泰記, Happy Valley, Hong Kong

There was nothing much in my fridge one morning so I went to the local cooked food centre for breakfast. 'Tai Kay' as it is phonetically pronounced is one of the restaurants on the top floor of a wet market building that is common in (and probably unique to) Hong Kong.

After a slight guess at the Chinese characters of the menu, I went for the "Set B" breakfast, which is the local Hong Kong cafe style meal.

I received a bowl of rice vermicelli first, with two half slices of luncheon meat placed on top. The soup base was not packed with flavour but it was an adequate enough dish.

The set meal also came with a Western style cooked egg, for which I chose an omelette that was cooked well with still some runniness in the egg.

First part of my order

The third part of the meal was a thick slice of toast with butter, shown below, which is available for a $5 supplement. As this was the last part of the meal I was rather full after finishing this large piece of toasted bread. 

Thick slice toast

Service is aggressively friendly at first to get your business as there are about three establishments sharing the food court area. Once food was ordered it arrived fairly promptly.

This place is hygienic enough but it will not be to everyone's liking in terms of cleanliness. Toilet roll is used as serviettes here. Plates are basic plastic ware. But it is cheap and cheerful and must suits the local residents' needs as it was doing some decent trade on a Saturday morning.

Scores:

Food: 3/5

Presentation: 3/5

Service: 3/5

Setting: 2/5

Overall: 11/20

Total Bill: $29, about £2.50.

I ate: All of the above.

I drank: Chinese style milk tea, which  I am not a great fan of, due to the use of evaporated milk.

I wore: Black tracksuit top.

Kings Dumpling, Wanchai, Hong Kong

I am here at Wanchai, with my wife, for a Saturday lunch at Kings Dumpling. We did not eat just dumplings but other items as well, noted below.

We browsed through the menu and ticked off items on the order sheet.

Table Setting

The first item to arrive were the dumplings, the Siu Lung Bao, which were really good. They had 'hairy crab' roe (which is a local, seasonal dish) in them, giving them an extra nice flavour.

Siu Long Bao

The 'Dan Dan Mein' pictured below was good bowl of noodles in a not too spicy sauce (although there were two chilli icons next to the menu) with a nutty twist to the flavour as well.

The plate on the right of the picture is Chicken noodles salad (not the literal translation). This cold dish comprises strips of chicken mixed with translucent rice noodles and cucumber slices topped with a peanut sauce. It was light and refreshing.

Dan Dan Noodles & Chicken Noodle Salad

We had a fourth dish, which was Wonton. There were about seven of these vegetable and meat dumplings, which were served in a light, clear soup and ended the meal nicely and sufficiently.

Wonton

Food was in general good and plentiful enough for lunch, and not too pricey. It is a clean and modern looking restaurant, with efficient staff. Whilst the restaurant was not packed for a Saturday lunch, they had already run out of one of the items we initially wanted, which was odd though.

Plus, one can tell Christmas is coming soon as the festive songs made up the Muzak in this place. 

Scores:

Food: 3/5

Presentation: 3/5

Service: 3/5

Setting: 3/5

Overall: 12/20

Total Bill: $222, about £9.50 a head.

I ate: All of the above.

I drank: Chinese Tea, variety unknown.

I wore: Black Polo Shirt.