August’s Freespace Happening @ West Kowloon took place amidst sweltering temperatures, high pollution and an incoming storm… That didn’t deter a fair sized crowd from turning up to watch the skateboard jam competition, enjoy the live music, explore the craft stalls and sample the pop-up healthy food stands. Something a little different to do on a Sunday afternoon. The next Freespace Happening is on 13th September, entry is free.
Click on any photo to see the full gallery.
Newly Open: Maya Cafe Takeaway It’s all very good saying you want to eat healthy, but locally it can be a hassle to find a place offering fresh tasty food that you actually want to eat regularly; even more difficult to find takeaway! No longer. The team behind Maya Cafe (forcefully shutdown by a greedy landlord) have now opened a takeaway shop at 173 Des Voeux Road, midway between Central Sheung Wan.
The new outlet offers a broad menu of vegetarian, vegan and gluton-free meals, drinks, snacks and desserts. As much as possible the ingredients are organically sourced from local farms, with most dishes made fresh when you order them.
If you still harbour the illusion that vegetarian food means a dull plain lettuce, tomato, cucumber salad then wake up. Maya’s menu, as was the Wanchai Cafe’s, is full of tasty, textured and flavoured dishes that more than hold their own against the best restaurants in town. bc opted to try the quinoa salad, frittata with tomato sauce and the zoodles with alfredo truffle sauce
The baked eggless frittata in tomato sauce and herbed mashed potato is made locally sourced organic tofu that perfectly imitates the texture of a traditional frittata not too soft or too hard and with a lovely rich soya bean flavour the tomato sauce contrasted delightfully and mashed potatoes made fresh and blended with cashew cream and herbs set off the frittata and tomatoes sauce nicely.
Zoodles are noodles made from spiralised zucchini, an intriguing crisp fresh alternative to pasta – although you do need to eat them promptly as unlike many of the other dishes on the menu zoodles do not sit well in the fridge. The alfredo truffle sauce is cashew cream with a truffle twist and goes great with the crisp fresh zoodles for a light filling meal. A very flexible ingredient, even suitable for vegans, cashew cream is simply finely ground cashews which have a slight natural sweetness, allowing the creation of a wide range of sweet and savoury sauces.
Maya Cafe’s signature quinoa salad is lovely blend of textures, tastes and flavours, the crunchy slightly tart red cabbage, contrasting the green cabbage and cashew cream slaw. The carrots a slight sweetness and the quinoa a grainy healthy texture and flavour. An uber healthy salad that tastes delicious.
It’s not only takeaway, a delivery service will soon be up and running and they offer corporate and social catering – everything from a boardroom lunch to a junk trip.
Maya Café Takeaway Shop G7, Nan Fung Tower, 173 Des Voeus Road, Tel: 2111 4553 Nan Fung Tower is a new building, the main entrance is actually on Wing Wo Street.
Closing
Delaney’s Wanchai has been shoved out the door by it’s landlord of 21 years and will be closing on the 13 August. Until then all standard drinks are at 1994 prices.
Create Your Taste
Does McDonalds need a refresh? Hong Kong’s go-to 24hour answer for a cheap burger, fries and drink is experimenting. While there’s been a range of specialty burgers appearing and disappearing as special menu promotions for some year’s now as part of menu diversity. Some have been good, some interesting, some best forgotten but with the new ‘Create Your Taste’ (CYT) menu there’s only one person to blame if you don’t like your burger – yourself.
Although McDonalds in Hong Kong has always been a property play, globally Create Your Taste seems to fly directly in the face of McDonalds fast food ethos. It’s slow food cooked to order and delivered to your table, just as in a regular restaurant. So is this the potential new face of McDonalds? bc went along to try it out.
Leighton Centre and Festival Walk are trialling the new concept, where (in addition to the regular menu) a customer can build their own burger on a touch screen display. So how does it work… Disorganized and slowly when looking for a late lunch on a not very busy Saturday afternoon. The store is full of McDonalds staff, there’s one at every CYT screen.
