Cafe Little

About

www.cafelittle.com

Western style breakfasts tend to be pretty expensive in Hong Kong, with Cafe O’s clocking in at around $80 and other places even higher. This makes it hard to justify going for breakfast / brunch often like you might in the US.

But Cafe Little is out to change all of that. It offers a range of breakfast sets, none of which come to more than about $30 for the food and coffee. This small cafe on Hillier Street in Sheung Wan has a great retro feel, with plastic chairs and glass topped tables reminding me a bit of a local ‘caf’ in England, with the open cooking space bringing in hints of small American diners.

Like both of these is a functional place rather than somewhere to stay and relax; a place to get a good feed and some decent coffee before starting the day.  It’s the type of place I imagine a start-up group meeting to hack out different ideas, or a business man calling into during his short lunch place. Unlike the ‘cha chaan teng’ it isn’t so bustling that you can’t relax at all. 

It satisfies your hunger fairly well too. Although the scrambled eggs and toast ($25) I had suffered a bit from the blandness which seems to affect all HK eggs, they were mixed with herbs that gave them a stronger and more interesting taste. The espresso included with the set was of a high standard, as good as Cafe O or Graze anyway, and they also do more special coffee blends if you’re willing to pay a bit more.   

Other breakfasts come with bacon, or pasta, as well as the eggs. And Cafe Little also does a lot of different cakes. I’m yet to try any of these, but I will definitely be heading back in the future. Other people seemed satisfied with what they were eating from what I overheard. For a quick breakfast before work, or a feed after a heavy night out, Cafe Little is definitely to be recommended.

Directions

 Address: G/F, 27 Hillier Street, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong

Cost

Breakfast sets $25-30 and ‘specialty’ coffees $25-35. 

 

Pho 26

About

I had walked part this place many times and hadn’t really expected much from it. But it turned out to have some of the best Pho I’ve had in Hong Kong, full of the strong fresh flavours which make the dish so special.

I believe that Pho should come overloaded with herbs and the version here didn’t disappoint. The noodles came with a huge pile of herbs and spring onion laid above the noodles. These slowly sank down into the broth giving it a really intense, earthy basil flavour that is so different from the water soup you get in a lot of places. There were also big clumps of lemongrass that added an extra, especially pleasing freshness and gave the broth more distinctiveness.

Some people might complain about the fact that this many herbs makes it harder to eat the noodles, but I’d much rather have this than loose all the flavour the herbs give. The pho perhaps could have done with a few more noodles in, but there was definitely enough to make is a satisfying porting. It also had a fairly generous amount of beef which, although not as tender as it could have been, wasn’t at all chewy like in some restaurants.

You can also get the special Kobe beef pho for $52 and a tomato sauce pho. Alongside these things, the restaurant has a pretty good selection of other Vietnamese dishes, like spring rolls and milk buns.

You can read another review here.

Directions

302 Queens Road Central, Sheung Wan

[googlemaps http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=110278381660667080594.00045eee009a4d17a789b&ll=22.285701,114.150508&spn=0.001737,0.00228&z=18&output=embed&w=425&h=350]

Cost

Pho about HK$30

Yu-Raku

About

Yu-raku was recommended to me by a Japanese friend and is one of the only places in Hong Kong I know of that does Okonomiyaki, a kind of Japanese egg pancake.

Slide open the door of this tiny restaurant and your only option is to sit by counter which stretches along the side. Perched on a stool here, you can watch the chef fry different ingredients on the hot plate in front of you and breathe in the different smells until you are drooling with hunger.

We began with the standard okonomiyaki which was a feast to satisfy any appetite, a thick patty of egg and cabbage and onion set on top of lightly crisped bacon and then smothered with cheese and the dark syrupy sauce that has a very distinctive flavour.

The care in the cooking here was impressive. A thinner, Negiyaki pancake was crafted over ten minutes or so, with the chef pressing rice crispies and onion into beaten egg to make a firm base and then scattering more onion on top of this.

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The result was delicious, with the surfaces of the thin base browned but the centre still softer. Like the toppings of a good pizza, the ingredients scattered on top seemed to fit really well with this crisped pancake base.

Another wonderful dish used a really thin egg pancake to wrap noodles that were fried and smothered in a rich brown sauce. The combination of the frail egg wrapper’s soft, savoury taste and the richer noodles worked really well.

Overall, I’d definitely recommend Yu-Raku as a place to go in Hong Kong for an authentic Japanese Okonomiyaki experience. At about $70-80 a dish, it’s a bit more expensive than some of the other restaurants in the city, but then Japanese food usually is.

And eating okonomiyaki, packed with flavour and smothered with sauce and cheese, you really do feel more satisfied that you would many other places.

Directions

Shop E, 468 Jaffe Road, Causeway Bay

[googlemaps http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=464+Jaffe+Road,+Hong+Kong&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=35.136115,78.75&ie=UTF8&s=AARTsJpnAnUmspCD5zSp1Me2BHcJCly7Og&ll=22.280579,114.183247&spn=0.003475,0.00456&z=17&output=embed&w=425&h=350]

Notes

Tel：2838 0061
$41-$100
Mon-Sat：12:00 - 15:00;19:00 - 04:00 (Closed on Sunday)

Chili Fagara

[caption id="attachment_260" align="alignleft" width="350" caption="Entrance to Chili Fagara - Form Over Function?"][/caption]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About 

I apologise to anyone expecting a real review of this place. I didn’t actually eat there. 

 Because the restaurant was full, we were brusquely ushered to a table right in front of the door.  I was given a couple of menus, covered in finely embroidered Chinese style cloth. I looked down the list of items, fairly standard Sichuan things given elaborateness in their English translations.

Then I saw the prices! Dan dan mihn was about $98, while a lot of the other dishes were way up about the $100 mark.  These were ordinary dishes – some the more ‘special’ things were even higher up the scale. I began evaluating whether it was still worth staying to try this place. I realised that for the price of two or three dishes here I could be having a nine course Sichuan meal at Mum Chau’s or a feast of food at Sijji.

These dishes would have to be really good to make it worth such prices. I looked around at what other people had, glimpsing small bowls and fancy cutlery, and wasn’t convinced. So I did something I very rarely do. Stood up and left.  After we got out, my Japanese friend asked me why I’d wanted to leave so much.

“Too expensive,” I said, “Dan dan mihn for $100”

He laughed and, being an ex-food exporter, did some sums out loud. “Yeah, noodles only cost $4 and meat maybe $10, and vegetables $5, so where’s the extra 81?

Instead, we wandered down the hill to one of the dai paai dongs on Graham Street and ordered a feast of different freshly made dishes, none of which cost more than $40. I sat as the rain tumbled down outside the umbrella, enjoying this food and authentic Hong Kong atmosphere.

I’ll go back to Chilli Fagara sometime, to see if it really justifies such extravagant prices. But for now, I’m glad I walked out.

Directions

G/F, 51A Graham Street, Central District, Hong Kong

Notes

Tel: 28933330