During my eight-week blogging hiatus, I've managed to study a bit, read a few books and finish all the newly released Candy Crush levels (even the Dreamworld episodes...). This means breaking of the promise of posts on NYC and DC. I'm gonna write about London one day. One day. I'm not very good with promises.
Date of visit: Sunday, 29 December 2013
Dreamy taste in my mouth?
I've never liked the term "出pool飯". But who am I to let an opportunity for a free meal slip by? We've been talking about this meal/gathering since 2012. Now, our friend Yvonne had to repay with interest accrued. Our agreed deal with three meals - breakfast, lunch, dinner, we could still get it done within a day.
This meal was also a gathering/farewell meal, as me and Konny were back in town and two other friends were going away. After a long discussion on where should we go ("no MK please", "are you kidding me, TST? Suitcase hell!"), Gig cleverly suggested School Food. I saw School Food in Myeongdong on my Korea trip last summer and it's been on my to-eat list ever since. Waiting time was about 30 - 45 minutes on a Sunday at 2 p.m. Pretty bad, but not too bad.
It was very difficult taking photos (let alone good photos) of your dishes when you were a party of 8. It was even more difficult when people in your group couldn't wait 20 seconds before digging in. You know who you are.
School Naengmyeon
Chicken Gangjeong Green Onion Salad. I prefer Chicken Nuggets...
Squid Ink Mari with a very biologically shaped mayo. From reviews, this is apparently a signature dish that is supposed to taste amazing. But no, this tasted rather seafood-y and not fresh squid-y!
Blooming Mari... This is on School Food's logo (or is it its slogan?) so it should taste good too? No! The beef was rough and tasteless and the rolls were just blah.
Street Topokki. When they said spicy, they meant SPICY. I have an OK-tolerance for spicy food in the sense that I can put a full spoonful of HK-style chili oil in my noodles and still not break a sweat. I don't know if my tolerance has dropped after not having spicy food for a few months, but man this was horrible. After your first bite you'd be like "this is not..." and before you could finish your sentence, the heat hit your tongue, then your throat, then you couldn't speak (ok, exaggeration). My friends couldn't take the heat so I finished it all... IT GAVE ME PHARYNGITIS (or so I believe), WHICH LED TO A FEVER, WHICH LED TO ME BEING BEDRIDDEN ON NEW YEARS' EVE AND MISSED THE COUNTDOWN OF 2014. I HATE YOU, STREET TOPOKKI.
Carbonara Topokki. This was OK but I'd go with Spaghetti Carbonara any day. And look, a proof - SOMEONE AT THE BACK clearly couldn't wait 20 seconds, look at her plate/chopsticks!
Deep Fried Shrimp Mari. I'm gonna pick Genki Sushi's Japanese Fried Shrimp Roll over this. As for the ugliness of this photo, the same people couldn't wait. Annoying.
Rating: 1/5
Food: Definitely more hype than quality. No dish was especially outstanding. Since our friend was paying we didn't want to order too much. It was not enough food for the eight of us, but I was glad we ordered so little. No point in eating plenty of bland food... It seems that School Food is very proud of their "made-to-order" principle, but did I notice any difference? Nope.
Environment: There is no door, the entrance is just a missing wall. As I ate, I felt that I was under the scrutiny of Times Square patrons. To make things worse there were lots of people waiting outside. Each table is really close to the next, but it was still comfortable.
Service: Not at all understaffed because there would always be someone that you could spot. But asking them to come over is another story. Our meal time was limited to 1.5 hours but it was reasonable I guess for it was a popular restaurant.
Price: Surely I was expecting more than 8 pieces of rice cakes when I was paying $70 for a topokki? Frankly, I wouldn't mind paying more if the food was good... Just that our meal wasn't worth what we paid for.
School Food
Shop 1302, 13/F
Times Square
1 Matheson Street
Causeway Bay
Hong Kong
Website
School Food sucked so we headed to Citysuper for our ice-cream fix. I LOVE the soft serve/scoop ice-cream from there! It's been a soul-soothing dessert since high school. Citysuper's undergone a renovation earlier this year. I was happy to see its re-opening when I came back and Kasho Chaya is now Sweets House Cha Cha, with a more extensive menu! I had my usual matcha/milk twist ice-cream with smoothie. The smoothie was good, but next time I'd just have my ice-cream on a cone.
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Thank you once again, Yvonne! Still feel bad for having you paid for us. But I doubt you'll have to wait long for my 出家飯! Here I wish you a happy love life with Alan!
* Notice the improved quality of the photos? All taken with my new iPhone 5S, a Christmas present from my father. Merry belated Christmas y'all!
