Dinner at Pokka Cafe

Pokka Cafe is like UCC cafe only they have much, much more choices and better food, drinks and dessert. It’s a great place to eat Japanese, Korean and even Italian food. It serves all kinds of food prepared the Japanese way. The servings are big enough. We’re there often enough that I have a Pokka Cafe card to rack up points that will give us free food. The smoked duck breast roll we ordered was free!

I wish somebody would bring Pokka Cafe to the Philippines. I’m sure it’s going to be a big hit. The food, coffee, cold drinks and everything else is superior to the UCC cafe here.


display of plastic food

Everything we ordered was very good. Actually everything in this restaurant is good.

 

smoked duck breast spring rolls HK$45
 

This tasted like sukiyaki without the noodles and eggs instead. It’s also less sweet. It’s uber tender beef poached in a broth and eggs stirred into it. It’s light and yummy.


Japanese premium beef, tofu w/ scrambled egg

Yes, rice and foie gras. Strange but delicious. All their fried rice variants are good. But this is my favorite.


Ginza foie gras & cha siu fried rice
 
Poke Cafe (branch closed)
Basement & G/F (Portion),
63 Peking Road, Tsimshatsui, Kowloon
telephone: 23113968
 

Lunch at Wu Kong

Wu Kong is a very popular Shanghai restaurant in the heart of Tsim Sha Tsui. It’s been in business since 1984 and business has been really strong since they had a total renovation a few years ago. At lunch they offer their version of dim sum and light meals. It’s easier to get a table during lunch. It’s virtually impossible to eat dinner there unless you have a reservation or go at 6:00 pm.


nice, bright interiors

Most places in Manila that serve gyoza or fried dumplings usually fry the whole dumpling. This is the right way to do it. Just the bottom should be fried to a crisp while the top dough remains soft. This is one of the best fried dumplings I’ve ever eaten.

best potsticker or fried dumpling


fried Shanghai noodle w/ shredded pork & cabbage HK$68

Their xia long bao or soupy dumplings are excellent and I think better than the ones from Din Tai Fung which supposedly serves the best.

steamed Shanghai pork dumplings HK$28


xia long bao


mini rice dumplings in rice wine & osmanthus HK$60


Wu Kong Shanghai Restaurant
Basement, Alpha House,
27 Nathan Road,
Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon
telephone: 2366 7244

Dinner at Cafe de Coral

When you’re in Hong Kong and you want a fast, cheap and filling meal go to your nearest branch of Cafe de Coral. They’re the biggest chain of Chinese fast food. They have pretty good food too. They constantly have new dishes as well as old time favorites.

You order in the front where the menu and the cashier is and pay. Then you go to this counter and collect your food. They change their menu for breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner.

This is the best milk tea I’ve ever tasted. Nothing in Manila or Hong Kong has come close to it. The tea is strong and not drowned out by milk. It’s so strong that if I drink it in the afternoon I can’t sleep that night. But I’d drink this milk tea over Starbucks anytime. An order costs HK$8 but if you order if during afternoon tea it’s HK$6.

milk tea or nai cha
Eating in Cafe de Coral is perfect for rice lovers. Their meals usually come w/ a huge amount of rice. Not good for us since we eat more viands than rice. The rice in this pot is very good. It’s flavored with chicken and soy sauce. But still the small quantity of chicken and taro barely made a dent on the rice.


steamed rice w/ taro & chicken HK$32 w/ a drink

So I had to order this combo of chicken & bbq pork to eat with the taro rice


lung kong chicken & bbq pork HK$26

The soup, chicken and wanton in this dish is very good. It was another wipe out.


chicken w/ wanton in pot HK$38

dinner menu

Halo Halo

It’s summer now in Manila so that means it’s hot, hot, hot! What better way to cool off than to eat Halo Halo. Halo halo means mix mix. It’s a popular Filipino dessert of sweetened boiled fruits and beans then served with shaved ice and milk. Our Asian neighbors also have their version of an iced dessert like Ice Cacang from Malaysia, Ruamit from Thailand, Chè from Vietnam. There is no standard recipe to halo halo. Every restaurant and neighborhood outlet has their own version of it.

Take for instance Sandosenang halo, a mainstay in Manila’s shopping malls food courts. That literally translates to “a dozen ingredients”. You can choose not to put the ingredients you don’t like. In my case I omit all forms of beans.


top row (l to r): langka (jackfruit), pinipig (toasted rice), sago (tapioca balls), ube (purple yam)
middle row: nata de coco, saba (bananas), gulaman (jelly), leche flan
bottom row: kidney beans, red beans, macapuno (cocnut sport)
that’s 11. I guess milk is no. 12


waiting for ice and milk


halo halo

Next we go the extreme end with the minimalist Razons. They only use 3 ingredients. Banana, macapuno and leche flan. This is my favorite halo halo since I don’t like any kind of beans in it. What makes their halo halo so good despite having so few ingredients is it’s so creamy and they use very fine shaved ice. It’s like eating melted ice cream.