The basic CYT burger is $48 dollars and ordering is multi-step process. First: chose your bun – traditional, brioche, bunless. Second: meat, one (supposedly angus) beef patty or more, each extra patty costs $15. Third: cheese, a choice of Classic Cheddar, Mozzarella, Pepper Jack or White Cheddar. Sadly your only allowed to choose one cheese and only one slice Fourth: free veggies – red onion rings, lettuce, sliced jalapenos, long sliced pickles, tomato. Choose as many as you want. Fifth: sauce (choose as many as you want) mustard, herb aioli, American BBQ, Big Mac special sauce, spicy smokey BBQ, truffle, mayonnaise, tomato jalapenos relish, ketchup, teriyaki Sixth: add extras guacamole ($8),fried egg ($6), applewood roasted bacon ($8), grilled mushrooms ($6), pineapple ($6), caramalised onions ($4).
You can then switch to meal, add drinks etc. The screens here are illogical and confusing with additions my burger was $68 yet making it a meal was according to the screen only cost $60.5… Some branches of the menu tree are unavailable – no coffee /iced tea for example as part of a meal.
Payment: at the machine with octopus or a credit card, if you want to pay cash you have to fiddle around and wait a few minutes before a bill is finally printed which you can then pay at the counter.
With all the money invested, the roughly 90x30cm screen is not intuitive, fast or even logical enough that a staff member is needed to guide each customer through the process and still mistakes occur. Why with such a large screen are the food images so big that scrolling is needed – idiotic! CYT was initially rolled out in the US a year ago – that they haven’t sorted the menu trees and smooth streamed the process is not a good sign.
After paying take a seat and wait and wait…. The restaurant is full of seated people waiting and people standing with trays of ‘regular’ McDonalds getting irritated that they cant find a seat…amidst the tables of people not eating but waiting.
My burger ($83 – extra patty, meal, tomato, pepper jack cheese, bacon, long sliced pickles and BBQ sauce) served on a wooden board took 35 minutes to arrive, with cold fries. This was a typical wait time among the people I asked about their CYT experience on Saturday, the average cost of their CYT’s $70-80. The fries come in a metal ‘fryer’ basket and portion size is that of a small fries. There’s no fries size upgrade for any meal. All the meal upgrade gets you is a larger drink.
So was it any good, presentation was ok – far more care had gone into making the burger than your regular McDonalds sandwich which (at least in the Wanchai outlets) often looks like roadkill. The sandwich was warm, not hot, the bun fresh. The burger patty tasted and looked no different from the regular 1/4 pounder (a double quarter pounder costs about $2 more than a single). bc specifically asked McDonalds about the patty weight and they chose to ignore the question in their email reply. The bacon was non-existent, as was the taste of cheese. The tomato while fresh was cut so thick it overpowered the sandwich.
CYT is a pretty good burger, but not an $80 burger! At $45, yes it’s a very viable and tasty alternative to McD’s regular items if you dont mind the wait. Asking around,the consensus was that if you’re paying $70-80 for a burger you can find a much better burger in a nicer environment with faster service in many locations across Hong Kong.
If you can, why not! An American CYT burger with maximum of everything!
Free Sliders As it gets ready to celebrate its ‘Grand Opening’ Wanchai’s Burger Joys (42-50 Lockhart Road, Wanchai) is offering free sliders on the 21-23 July between 6-8pm. 300 each day, one per person first come first served.
News Australia’s largest family owned winery has a new distributor in Hong Kong. Taylors who have been producing wine in the Clara Valley since 1973 are the third biggest vineyard by volume downunder and have been releasing some very well regarded wines over the last 40 years. Taylor’s new distributor for Hong Kong and China are ASC Fine Wines.
Cecconi’s have moved from Soho to a larger more airy location on the 2/F of 77 Wyndham Street (Tel: 2565 5300). There’s a new chef Michael Fox, a new menu with a slightly higher price point, a healthy buffet lunch option…
Another outlet that’s moved is Flying Pan in Wanchai, the new address is 1/F 37-39 Lockhart Road (Tel: 2528 9997), although the entrance is actually on Fenwick Street. The decor of the new location is similar to the old one but new and fresh. Hopefully the move will also freshen up the food quality which had become very average in recent years. Good reports so far.
Vive la France There’s lots of great wet and produce markets spread across the SAR – but what about the vegetables they don’t sell… That’s where supermarkets can step in. As part of the Le French GourMay Great in Pacific Place is running a French food promotion through May. As well as some wonderfully tasty new products they’ve signed up with a new fresh produce consolidator to bring an expanded range of fresh seasonal European vegetables. Among those new on the shelf in May are yellow, red and white carrots – yes, you did read that correctly, not all carrots are orange. A fresh multi-coloured carrot salad is easy on the eye, healthy and very tasty. Other vegetables that come in colours you’re not used to seeing include beetroot and tomatoes. Locally we’ve got used to seeing and eating cherry and ‘regular’ tomatoes but there are many different varieties of tomatoes – Great had sixteen different types the day we were exploring. All with different colours, shapes, textures and flavours, mixing a few different varieties can enhance any ‘dull’ tomato salad.
