Adventure #167: Fiat Caffe

Walked past this interestingly decorated cafe besides (inside?) the Fiat showroom many times but have never been inside.  Today, we were in the area and not wanting to track too far for food, we wandered into the Fiat Caffe.

Other than the food, this place is also a feast to the eyes with all the Fiat products on display. Not to mention, the little Fiat is now my favourite town car.....sadly we really only need one car in HK and G being the principal driver in the household got his BMW.

Arriving before 12 noon, we were one of the first lunch customers.  Service was very slow (maybe becasue not all the satff have arrived) hence not too sure about the quality of food.

Not long after we placed our order and took some photos of the place, the food arrived.


Fontina cheese, sweet Italian shallots and prosciutto bruschetta. A simple but well put together bruschetta. Delicious.



Ricotta cheese, egg and anchovy panini. Very interesting. Panini warm and the side salad with anchovy complemented the panini well.

Polpette meat balls in extra rich tomato sauce. The older one really like this dish.

And the coffee also didn't disappoint.

All in all, we were pleasantly surprised.  The portion was not large but sufficient.  And at under $100 a dish, that's good value for money in HK.  Most of all, the food was delicious.  Given the very convenient location in CWB, a very good place for lunch or tea in between shopping.

Fiat Caffe
Shop G5-G6, Leighton Centre
77 Leighton Road
Causeway Bay
Tel: 2960 9222

Adventure #166: 羅富記粥麵專家

羅富記粥麵專家 has 3 branches in Central.  G used to frequent the one on Lynhurst Terrace as it is across the street from where he used to work.  My mum prefers the one on Queen's Road Central, no particular reason, I think she just doesn't fancy walking uphill.

Today, we popped into the one on Queen's Road Central.  It closed for a while a few months back for renovation.  So, post renovation......looked the same to me.  The cooking area and the seating area looked exactly the same.  Put in some new industrial size air-conditioners - freezing!

The standard wonton noodle.  Noodle chewy, wonton delicious. No disappointment there.

The dumplings 水餃 were also delicious with sufficient fillings and not too thick dumpling skin.

The 皮蛋鹹瘦肉粥 is G's favourite.  Not many places does this properly anymore.  The pork is supposed to be salty and in this case, it was. And yet it didn't overwhelmed the porridge. 

Another of G's favourite is 牛肉鱼片粥 which he ordered to share with the little one. The beef was soft and the fish slices just cooked. The only complaint which the little one had on this dish was that sometimes there were little bones on the fish slices. 

魚腩粥 is my favourite. They always run out but today I am in lucky and I get to have it. This is actually a better dish for the little one as the bones on the fish belly are large and easy to remove - less chance of a fish bone accident!

G/F, 142 Queen's Road Central
Central
Or
G/F, 50 Lynhurst Terrance
Central

Adventure #165: Sift

After The Salted Pig, we strolled to Sift at Graham Street.  Sift is well known for its cupcakes, in particular its Red Velvet cupcake which is our favourite.  None of its shops serve desserts other than this one.  It is a small shop with a bar area, a couple of tables in front and a couple of tables out back.

The desserts are pre-prepared and the "chef" only has to assembled them before serving but they are delicious!

The warm molten chocolate served with vanilla ice-cream. One of our favourites.

Just looked at the warm chocolate oozing out........yummmm!

Our other favourite, stick toffee pudding. Served with vanilla ice-cream and some honey comb.

A great place to drop by for dessert, especially after dinner. But the place is small, so unless you come early, likelihood is you will have to wait.

SIFT

G/F, 46 Graham Street

Soho

Central
Tel: 2530 4288

Adventure #164: The Salted Pig

Flipping through some old magazines and saw a feature on Latin American food.  One of the restaurants featured was The Salted Pig.  According to the article, pork is more expensive than beef in Argentina and is only eaten on occasions.

The pork dishes featured were peasant type food but looked comforting, like pork stew and spicy roasted pork served on a bed of creamy scrambled eggs. So, we decided to give it a try.

The decor on one side of the restaurant is rather rustic and has bigger tables for groups of six and above.

On the other side however, the decor is more contemporary with cosier seatings for parties of 2 to 4 people.

We were seated on the more rustic side which I preferred.  There is no wine list, just choose servicing sized and type. We choose a small one (150ml I think as G drove) and Shiraz.  It was surprisingly good, although I still didn't what I had.

The bread rolls arrived. We were a little disappointed as the rolls were not warm.

I didn't find the featured dishes on the menu which doubled as a mat.  We asked the waiter and it seemed that the featured dishes were created specifically back in March to show case some Latin American food.  Rather disappointed so we ask the waiter to give us some recommendations instead.

Based on the waiter's recommendation we ordered Bacon-Wrapped Scallops served on a bed of broad bean, pea and mint mash, cider dressing.  I know.....not even a pork dish!  However, it was a good choice and the scallops were very well cooked and the mixture of broad bean, peas and mint was delicious.

For mains, it was a toss between:
(i)  The Crispy Skinned Pork Knuckle Regarded as Hong Kong's Best Pork Knuckle, marinated and cooked for 3 days to ensure perfect tenderness and a crispy skin. Served with home-made sauerkraut, roasted carrots and potatoes from their Salted Pig Sharing Feats menu or
(ii) Roasted Suckling Pig with roasted vegetables.
The waiter recommended the suckling pig.

