Bittenbug’s Weblog

Kosyu reminds me of a family-run restaurant, just without the warm service. We went on a friday evening and at 7pm the restaurant was still relatively empty. We paged through the short menu and quickly decided.

Overall, it was a nice meal. C rated it an 8. For comparison, she gave Sushi Hiro and Tonkichi 9 each. I thought the service was a little aloof, even cold, and so it took away from the experience. It wasn’t cheap at HK$450 for two, given that we didn’t eat sushi or sashimi, but probably deserving for the quality of food.

Tuna sashimi w/rice

C was disappointed that they didn’t have minced toro that night because we came specially for that. She settled for second best. For HK$180, the portion was fairly large. The tuna was gorgeously pink and thankfully had none of those veins.

It’s worth mentioning that the rice is absolutely great. It was just the right amount of stickiness. C and I were trying to think which other restaurant had better rice, and we agreed that Tatsu might just have a slight leg up.

Udon

This is supposed to be some special kind of udon. It was very good, nice and chewy and chockful of ingredients (mushrooms/fishcake) but at the end of it, I’m not sure it’s worth paying HK$90 for this. It just didn’t seem special enough.

Katsu with egg

“You won’t like this, it’s too salty for you,” says C. She got the second part right, but I actually liked it despite the saltiness. It was a very generous piece of katsu, you can see it made up almost all of the hotplate. We liked how it was just the right tenderness and that it remained crispy despiet being drenched in sauce. We also gave it thumbs up for having the runny egg on top.

On Sat M and ZY were visiting from Singapore, and we wanted to bring them somewhere authenticaly Hong Kong, and so decided on 再興燒臘飯店 in Wanchai.

Platter

For the four of us, we ordered a platter of cha siu, roast goose and roasted pork, 4 bowls of rice and a plate of vegetables. Wow, we were quite blown away. I honestly can’t say which I liked best because everything was good, but I’ll give the nod to the roast goose. Between us, we finished off the entire plate.

In all honesty, it doesn’t have the quality or sophistication of a place like Yung Kee, but for this price – HK$196 for 4 – it is affordable.

The environment’s a little noisy and packed, your average cha chan tang, but it’s bearable for good food.

We went to Toppings, a burger/hot dog joint around the corner, intending on take out. C wasn’t in the mood for a burger so we ordered a smoked veal sausage set to share. We ended up just eating there instead.

My half

Nope, we didn’t have two sausages. The owner at the grill was very considerate and cut our sausage into two so we could individually have condiments we wanted. I liked the bread most, toasted for just the right time with a light char and crisp. The sausage, however, was disappointing. I couldn’t tell it was smoked veal, it tasted like regular pork chipolata.

C’s half

The toppings is what differentiates them, I think. You can freely pick from about 12 kinds of condiments. I had the eclectic mix of pickles, sauerkraut, onions, bacon bits, cheese and cabbage. C stuck to mushrooms and cheese, and mustard. Actually, I think she’s smarter. My mix of too many things could’ve overpowered the sausage.

We also ordered a side of onion rings for an additional HK$6. I was hoping for a larger portion but I’m not surprised that there were only 6 rings. The onion rings weren’t greasy but it wasn’t spectacular. I wish the batter had some herbs or spice, it needed some heat.

To be honest, I come to 康記粥店 for only one thing…

The king: 炸両

I love the 炸両 (fried dough fritters wrapped in rice rolls) here. This is a family run business and the family patriarch makes the rice rolls the traditional way. The rice rolls are extremely thin and are wrapped around freshly fried fritters, which makes for a nice crunch. They taste best when dipped into their sweet soy sauce.The best part: you only pay HK$6 for a sizable plate.

The congee is ok. I find it a little too watery and I suspect there’s quite a bit of MSG in there as well. I drank 2 cups of water after I got back. The fried noodles were too oily, but that’s probably consistent with fried noodles around the entire city.

康記 is a little rundown but I like the neighborhood atmosphere here when having Sunday breakfast.

We had dinner at Sergeant Chicken Rice at the Taikoo Shing foodcourt after watching Sex & the City. To be honest, for all the greatness that is the Cityplaza mall, their food options suck.