France is renowned for it’s cheese and among the new varieties in the Great cheese room is the delicious Bleu de Severac ($95/100g) which could be confused with a Roquefort cheese as is made from unpasteurised ewes’ milk and follows the identical method of production. The only difference is that it’s not matured in the prestigious cellars of Combalou. The uncooked, unpressed soft cheese with veins of blue mould is firm, creamy and smooth with a sublime tangy, slightly spicy/acidic flavour.
For many years now Hong Kong has gone rouge, blanc et blue in May. Originally Le French May was about raising awareness and appreciation of French music, art and culture, but 8 years ago Le French GourMay was launched to enhance the appreciation of French food and wine – perfect for a city full of hedonists. Check out the website to explore the wide range of promotions and dinging offers www.frenchgourmay.com
CheesebyTom In Europe cheese is an everyday food item and it’s common to have several types in the fridge all the time. Locally however cheese, like ice-cream, has been and continues to be priced as a luxury item. Architect/Entrepreneur Tom Higgins is looking to change that with his new cheese delivery website www.cheesebytom.com The Lamma based site currently offers Brie, Double Gloucester, Emmental, Cheddar, Gruyere and Manchego and delivers across Lamma and also to Hong Kong island once a week. We ordered the Cheddar ($35/250g) and the Brie ($50/250g) both are good solid very edible cheeses, perfect to be enjoyed at anytime. Yes, you can find finer cheeses around but cheesebytom returns cheese to everyday item it should be – at a price accessible to all HongKongers.
Tsim Sha Tsui East TST East is one of those areas just off the main arteries that’s thronged with tourists who sleep there and office workers – consequently there’s a lot of restaurants and bars with many places offering outdoor seating and views of across the harbour. Among those is the Italian restaurant Spasso (Empire Centre, 68 Mody Road. Tel: 2730 8027) who celebrate the start of summer with a new promotional menu and the ‘opening’ of their terrace.
Also in the area is the wonderful Middle Eastern restaurant Ra (Wing On Plaza, Tel: 2721 3600) which offers a mix of Moroccan and Egyptian cuisine and for those who like it some of the best shisha in Hong Kong. A perfectly relaxing way to spend an evening.
Fast Food Pizza Napoli’s Pizza & Caffe which opened at 40-46 Carnarvon Road in Tsim Sha Tsui last week, see’s Italy’s traditional staple re-worked Japanese style as fast food. In a traditional pizza restaurant the pie often takes about 20-30 minutes to arrive. Using a 400+ degree oven the pizza at Napoli’s is cooked in 90 seconds! Yes, we found that hard to believe as well but it’s true. From order to table/ take-away was around 5 minutes.
Is it any good? Surprisingly so, and not expensive. The basic 25cm Margherita is just $35 and there’s a wide range of flavours available including prosciutto rucola ($78). Quattro Formaggi ($58), this four cheese classic, is given a Japanese twist with the addition of a side of maple syrup which adds little sweetness to a savoury dish – and very popular with Japanese women. One the most popular topping’s in Japan, and sure to be here too, is the cheese less Cicinielli ($68, baby sardines, clams,). A pizza with no cheese, as a cheese lover the idea seemed sacrilege. But it’s very tasty, add a splash of Tabasco to make the flavours sing
For those with a sweet tooth Napoli’s has some very tasty desserts including panzerotti (pizza dough deep fried and coated in sugar and other flavours $8-15) and chocolate banana pizza ($35)
Fresh Pizza as a ‘fast food’ is something different, but it tastes good at a price that’s hard to beat. Does it survive the cold pizza next day reheat test? Definitely – not that’s there’s much chance it’ll make the fridge, unless you buy and extra pie.
Waitrose @ Great Food Hall Through the end of April, Great Food Hall in the basement of Pacific Place is featuring British supermarket chain Waitrose’s own brand basic food products including the Love Life ‘Quick Cook’ grains range which features various combinations of whole grains, beans and pulses that only requiresa ten-minute boil before using. There’s also the Duchy Originals’ (produced in partnership with Prince Charles) range of organic products.