While waiting for our suckling pig, the waitress started cutting up the pork knuckle dish right next to us.  We started to doubt our choice.

Our suckling pig dish arrived.  It looked really enticing.  The meat was soft and tender and full of flavour.  The roasted vegetables were great. The only flaw (deadly for this dish) was that the skin was not crispy enough. It didn't crack when bitten, it was actually a bit chewy!

G was very disappointed with the suckling pig, to him a crispy skin is vital to the dish.  So, after one look at the not very outstanding dessert menu, we decided to have dessert elsewhere, he didn't want to risk another disappointment.

Although the suckling pig was a let down, we only had 2 dishes here, one good and one fair.  So, unable to form a definitive view on the restaurant.  There are still many more dishes on the menu to try and most of the dishes are large and needed to be shared.  I think I will have to organising an eating party and come back here some time.

The Salted Pig
2/F, The L Place
139 Queen's Road Central
Central
Tel: 2870 2323

Adventure #163: The Dining Room

We have not been back to Hysan Place since the opening of 誠品書店, the famous Taiwanese book shop.  Hysan Place is the newest mall in HK Island.  There are many interesting new shops in there although the lay out is a little weird. Anyway, we were in the neighbourhood today after the kids' classes. 

There is a food court on the 11th floor which I thought looked rather interesting.  12th -14th floors are all restaurants. Today we picked The Dining Room 南小館 on the 12th.

The Dining Room serves Shanghainese food but the decor is very contemporary. Open and bright. Very nice.

Sweet and sour spare ribs 糖醋排骨 - very nicely done, meat was tender and sauce not too sweet.

Sichuan noodle 老重慶擔擔麵 - delicious but given the name (老重慶), it was not as spicy as I hoped.

Dry noodle with onions 蔥油開洋拌麵 - the kids loved this but I still prefer the one at Xiao Nan Guo. 

Stirred fried beans 煸四季豆 - very well cooked.  Spicy yet crunchy. Many restuarants over-cooked this dish. Not this one.

Xiao long bao with crab roe 蟹粉小龍包 - this is a bit disappointing.  Cannot taste the crap roe.  I guess for the price (I think less than $50 for the dish), can't expect too much.  I much prefer the ones I had at East Ocean Restaurant but that cost about $25 each. 

Fried rice 大良抄飯 - this was different and very delicious.  Best dish.

Nice decor and food quality was good.  We were there early on a Saturday, so not too crowded.  All in all, a very pleasant dining experience.


The Dining Room
Shop 1201, 12/F, Hysan Place
500 Hennessy Road Causeway Bay
Tel: 2648 2299

Adventure #162: The Shack (Koh Samui)

Tonight is our last night in Koh Samui. The other restaurant that G picked out was Bistro H at the Hansar Hotel which is right next to us.  For the last 3 nights when we walked past Bistro H to get to Thanon Haad, the restaurant was not full.  So, we were very surprised when we went to ask for a table, the lady said they were fully booked for the night. When we left the restaurant at about 7pm, it was half empty.

Anyway, we walked along Thanon Haad to look for another restaurant.  We stopped at The Shack and decided to have dinner there.  What attracted us to The Shack was the BBQ at the front.  Everything looked so delicious on the grill!

The decor was very rustic.

I wasn't very hungry so I ordered the spicy buffalo wings.  The wings were tiny but they sure have a kick!

G had the burger which he said was rather good.

The kids shared the chicken and ribs.  The chicken was tender but I think the ribs were a little too dry.

This is a tourist joint, not our favourite type of place but food was decent.  Customers (other than us) were all Westerners. We would have preferred something different but not much choices around here.

When we walked back to the hotel about 2 hours later, the Bistro H was still half empty. I believed they could have squeezed us in for dinner but the staff were probably not trained to turn the table around more than one a night.  A shame.

The Shack
Thanon Haad
Bophut
Koh Samui

 

Adventure #161: Oasis (Koh Samui)

There is a long road along the Bophut beach called Thanon Haad.  It is lined with bars, eateries, massage parlours and shops.  A typical tourist area.  Along that road, we found a little gem called Oasis. 

Oasis is a family-run little restaurant. I think the family lives upstairs. We wanted some local Thai food and the food here is very local, portion small but very reasonably priced. We dined here over the next 2 days.

The dinning room, simple yet functional with family photos lining the walls.

Beer served in chilled glasses! This place has got standard.

Red fanta for the kids....sugar overload!

Tom yum kung - spicy but not thick enough for me.  As expected it had more vegetables than seafood.

Lad Na - Thai rice noodle in thick sauce, portion small but tasty. The kids loved this.

Stir-fried squid - good.

Chicken with onions and ginger - lots of ginger! Great for those who likes ginger.

Thai green curry - tasty and again had more veggies than normal. Good for eating with rice.

The ever tasty Thai rice!

A great find.  Food was good and prices reasonable.  Service friendly. Only point to note - this is a mum and pop shop, so probably only mum is doing the cooking back there.  When the restaurant is full, about 6 tables, it can be a fairly long wait for the food.

Oasis
Thanon Haad
Bophut
Koh Samui