pepperoni's (soho)

The first two things on my food-search agenda are good pho and good burgers. I got lucky someday last week, I'm not sure which day it was since we went out more than half the nights, but anyways, it was at a mediocre pizza place.

A couple of my friends had been here before, probably because it's super convenient, not because it's good. It's right on the corner of Staunton and Escalator (if that's not the street's name, it should be) so its people watching is first-rate; which is good because the pizza isn't really. The first bad sign was that the pizzas came out mere minutes after the appetizers and about 20 before the burger. Ok, I worked at a pizza joint once, it should take longer to bake a pizza than to put a piece of beef between two buns. When I looked over at the pizza makers, I saw that this was happening because the crusts were pre-baked and pre-sauced! Disgusting. The crust and the sauce tasted like it too; it reminded me of the Lunchables I ate when I was 10. I guess I'd say the burger was a nice surprise after that.

We asked the server if she'd forgotten my friend's order, and she reassured us that it was on its way. Since this burger cost only $120 ($20 more than the regular burger here) we didn't expect to be the size of a volleyball. At first we challenged our friend who ordered it to eat it all, and he tried, but there was no way it was happening. So we cut it up. I was really surprised--the sesame bun wasn't too airy, and it came with all the toppings, including Thousand Island dressing! It was the closest thing to In-N-Out that I'd had in months. It tasted like a good ol' American burger.

In between bites I'd just sit back and check out the people riding the escalator. We joked about it being like a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant, where instead of fish, you get to choose which person you'd like to eat raw, mmm...

Impossible to rate this place, some things are great, some are crap, umm: 3.25.

pepperoni's soho

8 staunton st

2525 1439

tanyoto (wan chai)

As a general rule of thumb, I don't enjoy restaurants that make you cook your own food. If I were good at that, I would probably be at home now making something delicious, instead of spending money to overcook thin steak and lamb in a bowl of boiling water. That said, hot pot is fun when I'm not prohibitively lazy, but that doesn't mean I won't overcook all my food for fear of food poisoning.

We split our hot pot in half, with one spicy soup on one side and a chicken broth on the other side. The flavor of the soup and the garnish mixture were ultimately customizable, so with the right amount of adjustment, anyone should be able to find the flavors that make their tongue sing. The dishes are all good quality, in particular the hand made dumplings are excellent.

Tanyoto is a lot of fun with a few people, and it's probably a must-do thing for guests visiting from other countries. It's kind of like dim sum in that it doesn't really change with time, and it's still such a part of Hong Kong's family eating culture. Since it's the only hot pot I've had recently in HK, it's hard to give it a relative thumbs up or down, but it's pretty darn good, especially if you're as afraid of food poisoning as the average westerner.

4 of 5, for classic Chinese eating.

tanyoto

1/f-3/f tung hing building

129-135 johnston road

wan chai

2893 9268

jin luo bao korean restaurant (causeway)

I usually avoid eating in restaurants that leave the TV on at the same time as they play music, it makes me feel like I'm in China. They do that here during lunchtime, but the food is good enough to occasionally put on your mainland-hat and eat between the disagreeable speakers.

The menu is a little confusing because it doesn't straightforwardly list prices; there's a note on the top that says everything is 20% off during lunch instead of just making a lunch menu. If you can get over doing the math, or if you're so loaded that you don't think about money, then it shouldn't bother you. We tried the kimchee fried rice and the stonepot rice (because we're good at math). They bring you all the standard Korean snacks and they even mix the stonepot rice at your table before serving you.

I think most naive westerners like myself, don't really know anything about Korean food that isn't BBQ. Jin Luo Bao serves (according to a friend more Korean than me) good Korean rices and noodles in addition to its BBQ. To be honest, I usually prefer Thai flavors than Korean or Japanese, but this was really quite good. After finishing the snacks and main dishes, lunch also includes fruit, black sesame ice cream and a stick of Doublemint gum.

3.5 of 5, seats feel are ugly and old, good service though.

jin luo bao korean

6/f island beverly center

1 great george street

causeway bay

2895 3986

about 70HKD for lunch

bangkok thai restaurant (north point)

So there's actually some pretty good food east of Causeway, I apologize for not being adventurous enough to find them all. A Thai friend of mine recommended this one to me, so it must be mildly authentic. The menu was expansive, you could order a lot more than the standard Thai fare. In particular, there were different kinds of duck and chicken to choose from to go along with the staple (rice, curry and noodles).