Free Sandwiches Free give-aways seem to be the promo-de-jour as Caribbean themed bar Rummin’ Tings (G/F, 28 Hollywood Road, 2523 7070) picks up where a sexually discriminating burger joint left-off when on Saturday 18 April between 2-5pm they’re looking give away 500 sandwiches.
There’s three types to choose from Jerk Chicken, Grilled BBQ Beef & The Cubano. There’s also cold slushies and beer to enjoy with your sandwich while getting your grooves on as DJ Noel spins the tunes.
Advertising v Reality
Pizza Hut recently launched a ‘new’ pizza the Golden Lava Pizza and it looks gorgeous on the posters and on the front of the menus… The reality is somewhat different, so different that we cheese lovers decided to pass and order from another pizza outlet.
America’s Culinary Bounty In the basement of Pacific Place, through April 7, Great is showcasing America’s Bounty as it introduces and features many new American products. From seafood: East Coast Clams and Pacific Northwest Oysters, to fresh produce: meats to superfoods and grains – there’s lots to explore an savour. In Great’s wonderful cheese room there a selection of artisan cheeses from California. A wonderful firm and tasty Fiscalini Bandage Wrapped Cheddar is a delight, while the Cypress Grove Truffle Tremor is truly a gorgeous soft-ripened goat’s cheese. Among the other new products is Tolerant Foods range of bean based pastas which are wheat and gluten free, non-GMO, vegan and organic. For those who love grains and ‘superfoods’ there’s organic grains including quinoa from Arrowhead Mills and chia from Bob’s Red Mill. Many of the products will remain on-sale after the promotion period.
During the promotion Great’s hot food counter is introducing a range of take-away Tex-Mex dishes including nachos, quesadillas, fajitas and tacos
Free Milk @ Circle K As the price of milk continues to increase, up almost 25% from last year as the regular price of a 946ml carton of milk surges past the $25 mark. It’s not often that you’ll find convenience store prices are lower than supermarkets but currently Circle K is running a long term fresh milk promotion buy 5 cartons of Nestle milk and get the 6th free. Simply pick up the chop card at any shop and chop away.
Buffet ala Hung Hom Newly opened in Hung Hom is Sav, one of these new modern hotels looking to be your trendy home from home and full of bubbly friendly staff. Located on the first floor adjacent to reception is Palatte the hotels industrial looking dining space. With raw concrete floors, clear perspex chairs, the look is very modern and bright – but for all the staff buzzing around it’s strangely cold and functional with everyone trying that bit too hard to be nice.
The dinner buffet is prettily displayed, with a table of enticing desserts looking to draw you into the main dining area where cold and hot dishes stretch the length of one wall. Two cooking stations offer fresh pasta and noodles. There’s lots of seafood – lobster, oysters, yabbies, muscles – some sushi and sashimi, various western, Indian and Chinese hot dishes and the obligatory range of salads. Organic greens grown in the New Territories and a cheese board round out the offerings. It’s a reasonable sized dinner buffet, but… at $588 it’s not cheap. The extensive seafood offerings may be a factor in the price – as this was a special media tasting it’s impossible to know if on a regular night when the place is full, it seats 100, these will be constantly replenished.
It’s a very pretty looking spread, sadly though the food is very bland – the hot dishes lacked flavour, the salads identity and the quality of meat wasn’t all that you’d expect. There are a lot of very good buffets available in Hong Kong these days and Palatte’s at the moment isn’t good enough to make it worth the trek to Hung Hom. If you’re in the area though, the high tea sets look good at $288/two people and the lunch offerings of a hot dish, salad buffet and tea/coffee range from $68-$138 are very good value.
In-n-Out Burger Family owned burger chain In-n-Out returned to Hong Kong for their third pop-up burger event, this time in Causeway Bay. 250 lucky customers got to sample In-n-Out’s burgers – at American prices: a double double ($25) hamburger ($15) and cheeseburger ($20). Cooked either ‘animal’ or ‘protein’ style, the tasty fresh ingredients were a big hit and well worth queuing for. Sadly Brian Nakao the organiser of In-n-Out’s foreign events confirmed that the burger chain has no immediate plans to open a store or three in Hong Kong.
