This Fortnight in Eating (30 Jun - 13 Jul)

When I first started this blog, I envisioned a place where I document my eating adventures with pictures and as few words as possible, aka "let pictures do the talking". This explains the tagline "an eating log". But rambling on and on is my second nature. I find it hard to not talk when there's so much to talk about! Each long-winded post leaves me with little time for others. And I have accumulated a long list of less memorable / less writable places.

Say hello to This Fortnight in Eating! A new feature to this ever-changing blog. It's a compilation of snapshots from my restaurant / bar visit, happening every two weeks.


Mori Sushi 森壽司

Hokkaido Kaisendon 北海道魚生飯 ($98) - possibly the best thing that can happen during lunch break. The sashimi tastes fresh and there is more of it than rice. It's true there is only a small bowlful of rice (you can ask for more but it isn't going to make a difference) but the oily fish and sticky rice (along with the zensai appetiser, miso soup and ice-cream mochi) will fill you up pretty nicely. I have been for more than five times and I still want to go back. Be warned though: service isn't the best and you're advised to book two days ahead.

Sanche Modern Korean

Bossam ($138) - this is my favourite among the three dishes we ordered that day. I love Korean food and I love how Sanche does it with a twist. And it's impressive they do it all in the tiny corner in the restaurant they call kitchen.

Sevva

This reminds me of something I have read in a rooftopping article - "the coolest views are often from lower buildings nestled in between the tall ones."

Forgot what I have ordered... but it's the first time I have eaten a passionfruit.

Posto Pubblico

Linguine Vongole ($145 set lunch) - my first time having linguine alle vongole in red sauce (rosso). Loved the sauce, the big clams and the generous portion.

Frey & Ford

A few years ago there was a budding artisan sandwich craze. There were shops selling mini hot dogs and sandwiches. Memorably, a tiny shop in Wan Chai, 'wich, shut their doors before I could pay a visit. Frey & Ford is the only shop that is still around. Mind you, it isn't a sandwich shop, it's a "sandwich boutique". They sell "petite sandwich creations" which are actually "a work of gastronomic art that pleases both the tastebuds and the eye". Yes, I'm stealing sentences directly off their website.

Set A ($58) - this included three petite sandwiches and soup/salad. I got the French Onion Soup, Salmon Sandwich Cake, Bruschetta of Tomato Salsa and Parmesan and Peking Chicken Pocket Rockets. There was a generous amount of onion in the soup, which made me happy. But the sandwiches failed me. Like jewellery in jewellery shop, the "work of gastronomic art" sat under the glass patiently waiting for your purchase. But unlike jewellery, bread would go stale and dry. And that's why these sandwiches were. It's a shame though, as I really like the concept of artisan sandwiches.

BO-LO'GNE

Deep Fried Pork Cutlet Sandwich ($?) - this place used to be pretty famous for their Danish bread. In recent years, with more bakeries selling Danish bread and "trendier" bread, BO-LO'GNE seems to have gone off the radar. Their bread was still good, but this sandwich was disappointing. The pork cutlet was too thin and dry, the breading was detaching...

BEP Vietnamese Kitchen

Pho Tai ($68) - BEP is Nha Trang group's latest concept, or you can refer it as it the hipster sister of Nha Trang. It's more expensive but in my opinion, it tastes better. The broth of my Pho Tai was distinctively clearer and more flavourful than that at Nha Trang... but MSG level was the same. Can I get some more water please?

Taco Chaca

Nachos (?) - it doesn't look like it would taste good does it? I may be biased because I had just had some world-class nachos over at Dicken Bar a few weeks before.

Baja Fish Taco ($58) - was there even fish? All I could taste was flour tortilla (weird because it said "corn" on my recipe) and guac and lemon juice.

Ping Pong 129

Who would have known under this unassuming door...

... it would be a gintonería? I know nothing about gin, but the long stairway and high ceiling and industrial hippiness of this place speak for itself.

La Terrazza bar & grill

La Terrazza is positively reviewed by the online community. So when we headed to Shatin one Sunday to run some errands (I hadn't been there for almost five years!), we decided we would go there for lunch. But disappointedly, bread was the best part of the meal...

The mussels were surprisingly not bad, but the spaghetti was soggy! I thought with the concept of "al dente" being more and more common, soggy pasta would only exist in cha chaan tengs nowadays. Apparently I was wrong.

La Terrazza operates under the Maxim's group. Its menu reminded me a lot of another Maxim's operation, Simplylife Bakery Cafe - salad, pasta, chicken burger, beef burger, roast chicken, steak... but Simplylife does it so well while La Terrazza does it so bad, it would surprise me they have the same parent if I hadn't known already. Simplylife's Beef Burger is my go-to choice when I'm feeling extremely hungry and want to play safe. This burger? It was awful. The bun was exactly the same as the oatmeal rolls I used to buy from the supermarket for school lunch. The burger patty was... wait, was it even a burger patty? Not meat-flavoured plastic? It was dry and dense from over-handling and over-compression.

Fairyland - Hong Kong

Date of visit: Thursday, 12 June 2014

Never was I sucked into the Kraze, a term for the Korean craze coined by yours truly. But who can resist succulent crispy fried chicken washed down with ice cold beer? Apparently Fairyland serves the best Korean fried chicken in town. So for our celebration meal* we ventured to Austin Avenue, the new Korean Street, to have some KFC and drink beer before sunset.

* 99% celebrating for Simmy's job and 1% celebrating for the completion of half of my exams. Mid-exam festival, if you will.



