks with all the ads around IFC. $45 isn’t super outrageous considering the brand, but let’s just say I still prefer the cheaper Nestle or whatever ice cream cones from convenience stores and super markets.

Flaming Frango
Location: 36 Staunton St, Central
Website: NA

Godiva

Location: IFC
Website: http://www.godiva.com.hk/

新香園 Sun Heung Yuen

Awesome, a local place again! This is also located in Tit Hong Lane in Central, and probably the last restaurant from this alley I will talk about since I have no intentions of visiting Danish Bakery (I can't justify paying over $50 at a local cha tsan tang in an alley).

I believe this place is famous for its Hong Kong style milk tea and the satay beef. Can't remember which day this was but I wasn't feeling particularly hungry so I wanted to get something tasty and soupy. Satay beef on anything is one of my favorite foods so I opted for the satay beef on macaroni that particular day.

If you are the type who doesn't like the thick satay sauce then you might like this place. I was expecting it to be a really thick layer of satay sauce with beef over my macaroni, but it turns out it's the very runny soupy type. Though the taste was on the light side, I quite liked it because I was having a crappy no appetite day. It was good acting as the bit of fuel to keep me going until the end of the day.

I'll probably be back one day to try the milk tea. In the meantime, check this out when you are also having a crappy no appetite day.

Website: NA
Location: Tit Hong Lane

Open Kitchen

There’s been some FB post on people finding cockroaches in their food from Canteen/Maxim lately. I think I’ve been super lucky since I’ve never found anything like this, not even at all the ghetto local places I’ve been to.

Canteen at Prince’s Building used to be one of my favorite spots at my old job since I found the price and quality to be quite fair. Now that I don’t work in that area anymore I don’t really go there anymore. There’s an Open Kitchen near where I work, but I try my best not to go there since I find it pricey and boring. Oh, and Open Kitchen is basically Simply Life, which is part of Maxim Group.

Last Thursday though… was different. I was in a rush to go back to work so I just ran down to Open Kitchen to grab something quick. For $75 you get to choose 3 Asian dishes on top of white rice.

Although I try not to go there, whenever I am there I see the reason why it’s always so packed. Even though $75 is quite a bit, they have a good variety of dishes to choose from (healthy and non-healthy). I like that there are a number of veggie dishes to choose from, so you can make it as healthy as you want your lunch to be.

This day, I chose Chinese cabbage, beef brisket with radish and sweet and sour pork. I really like their sweet and sour pork because it’s so crispy and tasty. The beef was ok but I was more drawn to the radish. Veggies are veggies so not much to say on that. Same goes for the rice.

I wouldn’t recommend this as a go-to lunch spot even if you are in the area, since if you walk an extra 5 minutes you can get something cheaper. But on days when you need every minute you can squeeze out of your day this is a good choice.

Location: IFC
Website: http://www.simplylife.com.hk/open-kitchen/

Danish Bakery - Central

It's been a while so there are a couple of restaurants I wanted to talk about. First... let's talk about Danish Bakery.
 
If you've worked/lived/roamed frequently in Causeway Bay you may know about this “bakery” that is infamous for their fried chicken thighs. I’ve tried it once but honestly I don’t get what all the buzz is about. I guess the reason why people like Danish Bakery so much is more for sentimental reasons – this place has been around for over 40 years. Given the cheap price, I imagine a lot of kids probably grew up eating from this place.

Anyway, today I am not reviewing Danish Bakery in Causeway Bay, I’m talking about the new shop in Central with the same name. I’m not entirely sure it’s by the same owner, but judging from the news clippings posted on the walls by the entrance it should be the same.

Unlike the CWB location, this place is much nicer, and is actually a proper restaurants with seats… and I guess that’s how they are justifying the much higher cost of >$30 for breakfast and >$50 for lunch. I get that it’s Central and rent is much higher, but then what about the restaurants next to it in the same alley? They aren’t as nicely renovated but the costs are much more reasonable. When I saw the new location and the prices, I just thought to myself… gee, someone is extremely ambitious.

Anyway, so onto the food. So in a previous post I mentioned that I would likely not try this place out given its outrageous pricing, but that day I caved because well, I really wanted a hot dog. Like, really really wanted a hot dog. There is Wing Lok Yuen, but it’s just too far away for me. So yeah I gave this place a try.