Whenever I have guests from the USA this is an absolute stop in the “eat till you burst and your plane leaves tour” that they all go through whenever they come to Manila. Although I’ve noticed Razons prices have gone steadily up while the portions are decreasing.

Lastly we have the hotel buffet halo halo. Even with the best ingredients made by the hotel this comes out as my least favorite. It never tastes as good as when you buy it ready made. It’s probably because I always get too much of my favorite stuff and the proportion of filling to ice and milk goes whack. A case of too much of a good thing huh?


halo halo fixins from Heat’s buffet


(click on the pic for the names of each ingredient)

the finished masterpiece

There are many, many other sellers with their own combination if ingredients. The type of milk they use is another variable. Majority use evaporated milk but some use fresh milk. So the lesson in eating halo halo is eat what you like, mix well and enjoy the brain freeze. Happy summer to all!

Lunch at Super Star Seafood Restaurant

Super Star Seafood restaurant didn’t have a dim sum menu in English. But their regular menu is in English. Their dim sum is ok but I like Chuk Yuen’s better.

This is their version of peanuts on the table. They automatically put it on each table and it’s not free. You’ll see it on the bill added with other extras like chili sauce. This is a common practice in Hong Kong restaurants. Anyway, I don’t mind since I love it. It’s called crispy whitebait with peanuts. It’s tiny fish fried to a crisp and seasoned with salt. It’s very addicting.

They also sell it for HK$15 a pack. It comes in 4 varieties- original, seaweed, curry and tomato flavors. You can also buy


crispy whitebait w/ peanuts


fried shrimp dumplings


chiu chow dumplings


cha siew pao (asado siopao)

This noodle dish was very good. Even with the sauce the noodles remained crisp.


crispy noodles w/ beansprouts and pork


mochi or masachi

Super Star Seafood Restaurant
83-97 Nathan Rd
Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon
telephone: 2628-0339

Lunch at Chuk Yuen Seafood Restaurant

Chuk Yuen is, imho, the best place to eat dim sum in Hong Kong, well in Tsim Sha Tsui anyway. First they have an English menu for you to place a tick mark on what you want to order. Trust me this is not common practice. A lot of restaurants have only Chinese menus. Dim sum isn’t pushed around for you to point at anymore. The classier restaurants now just give you a piece of paper with all their selections and you just check what items you want.

From Peking Rd. when you see Fortress and the giant Adidas store go in that street which is Hankow Road.
 

 

When you see this sign go in and go down the escalator.

 

The place is always packed for lunch and dinner so come early or make a reservation.

When you sit down they offer you a choice of FREE orange juice or sugar cane juice. After lunch they also give you free fruit. I forgot to take a pic of that.

 

We didn’t order the usual hakaw, siomai, etc. instead we tried out these unique dishes they had. They were all sooooo good. Try these when you go to Chuk Yuen. Everything was wiped out.

pan fried turnip cake w/ x.o. sauce HK$16

 

bean curd sheet roll in fish soup HK$16

 

steamed stuffed mushroom w/ mashed shrimp HK$19

 

baked shredded turnip pastry HK$16

 


fried stuffed glutinous rice HK$22


steamed shark’s fin dumpling in soup HK$22


total bill

 

Chuk Yuen Seafood Restaurant
Basement, Hong Kong Pacific centre
28 Hankow Road
Tsim Sha Tsui
telephone 2722 0633

Dinner at Hang Heung

Hang Heung’s Kitchen is one of our favorite restaurants in Hong Kong. It’s located at the 3rd flr. of New World Center, a mall on Salisbury rd. in Tsim Sha Tsui. Popular tourist attraction, Avenue of the Stars is located here.


restaurants in the mall

 

 

nice rosewood furniture


roasted meats are their specialty
The food in this place is very good and the prices are very reasonable. They have special menu items each season. They also have combo meals wherein you choose one congee and one noodle dish for only HK$45.

barbecue pork w/ braised veggies plus the congee below HK$45

fish congee
 
 

Hang Heung’s Kitchen (closed)
18-24 Salisbury Road
Shop 303, 3/F New World Centre
Tsim Sha Tsui
telephone: 2366-8628

 

Lunch at Bistro On The Mile

Bistro on the Mile is the newly renovated coffee shop of Holiday Inn Golden Mile on Nathan Road. I was surprised how nice the place looked and how much food they had. I thought the buffets in Manila were a lot but this takes the cake. What was impressive with this buffet was they had so many varieties but only small quantities of each dish are put out. I guess this is how they ensure freshness. The buffet costs HK$198 for adults and 50% off for seniors. That’s a great deal for the oldies.