We tried the barbecued duck (I think), a red curry, a vegetable/pork dish and fried chicken knees (wow that sounds gross). Everything was quite good, albeit very oily. The chicken knees (pictured below) tasted like fried shrimp poppers or something that KFC would sell. It certainly didn't taste like knee to me. The curry was exceptionally good, and it tasted really authentic.

The restaurant was extremely busy when we got there and they tried to shuffle us around as we finished, so that they could accommodate a big party without enough space to our side. The food, as far as I can tell, is legitimately authentic--they even have Thai people in the kitchen--it's way better than the SoHo Thai joints. It's directly across the street from the North Point MTR exit B1, so it's easy to find for those that never venture east of Causeway.

Actually they also have a Tin Hau and a Causeway location, duh....

3.75 of 5, pretty good.

bangkok thai restaurant

433 king's rd, chu kee bldg

north point

$50-$80 for most plates

www.bangkokthai.com.hk

il bel paese (wan chai)

Finally an Italian deli/grocer worth mentioning! There used to be only two sandwich places that I knew in HK, and one of them was subway. Subway is not a bad deal in the States, but here it costs the same, which means it costs more relatively than normal food.

I was ecstatic to walk into Il Bel Paese and see a glass case full of meats, cheeses and pre-made salads and pastas. There was so much to choose from, and that was just downstairs! However, when we looked at the menu I was very disappointed to see such simple sandwiches. Their menu only had about five sandwiches on it, and they were no more complicated than a single meat and a single cheese. The best Italian grocer I've ever been to (Bay Cities in Santa Monica) had about as many sandwiches to offer, but each came standard with onions, tomatoes, peppers, cheese and multiple meats--I don't think I could even name all the toppings on the Godmother. That said, I kind of had to a be a pain in the guy's ass when I ordered. He took out pen and paper and wrote down all the things I wanted, things that I thought were pretty standard like mayo, mustard, onions, etc.

They were very accommodating to my sandwich demands and even with everything it was only 40HKD. You can upgrade the meat on the sandwich, which you then would pay for by weight, same deal with the cheese. They brought the sandwiches to us upstairs and my friend added a Moretti (for only 15HKD). Upstairs there was a whole wall of wines and full shelves of olives and jams.

On top of having decent sandwiches and great selection, it's a beautiful space, with tables made on barrels and pretty decorations on the walls. What's keeping Il Bel Paese back from greatness is the lack of a signature sandwich and salad. It needs a trademark meal to offer its overstimulated customers, that would be awesome.

4 of 5

il bel paese

25 queen's rd wan chai

www.ilbelpaese.com.hk

the flying pan (soho)

This is as New York as HK gets; a diner serving breakfast, burgers and shakes 24 hours a day, the kind of place that is best during waning drunkeness or recovering mornings. It doesn't make sense to go to a place like this under any other circumstances. However, in NY there'd be so many places like this that each one would have to specialize in some character-defining drink or plate. But since it's the only diner in town, it sadly can afford serving mediocre food and and LKF-priced drinks. Even with its so-so food and 75HKD eggs, it still has more character than any LKF bar. If you catch it when it's popping it's more fun than any LKF bar too.

Like I said, the food is fine. It's not as spectacular as a real diner, and it's not nearly greasy enough. The eggs are completely customizable and the steak is pretty cheap beef, which sounds about right to me. The juice glasses for some reason are twice the size of a shot glass, but at least they serve regular ice water as well. The burger is pretty cheap here, and is not too shabby for HK--it's actually better than some that I've had in SoHo.

I miss brunch and late-night breakfasts in the US because it's the best way to recap an evening or recover from a hangover with new friends. During peak times it's fun to listen to drunken neighbors and to imagine stories about the people sitting just out of earshot.

The Flying Pan doesn't drive traffic like Tsui Wah, but it's the same kind of crowd, only they're primarily English speaking. Tsui Wah is great too on late nights, of course it's definitely more Hong Kong, but at 3am eggs and toast sound so much better than yellow chicken curry and pork chops. But that's just me.

