During weekday lunch times at work, I really dislike sitting in packed chinese restaurants or cha chaan teng. I like a relaxed pub / bar environment scene like back home in New Zealand 🇳🇿 In Long Ping I found a place I like which is similar, serving British / Italian style food, but it faces a highway and the MTR viaduct, although convenient to Long Ping MTR station. They have a set lunch menu for $90 which includes a soup of the day, a main, dessert and a drink. My colleague and I ordered the chicken burger and carbonara. The environment was so relaxed we forget the fact we were never served our soups 😂 To be honest, the mains are mediocre and I guess the soup would be as well so missing out on the soup might have been a blessing. The chicken burger buns were not fresh and reheated from frozen, which is why they are wrinkled, the chicken fillet has a crispy coating that has a light spice with thigh meat inside. I’m always told coating and spicing a meat, you are trying to hide 🙈 something! The slaw, lettuce and tomato are fresh and there is a generous portion of French fries. The carbonara portion is small, and again the taste is mediocre, however it fills the stomach from it’s creamy sauce. In my opinion, $90 might be slightly over priced for these two meals. For the drinks you are able to select the usual hot or cold teas and coffees and soft drinks. The meal ends with a scoop of ice cream in a cup which happened to be vanilla flavor on the day we dined. Overall, ambience suits me, food is mediocre, but the manager and staff try their best and I’d go again. But don’t have high expectations.

This restaurant / bar specializes in Mexican cuisine and serves a range of mixed drinks 🍹 making it a perfect place to catch up with friends!

It was a stormy ⛈ rainy ☔️ Friday night, we had booked a table for 5 at 7.30pm. When we arrived the place was packed and heaving and our table wasn’t ready until 8pm. Apparently this was due to everyone else before us being late due to the rain storm 🤔

We ordered the following dishes: Buffalo Chicken Nachos - perfect for sharing, corn chips topped with shredded chicken, jalapeños, melted cheese served with avocado dip & sour cream ; Pulled pork tacos 🌮 - tender spiced shredded pork, chopped red onions, dressed with melted cheese and a wedge of lime for acidity (note only 4 no. not easy to cut for sharing); 14 oz rib eye steak 🥩 (requested medium), was cooked to perfection being tender & juicy, when the juicy charcoal beef is dipped into the chimichurri sauce it was divine - the garlic fries as the sides were seasoned perfectly; Lamb mince, mint and cheese quesadilla - generously packed with well seasoned lamb mince filling served with avocado & salsa, and the chicken enchiladas which was stuffed with a tasty mixture of shredded chicken n cheese, and drenched in a special enchilada sauce and then more grilled cheese! 🧀 the perfect comfort food.

We washed our food down with a mix of drinks, being a Mexican restaurant and a celebration for promotion of a couple of friends, we had a round of tequila shots, followed by mock-tails and cocktails. All drinks 🍹 complimented the dishes (alcohol always does 😂) we ordered and were beautifully presented. We were even given a free round of tequilas 👍 after they forgot to timely serve a mock-tail we had ordered and had to remind them. OMG I forgot order Corona’s 😱

To sum it up, all of us enjoyed the food and drinks and the restaurant environment. It was cosy and allowed us to chat and catch up and also relive the good old days when we worked as a team! The ambience of the restaurant was a party/ pub atmosphere. It is great for after work drinks and chatting. After 9pm the restaurant’s lighting is dimmed and dance / techno music is pumped out very loud, which felt exciting as it changed the ambience to a dance club, but made it hard to hear each other talking.

I reckon, this place serves the best Mexican food in HK, good value for money, great ambience for gatherings, and the restaurant manager is a good 👍 guy. Serving staff are ok, but busy, one bad thing is the waiting staff should know we are sharing the food, but don’t give us serving utensils unless we ask for them every time per dish 🙄

Finished a hike on Devil’s Peak and went to Yau Tong MTR to take the train home, but we were hungry and decided to try the Shanghai restaurant in the Domain mall. We weren’t expecting much in Yau Tong and chose this place as there was no que, but we were pleasantly surprised at the fast service, good food and nice spacious environment inside the restaurant. We ordered a snack platter with drunken chicken, sesame noodles, cold Chinese style ham and marinated fish. The presentation was nice and each dish was delightful and made well. The Xiao long Bao were good, the skin wasn’t too thick and there was soup inside the bao. They tasted similar to those made in higher end restaurants. We also ordered pan fried pork buns, again made well with a crispy base and a nice seasoned pork mince filling. However, the best dish to our surprise was was Yangzhou fried rice, no wok burnt flavor, well seasoned with a good range of ingredients and tasted as good as any made in HK! The restaurant service is efficient, clean and spacious. I would come back again!