There's always a sea of people waiting outside Fairyland or any other KFC establishment**. A 3-hour waiting time is not unheard of. We arrived a little earlier than 4pm on a weekday so there were only two tables of guests. If you ask me whether Fairyland is worth queueing for, I'd say in a booming economy it's hard to find a decent place with no line around meal times. But to me, waiting more than an hour for a table is plain ridiculous. I enjoyed my meal at Fairyland and have plans to return, but I wouldn't be caught dead spending two hours of my life lingering outside a restaurant waiting to be seated.

** In case you haven't got that already, KFC means Korean Fried Chicken because who would want to eat the KFC fast food that we all know. Level with me, what is it with KFC in Hong Kong nowadays? I wouldn't eat it even if it's free.

Vegetable Salad ($120) - definitely needed some greens to "de-fire" and thankfully this salad came in a huge salad bowl. The vegetables were fresh but they could have spinned the leaves a bit as the salad was too watery making the dressing tasteless. The heaps of blue cheese sort of saved it though.

Original Fried Chicken / Hot Spicy Chicken ($185?) - chose the boneless version because there was no way I could deal with bones. Not the most succulent chicken I had but it was still good. Btw what's the point of the side potato chips?

Rating: 3.5/5

Food: I have a pretty "interesting" scale of ranking unhealthy food - is it worth an acne attack? Beef jerky? No. Kettle Chips? Clearly yes. You get the idea. On this peculiarly silly ranking system, Fairyland fried chicken is a "yes". The chicken itself wasn't particularly juicy, but it tasted so good and there was no need to worry about bones. I was happy the chicken-y taste that so often presents in fried chicken was missing. The Original Fried Chicken was well seasoned while the Hot Spicy Chicken was coated with an addictive tangy spicy sauce. Personally I prefer the Original but I think half Original/half flavoured chicken is the order to go for if you don't want your palate to go too dry. As if the heavy sauce was going to soothe the sore throat building at the back of your mouth... Honestly even the Vegetable Salad couldn't do its job. Despite the dangerous consequence, I (recklessly) would love to go back to try their Grill Fried Chicken! Still not queueing for an hour+ though.

Environment: Bright and white like a canteen. It was also like a canteen in the sense that it felt a bit unclean. K-pop was blasting out loud in the shop and I swear Simmy knew 80% of the songs. And I swear I was the only non-K-fan there. Outcast.

Service: The waitress serving us was an ajuma(?) who spoke a bit of Cantonese and English. Friendly and all smiles. Even asked Simmy if she was OK when she appeared slightly tipsy from the beer...

Price: The bill came to $4XX for the chicken, the salad and two pints of draught beer. It may seem too expensive for what it is (it's essentially fast food), but I feel like a satisfied spoilt kid with every meaty boneless bite. KFC Hot Shot Bites, popcorn chicken which is more fried batter than fried chicken, is $8.5 for a box but I bet $10 there's less than 10g of meat in there. Sometimes you pay $300 for a nice fancy plate of pasta but you still feel hungry walking out of the restaurant. At Fairyland, I had a good time and left giggly from beer. What more could I ask for?


Fairyland
G/F, Hong Kong Offshore Center
28 Austin Ave
Tsim Sha Tsui
Hong Kong

Facebook


Thanks again Simmy for the meal! I wish you the best on your first job and all your future endeavours! X

School Food - Hong Kong

Blogging from a sofa in Oak Mansion! That sofa with lots of dog fur. Good to be back! Just kidding, I miss Toronto.

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
Facebook



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.

----------
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!

Sunrise House Restaurant - Toronto

Date of visit: Wednesday, 30 October 2013



It's crazy considering how close the campus is to Koreatown and I have never visited. So when my friend suggested we head to K-Town for lunch, I couldn't say no! I'd picked Sunrise House Restaurant after discovering it (and drooling over geotagged photos) on Instagram. It turned out one of the Korean friends in our group had been there before. She said it was good, so good it must be?



Each item on the menu ranges from $6 - $9 (apart from a few pricier options) and there are LOTS to choose from. It took us more than a while to decide what to order.



Bright green walls! Woke me up after a morning of boring lectures.



Banchan (side dishes), my favourites are miyeok muchim (seaweed) and japchae (sweet potato noodles). I asked for a refill... and contemplated to ask again...



I had the Bulgogi Bibimbap. There was so much rice and veggies I could barely finish. It was really tasty as well, with the red pepper paste. I enjoyed every mouthful of this spicy veggie rice goodness.



We also ordered a Kimchi Seafood Pancake to share. So much seafood and vegs hiding under the crispy batter. I thought it tasted quite different from the kimchi pancakes I'm used to, but it was still good.



Table full of yum yum~ My friends found their meals very enjoyable too, even if the kam ja tang (pork bone stew with a mountain of bean sprouts) was a bit bland.



Free candies!


Rating: 4/5

Food: Unfortunately my mum doesn't cook, or I can use the phrase cooking that 'tastes just like mum's' because supposedly that means really good comfort food? Bonus points for being a no-MSG restaurant!

Environment: Cosy home-style restaurant with only 5 - 6 tables. It's so tiny that I was amazed by how fast the kitchen could churn out our dishes.

Service: It's a small restaurant so there was only one waitress. She was friendly and reminded us that we could always ask if we wanted more side dishes!

Price: Came in a little bit more than $9 pp. I definitely was willing to pay more for what we had!


Sunrise House Restaurant
661 Bloor Street West
Toronto, ON
M6G 1L1
Canada

Facebook