4.5 of 5, the decor is right on, the food is almost.

the flying pan

g/f 9 old bailey street

central

2140 6333

hui lau shan (causeway bay)

For all intents and purposes this is a mango shop. Although their English subtitle is "Healthy Desserts," they don't specialize in anything other than the beautiful yellow fruit (and yes, I know mangoes can be quite healthy). For 30HKD you can get mango served in pretty much any appealing way imaginable. Countless kinds of drinks and bowls with red bean, sago pearls, ice cream and pudding. The drinks always feel cheap to me so I recommend one of the mango bowls. My favorite is the dish with glutinous rice balls, ice cream and extra mangoes. They all taste pretty much the same though.

I've also been satisfied with my limited exposure to the snacks here. They serve rice balls with mango inside, like the kind that you can buy at a bakery and they're covered in coconut and have fresh mango inside. It's a strange combination at first, but it's also not shabby. Everything is very decent here--there's little variation in the dessert quality.

One of the things that I didn't really like about Hui Lan Shan was that it doesn't have a wall facing the street. So when it's cold, like it is now, and you're sitting inside, you feel like you're sitting on the street. It's also typically overcrowded and the stools feel like they were stolen from a pre-school. This is HK for you though I guess. They've also got takeaway, in the case you'd rather eat in an alley or somewhere warmer.

3 out of 5, food is better, but environment is sometimes annoying

hui lau shan desserts

24 percival street

po han bldg

causeway bay

sino recipe/buffalo milk desserts (causeway)

For better or worse, I constantly fall victim to the desire to try anything that has a long line and a small menu. This usually means that the restaurant is specialized, and good enough at one or two things to sell only those things. The best examples are In-N-Out Burger, Pinkberry and Starbucks. The specialty here is dessert made from buffalo milk, and since I didn't think buffaloes made milk, I had to find out if it tasted good.

It was one of those cold and rainy nights last week when we'd just finished eating a spicy dinner when we came across this spot. There was a line, and there was a simple menu. The first time I ate here, we only had the dessert, because it was so good we came back and tried a full meal. The tender beef brisket noodle was alright, I think that there was a ton of beef stock in the soup because it seemed to coat my tongue and teeth. That said, I've never really liked Chinese noodle soup as much as Vietnamese or Thai ones. We also tried some fried shrimp cakes and a bowl of cow stomach. The shrimp cakes were kind of gross, and they tasted like deep-fried mashed potatoes. The cow stomach wasn't that tasty either, it just tasted like the soy sauce/sesame oil that it was soaking in.

The food was really nothing special here, it's really worth coming here for only the double snowy cream dessert made with buffalo milk. It's a very simple, thick milk cream dessert that comes cold or warm and is awesome. You can get it with fruit toppings as well, which it goes well with since it's not overwhelmingly sweet. Hmm, kind of like Pinkberry.

3 out of 5, even though dessert and setting are excellent, meal food is mediocre.

excelsior plaza, yee on bldg

23 east point rd

causeway bay

next to itamae sushi

pho hoa (causeway, other int'l cities)

Chains blow.

On Tang Lung Road my rule of thumb (the one that says that dumpier places are always cheaper and have better food, albeit poorer presentation) is getting badly beaten around. Pho Hoa may be smaller and uglier than Pho Vietnamese down the street, but that doesn't make its food better. For slightly more honkies you get a smaller bowl of pho, you don't get size choices like L or X, and the soup IS NOT BETTER! I'm surprised and disappointed at the same time; still no stellar pho has been found!

In addition to equally mediocre soup, with less meat and less volume, the service was a little bit spotty. I came in around 2:30 to miss the lunch crowd and stood around the door trying to get someone's attention in a half-empty, very quiet room. After a minute of motioning to the empty table by the door, someone confirmed that, yes, it was ok for me to sit there. In the states this wouldn't bother me, it would probably be normal, but here I'm used to everything happening fast. It was also difficult enough ordering a glass of water that I ended up asking the other server.

