樂心冰室 Glee Cafe

Stepping outside of Central is awesome, and I would like to introduce you to a new area called Causeway Bay. OOoooOoo0000OOoo… Alright, I’m just being sarcastic. About the new area part of course. Stepping outside of Central is always awesome.

I walk by Jardine Street a couple times a week, and when I am in a rush I like to grab food from here because it tends to be less crowded than the rest of CWB and the food is “local priced”. Glee Cafe is not the healthiest option but it has the typical cha tsan tang macaroni in soup + hot drink + scrambled eggs/ham/toast menu ($40). Unlike typical cha tsan tangs though, this place is relatively clean and newly renovated. The seating isn’t too crowded so it actually has room for me to put my big backpack. Though this place looks more modern, do not expect service to be great. The cashier looks like she wants to stab me every time I am paying her. Oh well, she never actually stabbed me so it’s all good. Speaking of dangerous things though, a couple months ago a part of this street actually collapsed after a guy walked by and he actually got injured falling into the hole. True story.

This is my “usual” there, loaded with white pepper and I always ask for chili oil. I’m also super happy that they have almond tea since I don’t really like having HK style coffee or tea with my meals.

Conclusion: This is one of my favorite cha tsan tangs in Hong Kong. Not the cheapest but at least you don’t have to eat with your arms stuck to your sides. Try it.

Location: G/F, 54-58 Jardine's Bazaar, Causeway Bay

Website: NA

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

Breakfast in Kaohsiung

 One of my favorite things to eat in Kaohsiung is their egg crepe 蛋饼 for breakfast. It's a very local and "standard" Taiwanese breakfast which is served at pretty much all breakfast joints. You can usually choose one of the following to include in your egg crepe, and can add cheese as well if you'd like: bacon, wieners, ham, tuna, veggies. My favorite is the bacon and cheese egg crepe while my nephew's favorite is the ham and cheese egg crepe. You can either eat it on it's own or you can eat it with 酱油膏  and 辣椒酱 (my nephew eats it without).

Another one of my Kaohsiung breakfast favorites is their ham and egg sandwiches. In comparison to the Hong Kong versions (which I also really like), the Taiwanese version's bread is sweeter and toasted by default, there is some mayo present, and also shreds of cucumber present. The end result tastes amazing even if the description sounds kind of gross.

As a bonus, the cost of these delicious breakfasts are very low (from the viewpoint of a visitor).

I was going to post on my other favorite, salt and pepper deep fried chicken 鹽酥鸡, but maybe I will just wait till next time since it's actually quite hard to write about it so many days after... In any case, the point of this post is to say that Taiwan is more than just beef noodles and pineapple cakes. 








Extra large menu here for you to read....

福滿源食店外賣中心 Fook Moon Yuen Takeaway

This used to be my favorite breakfast delivery place until our boss shut down the "breakfast club" at my last job. Oh the memories...

This place used to be on the end of Wellington street near the dumpling places. I guess they got booted out when that area became cool with the arrival of places like Mana and Cali Mex (how on earth have they managed to open up in so many new locations by the way!), and then they decided to move to the dark alley by the Centre (right next to the vegetarian place) - Tit Hong Lane. It took me a long time to track their new location down since I kept typing in the wrong Chinese characters on Google. I knew they weren't gone gone though since I still saw their delivery people walking around Central (yes, I ordered from them so much I recognize their people... plus their logo is a big orange and yellow thing so it's hard to miss).

I really like their breakfasts because

• they are relatively cheap, with a whole breakfast meal for just $25 (used to be even cheaper but... inflation)
• their portions are big
• they are tasty
• they separate the soup and noodles
• they've got a good menu to choose from - from sandwiches to congee to soupy noodles to rice rolls
• they've got soy milk as an option for the drink in meals

This morning I decided to revisit this place. Couldn't ask for delivery since I was the only person ordering (breakfast minimum charge for delivery is $50). I dropped off my bag in the office, called them to order my food, and then timed myself to see how long it would take to pick it up. Around 10-15 minutes assuming the elevators and traffic lights are in my favor (which it was this morning, hallelujah).

I was so happy I wanted to cry when I unveiled my food. Memories of the good old breakfast club days came all back to me. The portions still big, food still tasty, the same creamy soup base for my macaroni separated in a different bowl to avoid sogginess, and my warm soy milk. The only difference was that meal B now doesn't serve the egg/ham/bacon/wiener in a separate box, which is slightly annoying as it makes access to the macaroni a little more difficult.... but then again... let's reduce waste and safe earth right?

Sorry folks, menu is in Chinese only. Time to befriend a Chinese reader/speaker in your office!

Location: No. 10 Tit Hong Lane
Website: NA

Morning Quickies - Landmark and Co.