Chicken rice set

The chicken rice here is, in my opinion, the best in Hong Kong. But in the bigger scheme of things it’s the average hawker center chicken rice. There are many places here that profess to sell chicken rice, but none do it “right”. Not the HK versions, let alone the HK slash Thai style Hainanese chicken rice (that’s a mouthful). The faux versions sold at some Singapore restaurants are below average. So here, Sergeant is the big kahuna.

The chicken isn’t too fatty and still succulent. I could’ve done with a little more skin. Actually, more than the chicken, I love that they provide unlimited sweet black soy sauce which just makes chicken rice come alive. In fact, it can mask flaws such as a watery ginger sauce. What it cannot do is make the rice very much better. It clearly lacked the richness and greasiness. I mean, if I want my artery clogged from time to time, I’ll like to have the whole nine yards. At HK$50 for the chicken rice set with vegetables (nothing to write home about), it is expensive.

For dessert we shared a bowl of cheng teng. OK, this was disappointing, because I make better cheng teng at home. It was watery and the longans were limp and tasteless. It obviously has been boiled too long. It’s unfair I know to make those comparisons to desserts from home, but the disappointment is unmistakable. Where can I get my fix of tau suan, ice kachang, ice jelly…ok, I must stop before I become depressed.

On a separate point, HK really doesn’t have a food court culture. When we walked out we saw a line outside pizza hut waiting to get in. Hmm, why not consider the food court where you can be seated and eating in 10 minutes, instead of seriously bad fast food after 45 minutes. But I digress, every city’s different.

One evening after work I walked to IFC mall to pick up a surprise for C. She talked about macarons a few days ago and the last copy of Time Out recommended those from Le Gouter Bernardaud.

I picked up an assorted box of eight for HK$110. That cost a pretty penny for sugar sandwiches, but they’re nice for an occasional treat. And they looked gorgeous in the box, C couldn’t help drawing parallels to Tiffany boxes. Hmm, perhaps that’s a hint.

Our favorite was rose, hands down. I wasn’t expecting to like it, but one bite and I was sold. I loved the fragrance and the subtlety of the rose cream. It wasn’t overpowering even with the rose flavored shell. I’m still savoring it in my head, a full day after popping it into my mouth. That’s saying a lot from someone who can’t stand flower flavors at all.

So if I’m this enthusiastic, you can imagine C’s face. She literally glowed. She liked the lemony and grapefruit flavors as well because the sour taste helped take away the cloying sweetness of other flavors. We thought we would keep the chocolate for the last but surprisingly it was the most disappointing. I thought the flavor was one-dimensional: chocolate shell and chocolate ganache, just too much. The coco-chocolate we had just before that was nicer, with grated bits of coconut to add texture. But still too sweet, I thought.

I made a booboo and didn’t actually go to the bigger outlet on the second floor, so I didn’t actually get to choose my flavors. They actually have 12 to choose from, so we missed out on olive, earl grey and salted caramel.

Their other pastries looked great too, I wonder how it compares to the pastries I’ve had at L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon’s cafe. Next time, I’ll be back.

Last sunday C and I were walking around CWB trying to find a place for tea. I vetoed a couple of her suggestions (I’m quite adamant about not eating HK interpretation of western food).

As we walked towards Time Square, we remembered Brunch Club & Supper, where we had tea a few months ago. It’s a comfortable little tea nook along one of the smaller streets and we grabbed a table by the window with sofa seats. That was god-sent after walking around CWB to no avail.

Brunch Club’s tea set

This massive plate is also known as their tea set. When I first looked at the menu I couldn’t decide if I had to choose one option or if I had all. The price didn’t help, at HK$68 including a drink, it could go both ways. I gave it a stab and asked for the tea set, and the server asked if I wanted scrambled or eggs benedict.

Ah ha, I would get all. It was a nice, well balanced plate: fruit, pastry, savory eggs, sweets. I liked the eggs benedict, perhaps even better than the full plate we had here before, and much better than Tea & Herb’s. The hollandaise sauce over English muffin filled me up but it wasn’t too greasy on the palate. The fruit cup helped balance that a bit. I finished everything except for the chocolate muffin, I really couldn’t eat another bite.