For the long weekend Monday I found a spot at the Mandarin Grill, yippee! We men arrived in shorts doh 😣! Luckily the waiting staff arranged some trousers for us 👏 I misjudged the formal lunch scene at the MO! After we ordered, we were presented brioche bread with butter which was very rich and buttery. Amuse bouche of scallops with finely chopped red capsicum (I think 🤔) were provided, the scallops were seared to perfection with a hard seared crust on outside and tender and moist inside. The starters were a mixed oyster platter, the oysters were fresh and smooth with a nice salty seawater brine to it. The lobster bisque was rich and smooth with chunks of lobster in it, but the lobster taste was overpowered with the tarragon cream and cognac. The smoked salmon was carved at the table side and had a deep rich flavor, but was a little too salty because of the thicker cut by human hand than the normal machine cut slices. For the mains one of us ordered the Australian 6oz tenderloin (medium cook) with hand cut chips, and the other two of us ordered the USDA prime rib of beef carved at the table. Firstly, the tenderloin was cooked to medium as ordered, but the charcoal smokey flavor was over powering and too much and spoiled the taste of the beef. The side of hand cut chips were perfectly cooked, crispy on outside and fluffy and moist on the inside. The prime rib beef was served as medium-rare when it was cut, but I thought it was a bit under and in the centre it was blue. However, the quality of the prime beef rib was high with a nice deep juicy beef flavor. The Yorkshire pudding side with the prime rib was over cooked and quiet tough to eat. The vegetable sides were slightly undercooked, the carrot was almost raw. Desserts was a Mille-feuille or a deconstructed Napoleon, it was good, but nothing special; a cocoa bean cremeux, basically a chocolate ice cream which was delicious but again nothing special. The Seasonal Japanese and Local fruits platter is quite self explanatory and no need to review this dish. In any detail. Finally, complimentary pistachio chocolates and almond crackers were provided. Overall, excellent service, nice food but not outstanding! The setting and the allure of dining at the MO cannot be beaten at this HK icon.

Finally managed to get up early enough and get a seat for Yum Char at this iconic restaurant in Central. Very old style tea house where the ladies still push the yum char trollies. The food is nothing special, but hearty and filling and takes you back to the old days, well pre 90’s I would say. I’d come back again, if I can get a table.

Came here early for breakfast to try. I’ve always thought this is a nice place for al fresco dining when I’ve always walk by. We ordered some coffees and a hot chocolate followed by the Omelette, Eggs Florentine and the Full English Breakfast. The Omelette and Eggs Florentine were bland, no seasoning The full English was the the same, but what was disturbing to me was the spinach served with it, it was smelly! A tell tale sign it might have been off! In addition, I was put off by the fact that my hash brown was served broken as well. The coffees were also bland and weak. If it weren’t for the location, I don’t think many people would come for the food. The service was mediocre as well.

Came here for lunch after doing some exploring on the island. Ordered the lunch set where you can pick a main Japanese style rice dish and some bbq charcoal skewers for sides. The set came with a salad and seaweed as a side dish and a drink. We ordered the ox tongue rice set, the eel rice set and the angus beef rice set. The ox tongue and eel rice was average, nothing great, however the angus beef was delicious and the dipping sauce was well seasoned. These rice dishes aren’t that big cause of the bbq skewers. These skewers are the highlight of the lunch and were bbq to perfection. The set menu lunch was well worth the price and the views from the 26th floor were a bonus!

The variety on the menu is impressive, it is always popular and full of customers anytime of the day. We popped in for lunch after doing some shopping at City Gate. We ordered the fish n chips, steak and eggs and the kids cheese burger meal. The fish n chips was surprisingly good and it came with mushy peas and vinegar. I guess this place does it well due to the large expat community living in Tung Ching. The steak n chips was not worth the price as the steak was thin cut minute steak and can quickly be over cooked, the plate of food was nicely presented though. The kids cheese burger meal was ok and sufficient for a child. But we looked at some of the normal burgers 🍔 others ordered and it was probably a better choice, but beware messy to eat as they are gigantic. Good service, nice relaxed environment and great food selection. I’d come again!

As lovers of middle eastern food we had always wanted to try this place, the day finally arrived, but days out we were informed that there was no a la carte menu only a Mother’s Day Set Menu. This didn’t deter us. We arrived slightly early and walked right into the owner or head chef giving his staff a pre-service prep talk about his expectations for quality and he was very passionate about his standards! They had laid out the dishes on a table for the waiting staff to learn about the dishes that were being served. This was a good sign! We were quickly led pass the prep. talk and seated in the sofa areas which were like a scene from Aladdin in Arabia. The Mother’s Day Set Menu I believed offered a full range of the restaurants dishes and was designed to give everyone a full taste of what they had to offer. It was $560 person. Every dish was excellent,the hummus was fresh, rich and smooth, the salads were fresh and clean and tasty. The meats were cooked perfectly, each meat was respected and cooked to maintain moisture and tenderness. Service was excellent and topped of with a family photo on instant film wishing mum a Happy Mother’s Day 😀 All I can say is I’m looking forward to going back and ordering of the a la carte menu!

On a rainy Monday morning long weekend, a cooked breakfast is a must and we decided to try Binary in Tin Hau which had recently opened. The service was attentive when we walked in, a good sign of better things to come? We ordered some lattes and hot beverages. The coffee was normal - smooth and no burnt taste. We ordered a smoked salmon with scrambled eggs, a slowed cooked chicken breast with scrambled eggs and an Eggs Benedict with Parma ham. All breakfast plates were presented nicely, there was a good large portion of smoked salmon and amazingly the chicken breast was moist and tender. The side salads were fresh and had a very tasty balsamic vinegar dressing. One complaint was the portion of scrambled eggs could have been much larger and instead seemed 1 portion was split between the 2 dishes here. For the Eggs Benedict’s the poached eggs were runny and the hollandaise sauce was normal. Overall, good service, good relaxed environment, hygienic and nice interior, but don’t be so stingy on the scrambled eggs!