For $55 I got a macaroni in soup with scrambled eggs and bacon on top, a double weinered hot dog, and a hot drink. I quite liked the macaroni in soup, but was not a fan of the hot dog at all. I asked for no cheese and with ketchup, and yes, they left out the cheese, but they put mayonnaise in it!! To top it off, it’s not even the normal Miracle Whip, but it’s a weird mayo that’s slightly clear... with the consistency of what looks like… ok, this is a food blog so I will keep it clean. But anyway, I am sure you get the jist of what I am saying.

Conclusion is I probably won’t revisit unless I get another extreme hot dog craving.

Location: Tit Hong Lane

Website: NA

Taku

Brunch used to be a big thing for me until another one of my interests started taking up my weekends. Since I want Saturday to be sleep in day and Sunday to be activity day, there really is no day for brunch on a normal week unless it's brunch for a special occasion. In any case, since this week we get a massive 5 day super duper long weekend, I accepted a colleague's invite to brunch at Taku on Saturday.

The last time I went to Taku was quite late at night and friends and I were craving yakimono in Central. I thought it was ok but recall the price being quite steep (well either it really was expensive day or I was having a Grinch day). In any case, this time I thought the brunch was a really good deal since it was $308 (+10%) which includes all you can eat sashimi, rolls, yakimono, fried food, noodles, dessert and alcoholic/non-alcoholic drinks (beer, sangria, soft drinks).

The food came really fast at the beginning and kinda tapered off towards the end, perhaps because it was a quiet day and they were expecting to end earlier and didn't prep extra food. Other than that small hiccup I would say I enjoyed the overall experience.

In comparison to Zuma which is I think more than double the price, I would prefer coming here since I actually find the food more fresh as it's "made to order" rather than a buffet style like Zuma. I've never been a fan of champagne (except for the times when I was drunk and demanded a glass of champagne for god knows what reason), so the Zuma brunch appeals to me even less. The thing that does appeal to me about Zuma actually has nothing to do with the food - it's the natural daylight. Taku is a bit dark if you are sitting further inside the restaurant. When I think of the perfect brunch, I'm thinking of a bright sunny happy day, probably because I feel like if I'm waking up early on a weekend to go out and eat, there really should be a lot of sunlight.

Anyway, for around $350 I would recommend you trying this place out. I really think it's a good deal.

Website: http://www.taku.com.hk/
Location: 35 Elgin Street, SoHo, Central

Viet Baguette & Kitchen

Xandir is on a never ending quest to save his boyfriend, while I am on a never ending quest to find a decent (in terms of quality and quantity) Viet baguette, aka banh mi in Hong Kong. In case you haven't read the post on Bee Two, it was a total disappointment as nothing about that baguette tasted like a banh mi. Well maybe the bread tasted right, but that's about it.

I saw Viet Baguette & Kitchen a week or 2 ago when I was walking out of IFC One and heading towards the escalator. They have a huge red sign up across the street on the left hand side that caught my attention, and I made a mental note to visit the place for lunch some time soon. Finally I gave this place a try last week as my plans to go to Sunday's Grocery failed.

Located in the Nexxus Building, this is a proper full on (pho) restaurant with a take out area for quick bites like baguettes, salads and juices. I think they have 4 kinds of baguettes to choose from and I went with the traditional pork one. Price wise it was $58 and about 2/3's the size of the baguettes in Edmonton, so I would consider that to be quite expensive. In case the baguette wasn't going to fill me up (which it did in the end), I also got a small salad from Pret.











Surprisingly, the sandwich kept me full until the end of the day so I didn't end up having my salad. Taste wise, they've checked the list below:

• pate
• cilantro
• fatty pork with skin
• chili pepper/jalapeño
• cucumber
• pickled carrots
• Vietnamese salami

I recall reading somewhere that Maggie sauce is supposed to be an essential ingredient as well. Never actually knew that since I thought Maggie was more of a Honger sauce. In any case... the point is these baguettes do not have Maggie sauce so it tastes slightly bland. As someone who is trying to lower salt intake this is not necessarily a bad thing, especially since the baguette still tastes good.

Overall, I would say that $58 dollars is not bad for the taste and size (though it wouldn't hurt if they came in bigger sizes).

Location: Ground floor of Nexxus Building
Website: NA

The other problem is the crumbs aftermath...