I find this a great place to while away the afternoon, as its name suggests. The surroundings are comfortable and welcoming, the walls are lined with magazines and I didn’t really feel pressure from the waiters to leave.

Tonight C and I decided not to cook and just have dinner outside. We debated between Thai and Chinese and went with 發記飯店 around the corner. We come quite often because the food’s always reliable and reasonably priced.

肉碎蠔仔粥 (oyster and minced pork congee)

It may only be a bowl, but it’s definitely enough for two. This is our first time having oyster congee because I usually avoid oysters but I had promised C that the next time we come we would have them. The congee was good, as it always is here. The oysters were plump and tasted fresh, and the bowl was full of minced pork, mushroom shreds, fried fish and ginger. It’s definitely well worth the HK$27. But that said, I still like 方魚肉碎粥 (minced pork and fish congee) more. It’s hard to say no to fried fish.

卤水鹅肉 (braised goose pieces)

Next up was 卤水鹅肉. We must have been very hungry because we polished everything off. We’ve been here with friends before and normally order the braised goose slices (which don’t have bones). The slices are HK$20 more, and I remember the portions being quite small.

It was nice and meaty, perhaps a little tough but that’s characteristic of goose. I like my meat slightly fatty and this was just right. I initially thought it was a little too salty, but C said it’s just 入味, I digress. It’s much better when dipped into the vinegar, because it balances out the two flavors.

咸鱼小白菜 (salted fish with vegetables)

The vegetables were good with enough “wok hei”, though nothing spectacular. Honestly, that’s good enough for me, how great can you cook normal greens really. Though on the flip side, you can screw them up pretty easily: overcooking, overseasoning, underseasoning…you catch my drift.

I understand perfectly because I screw up vegetables most of the time:)

C and I met two of our friends for a belated birthday dinner last night at Pizza Express. She had meant it as a surprise, but *cough cough* I guessed she had something up her sleeve.

It was mostly full on a Saturday evening at 830pm, which I would expect for such a popular place at a convenient location. It has a really comfortable laid back vibe, especially on the second floor. But just be warned that they lack staff, so don’t expect warm and efficient service. They took far too long to sit us, get the menus, or add water without asking twice.

We ordered baked mushroms, garlic bread, lasagne pasticciate and an arugula and prosciutto neapolitan. The baked mushrooms seems popular, every other table seems to have them. I was slightly disappointed with the portions. They came with on a big plate, but there were just 6 mushrooms. The description said comes with a “side of dough boys”, which is just plain misleading when half of the plate were those bread balls. The mushrooms stuffed in cheese were nice enough, but I thought the variety of cheese didn’t meld so well together.

The garlic bread I thought was disappointing. There was no garlic flavor! The lasagne came and portions were smaller than expected. Each of us had about two spoonfuls and it was gone. The lasagne was slightly creamier than I would’ve liked. C summed it up, “It’s probably not bad but I’ve been spoiled by Gaia.” My sentiments exactly.

But the pizza was the star and it was great. I’m not a pizza expert, but I like my pies thin and crispy, not soggy and fresh ingredients. Our arugula and prosciutto fit just that. It’s a very classic flavor combination and came across very well. I loved the wilted arugula (but then I like arugula in any way, shape or form).

We were still hungry at that point, and decided to get another pie, the trifolata neapolitan, which is essentially several types of mushrooms. It came in about 15 minutes and looked gorgeous. The pie is substantially richer with a tomato base and globs of melted cheese and mushroom slices.

One bite and we were sold. No wonder it’s the fan favorite on openrice. This felt decadent, biting into simultaneous flavors and textures: sweet, tangy, savory, earthy and chewy. I couldn’t really taste the truffle oil, but there was an earthy aftertaste which could’ve been either that or one of the mushrooms. But even after about two slices, it didn’t feel greasy. It really is a cut above pizza hut, and I reckon even California Pizza.

With a bottle of sparkling water, the entire bill came up to slightly under HK$600 for four. It’s not expensive for the food and location. I might not come here if I wanted really authentic pizza, but if I want a place to chill out before clubbing on Saturday, PE might fit the bill.