I basically skipped the whole appetizer area except for some salad. It was too overwhelming for me. Wait til you see the dessert section.

Hot dishes galore! (comments in parenthesis)


stewed ox tail (so-so)


pan fried chicken w/ potatoes & pistachio cream sauce


pan fried sole fillet w/ zucchini & tomato salsa (good)


boiled pork w/ lime, garlic & chili sauce


pad thai (yuck)


boiled egg w/ tamarind sauce


Indian chutney and pickles


fish tikka


paneer in curry sauce (yum!)


saffron rice


black chicken & pork soup w/ Chinese herbs


cook to order mushroom & choi sum (yum)


beef w/ choi sum


eggplant & bell pepper stuffed w/ minced fish


braised vegetables w/ glass noodles


soy chicken & roast duck (yummo!)


sashimi & abalone slices (yummy)
As if the food in the buffet wasn’t enough, they still have 4 dishes that you can order. We tried 3 of them and they are the best food in the restaurant. Much better than anything in the buffet.


braised pork belly


roast scallops w/ teriyaki sauce


shrimp patties

Dessert Heaven


brownie cheesecake, NY cheesecake, peanut cheesecake (all good!)


2 refrigerated displays of mini dessert

Below are pics of what’s inside the refrigerated display. Just click on the pic if you want to see a bigger image and drool.

any space for fruit?


help yourself to the tea and coffee bar

Bistro On The Mile
Holiday Inn Golden Mile
50 Nathan Rd.
Tsim Sha Tsui
Hong Kong
telephone: (852) 2369-3111

Dinner at Hang Fa Lau Dessert

We just arrived in Hong Kong for the Holy Week holidays. Over the next few days I’ll be posting the restaurants where we usually eat at. From the really cheap to the average. Nothing over the top like my trip last February. I hope it will you some ideas next time you go to Hong Kong. All of these restaurants are in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon.
 

Coming from Nathan road walk to Peking road and Lock Road is the first street on your right. It’s right behind iSquare.
 

This is a small hole in the wall with small orders and a fabulous range of hot and cold Chinese desserts.

 

There is limited space so you might have to share a table or wait for a few minutes.

This is a special dish only on the Chinese menu. Adding peaches to fried rice is quite unusual. I don’t get what it adds to the dish. It wasn’t offensive though. This is very, very good. For HK$45 the fried rice comes with a choice of dessert. We chose the hot sesame soup.


pork and peaches fried rice


hot sesame soup

The sweet and sour pork ribs is the house specialty. It comes with a choice of vegetable rice, plain rice, 18 grain rice or noodle soup. It’s a small dish but it’s enough for a bowl of rice or noodles because the sauce is so good. The pork is so soft and tasty. The sauce is soy sauce based with black vinegar.
 
Hang Fa Lau S&S meat chop

sweet & sour meat chop w/ noodle soup HK$33

total bill of HK$79 for 3
 
Hang Fa Lau Dessert (closed)
9A Lock Road
Tsim Sha Tsui
 

PAL food MNL to HKG

Happy Easter to all!

Philippine Airlines or PAL gets a lot of criticism for their flights being always delayed, to the chairs not reclining, tv not working and a so on. But I still take it because it has direct flights to California and all my mileage is with PAL. Luckily, I haven’t had any really bad experiences so I continue to support PAL.

Below are pictures of the lounge. It may not be the swankiest lounge or have the best food but they do have something no other lounge in the world has. Read on.
 

I took the 3 pm flight so the food in the lounge was mostly light snacks.
corned beef sandwiches, hamburger, bacon croissant
mixed salad and a pasta dish that didn’t get refilled
mango crepes
my fave – kopi buns from Kopi Roti
the most awful dimsum
PAL is the only lounge that offers Arroz Caldo or chicken congee. This is the best! They also offer this as snacks on long haul flights. So I don’t really care if the dimsum is bad or the food selection is few. As long as they have hot arroz caldo I’m a happy puppy.
cream of pumpkin soup and arroz caldo
toppings for the arroz caldo
(click on pic)
I just load up on all the toppings except for the chives.
all mixed up
Since my long haul flight last year and several short trips to Hong Kong I’ve noticed the food on the plane has really improved. They partnered with local chefs and restaurants to come up with really good food and dessert.

late lunch menu
The chicken was tasty and tender. The garlic rice was a bit dry. The top vinaigrette must be for the smoked fish and prawns but I used it as a dip for the chicken. I also used the darker colored sauce called sinamak which is a spicy vinegar. I couldn’t decide which was better so I alternated. All the fruits were miraculously sweet.
chicken inasal Bacolod by Chef Fernando Aracama
I heard Cathay Pacific only serves sandwiches on flight from Manila and Hong Kong. Aww that’s so sad.

For the HKG-MNL meal, click here