Finally, no tissues provided here. Pho is something that makes me sweat, and your competition a few doors down knows this. That's why they give me tissues, and that's why you should too. I take some of the blame for this I guess; no matter how long I've lived here, I've never gotten used to the idea of packing my own napkins when I go out to eat. In the big picture it's not really that bad here, it's just really not that good.

2.5 out of 5 overall, satisfactory

pho hoa

g/f circle tower

28 tang lung street

causeway bay

$32 and up for a bowl

captain's bar (central, mand-o)

I know that I'm supposed to be writing about restaurants, but this bar serves food... I think. I'm pretty sure that this is the only bar in town in which you can smoke like French people in Malibu houses. You would get less second-hand smoke sucking exhaust from a double-decker bus. That said, it's an interesting and probably overpriced beer joint. They only have Carlsberg and Guinness on tap, which is pretty pitiful, but they have fantastic peanuts and chips. Captain's Bar, by far has the best snacks around; wasabi peanuts, salted peanuts and blue chips. They also serve tap beers in sweet silver mugs, which are way bigger than pints, and way prettier. Awesome.

Last weekend I tried to start smoking casually again. I've tried a few times but I'm not very good at it. Cigarettes are one thing, I can handle being around those puffs alright, but at Captain's, every third person is sucking down a stogie. It really felt like the first times I tried smoking up in school, when we'd roll the windows up and turn off the fan so that the car would become a parked cloud playing "Could You Be Loved" on repeat. Yeah, it was kind of like that.

2 of 5 stars for an after banker joint, top marks for cancer-inducing scenes.

Cheesy photo from the Mand-o website:

captain's bar

5 connaught rd

mandarin oriental

2522 0111

wing wah (wan chai)

For living in the dim sum capital of the world, we don't eat it nearly enough. I think it's because my friends and I are usually too tired and too lazy to get out before 1 on the weekends. On top of that it's also just not a good meal for less than three, which makes planning it a deal breaker for us foreigners.

Wing Wah is an old, and very traditional yum cha franchise. It's not fancy or nice looking, our table cloth didn't look clean, but it's cheap and it's full of real Hong Kong people. Old guys and families, and grandparents. That's part of the beauty of it here; a restaurant like this doesn't ever feel the need to change. Its people and its food retain a younger Hong Kong. It's not a time capsule, it's just that Hong Kong really hasn't changed.

There is definitely better dim sum to be found, but Wing Wah is definitely good enough for my tastes. Because reading Chinese is something I was born bad at, I can only go here with literate Chinese friends. One of my life's biggest challenges though has always been understanding the translated definitions of Chinese foods. Most illiterates like myself, I'm sure, only recognize the names of dishes by their sound. So when I read "pork barbecue cake," I have absolutely no idea what that might be. So look at the pictures.

3.5 of 5, food deserves better, but dirty table cloths aren't cool just because they're in time machines.

wing wah

89 hennessy road

wan chai

2527 7476

$50-$80 per person

pho (tang lung street, causeway bay)

I'm always looking for a decent bowl, and for being so near to Vietnam I'm always disappointed with the quality in HK. Nha Trang, near the bottom of the escalator in central is probably the first example that comes to mind of a terrible pho place. Unlike that disgrace, Pho on Tang Lung delivers size and quantity.

I tried the rare beef and brisket, super-sized for $6 (you can go ultra-large for an additional $13, someone please do this and tell me about it). The soup didn't blow my mind; it seemed to retain some Cantonese/won ton soup flavor actually, but the bowl is very full and they give you the most noodles I've ever seen in a bowl of pho. I was so excited by how cheap the menu was that, even though I was ordering for just myself, I had to get the spring rolls. I thought that spring rolls usually came in clear wrapping, but these were the deep-fried kind that you wrap in lettuce. Still good though, they were very hot and tasted especially fresh for fried foods.

It's immensely satisfying, and is generally a very decent looking place.
I didn't have to wait when I went in since it was about 2:30, but it's super busy during lunch and after 6. They're even understanding if you forget to take your wallet out of your other pants and bring it with you. For the time being, "Pho" gets the award for the most passable bowl I know in HK. The soup is the only thing that holds the place back. So the search goes on....

3.5 stars of 5

pho vietnamese restaurant

g/f circle tower

28 tang lung street

causeway bay

about $30/bowl


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