When I was working at the Henley, I was eating the macaroni/noodle/congee breakfast sets from the CKC building almost every single day - another factor that contributed to my rapid weight gain. On other days, I liked to grab food from the places below.

Yummy (<$25): It's slightly further away from Henley especially in the morning, but I think their breakfasts are totally worth the walk. I usually go for this when I arrive in Central early (i.e. 8:15am - boy do I miss 9am starts). My favorite is their faux siu mais (fish meat siu mai), which are the best I've ever had in HK (my ex-colleagues really liked them too so.. yah!). On my hungrier days I would go for their congee as well making it a set. Their cheung fun / rice rolls aren't bad either but I guess they just really aren't my thing.

Location: Chiu Lung Street (can enter alley through Queen's Road Central by the McDonalds and Calvin Klein)

Sun Hing (<$25): It's somewhat across from Yummy and next to the 7-11 on Chiu Long Street. They have very good satay beef sandwiches, sweet/spicy/sour noodles (I know, it's heavy in the morning but... great for if you have a slight hangover from the night before), and pan fried turnip cake.

Location: Chiu Lung Street (can enter alley through Queen's Road Central by the McDonalds and Calvin Klein)

Urban Bakery (<$20): Croissants, their croissants are oh so very good. Very close to Henley too so it's fantastic.

Location: 4th (?) floor of the Landmark where 360 used to be. Man I miss 360.

Simply Life (<$20): yes they do have sandwiches for under $20, the only problem is it doesn't really fill me up. The cheese they use is really good though so... that is why I get it sometimes.

Location: Landmark basement near the Fuel.

Morning Quickies - IFC

I am talking about breakfasts. If after work drinks are called happy hours, should morning pre-work breakfasts be called sad hours? Skip the next paragraph to get to the actual food part.

Though I am not a morning person, I have a special fascination with breakfasts. I guess it's a treat to myself for yet waking up on time and making it to work for another day, or a celebration on a day off that I woke up early and have earned myself some extra hours to do something random for the day. I have to admit that I am getting old, and that I no longer sleep in till 2 or 3pm on days off. 12pm has been the latest, and that it really quite early for me because seriously, 2/3pm was the norm for me. Biologically I probably don't need to sleep that much anymore, and mentally as I am getting older, there is more I want to get to during the day instead of sleeping through it (e.g. cooking, eating, cleaning, boxing, errands etc etc).

Anyway, on my well behaved days my breakfast consists of a boiled egg brought from home (made the night before) and a herbalife milkshake. On my non-behaving days or colder days, I like to go with one of the below.

Listed in order of how often I visit them, with the first being the most frequent.

Maxim ($23.5): Maxim fast food has replaced Café de Coral's place in my heart, because their staff is much nicer and their food is quite good. I usually like to get the A2 meal, which has a macaroni in soup, ham and egg, toast or turnip cake (in HK, apparently these things are interchangeable), and a drink. I really like this on cold mornings, and it reminds me of the good old days when mom made me breakfast every morning. Other times, I get the set with 2 eggs with ham/BACON/wieners with toast and a drink. Good for days when I don't want to behave but still kinda want to be good. Their coffee is also very good for some reason.... like unusually good. Not a big fan of their congee and noodles as it's tasteless compared to de Coral.

Location: Hong Kong Station, near the exit for IFC 2

McDonalds (<$30): Need I say more? always a good morning breakfast for days when you feel like crap. I alternate between the sausage and egg mcmuffin meal and the pork bone soup pasta meal.

Location: P2 level if you are taking the elevators from the Airport Express area, closer to IFC 1 area.

Hung Fook Tong  ($10): good for super quickies since everything is pre-made here. Their $10 menu includes: faux siu mai (fish meat siu mai), beef siu mai (new item!), chao zhou dumplings, and meat and veggie buns. They also have fried noodles which I've never tried and not sure how much they cost. Maybe I can try it next time.

Location: Hong Kong Station, near the exit for IFC 2 (near the Maxim fast food)

Arome Bakery (<$20): another good place for super quickies as they have a variety of the typical HK bakery items as well as pre-made Hong Kong style sandwiches. I've tried their ham and egg sandwich which was only $14 (much cheaper than Maxim bakery which charges $17 or 18 on Theatre Lane). You can make it a set and get a coffee with it as well which I have yet to try since coffee is free in the office.

Location: Hong Kong Station, near the exit for IFC 2 (next to the Hung Fook Tong)

Starbucks (<$20): I really like their toasted bagel with cream cheese which has gone from $13 six years ago to around $17 or $18 today. I only go for this on very very rare mornings since I try to avoid an overdose of carbs in the morning making me sleepy for the rest of the day.

Location: they are everywhere.... Airport Express check-in, One Exchange Square, and I think second floor of IFC near the Senryo and new juice place.

I'll get to the Landmark area next. I find that area much more interesting for breakfasts.