HABITŪ Ristorante the Garden (銅鑼灣)

I have been to cafe habitu many many times before but this is the first time I went to this fine dining version of habitu restaurant. As soon as I walked in, my first impression was that the atmosphere and decoration were very very grand and cousy, which made me have high expectation on my meal!

It was my friend's birthday and so we made a reservation for 8. We brought our own cake but I was shocked to hear that they need to charge us $200 for cutting the cake!

We have ordered the following food:-

1) wagumi beef pizza - the beef didn't go too well with thin crusted pizza. Overall speaking, i think this dish is a failure as the two ingredient would taste better if they served them separately.2) black truffle & mushroom pizza - black truffle was a good mix with the pizza and cheese. A highly recommended dish! 3) salad with Scallop - the scallop definitely tasted good but were too few for sharing among 8 persons. The vegetables was so so. It would be better if the vegetable portion could be bigger4) crab meat linguine - linguine was cooked to flavour chinese people as it was not al dente, which was good for me! The crab meat mixed well with the linguine as there was crab meat in every single bite of linguine! 5) king prawn risotto - the prawn was good but the risotto was too wet for me. Also the taste was more like spanish fried rice rather than the traditional italian risotto. 6) roast suckling pig - this was the first time I tried the western version of cooking of suckling pig and to my surprise, it turned out quite nice. The pig comes along with granny smith apple which made a funny match up!7) rib eye steak - definitely the best dish of the night but also the most expensive one. The steak was cooked medium rare. Extremely juicy and the meat was fresh and most importantly, the meat was very tender. What else can I say?? It is my ideal type of steak and if the price of it could be lower, I would definitely come for it every week! Oh, one more thing worth to mention was that this restaurant served bread before meal. Unlike other restaurant which they served the bread with butter and jam, this restaurant served it with tomato paste. Although I personally prefer the traditional butter, my friends did enjoy the bread with tomato paste!

客家爺爺 (銅鑼灣)

二人三餸：馬拉盞唐生菜、蛋角及一個忘了名字的伊麵。

先來唐生菜，收得80蚊，我expect都應該幾好食㗎，但turn out唔講都唔知有馬拉盞味。唔見到煲仔都唔知係煲仔菜。第二味餸蛋角，味道ok㗎，但唔好expect係什麼驚天地，泣鬼神之作。最後上的是一個伊麵。伊麵平淡乏味，加上十分乾身，食了一半已食不下肚。這裡唯一值得讚是逢星期一至四有湯送，先到先得。個湯味道幾好，是全晚的highlight所在。

18 Grams (銅鑼灣)

Finally decided to pay a visit on this hottest coffee shop in Hong Kong to see why there are so many 'likes' on open rice.

We came at around seven o'clock and the place was already half-fulled. We ordered two pasta and a latte. I would judge this place based on 1) drinks 2) food 3) environment and last but not the least 4) customer service

1) Latte Quality – overall speaking, the latte was nice and smooth. Latte was served in traditional Aussie way in which the drink was poured in a glass and you can clearly see that they have the right milk foam of 10mm on top of the milk and coffee mixture. The latte art was so so as I only got a rosetta on top. One thing worth mentioning was that unlike other coffee chain stores, the milk in here was steamed at the ideal temperaure which the milk has just started to caramelize to make it sweet enough to drink without adding any sugar. I hate drinking coffee with temperature over 70 degrees and that explained why you hardly find me drinking coffee in those chain stores.

2) Food - I had a spaghetti bolognaisse. The first impression I got was that the dish was small! The taste of it was under my expectation as the meat sauce was not juicy enough and the taste was rather weak. The melted cheese have improved the taste a little bit though but overall speaking, the taste was only marginally acceptable to me.3) Environment - the environment was freaking awesome! Although the chair was quite small and not that comfortable, all those decoration gave me a cousy feeling and that was what my ideal coffee shop would look like. 4) Customer Service - when I asked for a water, the waiter told me that it is self service! Although she replied in a polite way, it did no harm to offer to help to serve the water to the customers.

Overall speaking, if the food in 18 grams improved, it can challenge BJ to become my favourite coffee shop one day!

Ruby Tuesday (九龍灣)

Ok, this was actually my first time to come to Ruby Tuesday and let me give a commentary on their food.

Before I came to this restaurant, I thought they have the same price range as other US / Australian restaurant like Outback, and so when I read the menu, it gave me a bit of a shock. The price is nearly double to Outback menu!

Ok, price for value, it was no harm to have a luxury meal for once in a month. We have ordered a pasta (forgot the name of it), a set of three mini burgers and a steak. Initially, I ordered a steak which was of value $2xx but then the waiter recommended us to upgrage to the deluxe steak which cost about $350 and so we did as the waiter claimed that it tasted so much better than the $2xx one.

The service was fantastic as there were not too many customers by the time we come.

After about 15 to 20 minutes, our pasta arrived. The taste was creamy and above average but definitely not to the level which I would come back for a second round. Next come the mini-burgers. The beef patties were quite juice but if you asked me for recommendation, I would say the burgers in Shake em Buns are way more delicious than them. The crab meat burger doesn't taste like western food at all and it remind me of the crab shell they offered in chinese restaurant!Lastly came the deluxe steak. Ok this was actually the best dishes among the three we have ordered and the taste was great. To me, i would give it a rank the same as the one I had in Wildfire two weeks ago. However, the price of it was really high and so if there was a Wildfire nearby, there was no point I would come to this restaurant.Before we asked for the bill, the waiter offered we to join their membership as we would have a discount of something like 50% off. Wow, now this makes sense on why there are so many customers. I would say this restaurant is definitely worth to visit if you join their membership. However, for those non-members, it would only be a one to two time visit.

頭啖湯私家廚 (佐敦)

位於佐敦的頭啖湯，看見其名，固之然聯想到他是一間以湯會友的餐廳，今次一於要試試他能否做到以前阿二靚湯的質數。

今日的例湯是西洋菜煲唐排，餸方面我選了清蒸鯇魚。

不消一會湯便來了。湯是原盅上的，教我萬二分期待。我拿起湯匙，把熱窩窩的湯送入口中細意品嚐。從我三十多年喝湯經驗，這湯只可算是不過不失。這湯是否真的原盅煲的我有點保留，整體來說這湯不像坊間的老火湯一樣味濃。

鯇魚方面，味道是十分好的，魚肉也蒸到恰到好處，魚肉也很彈牙。只可是店員姐姐給了我一碟接近魚頭的部份。換了是我嫲嫲的話一定開心到見牙唔見眼，但我這些八十後又怎懂食骨的樂趣，食了兩啖後我已無肉可食，看來要買定多點乾糧留代三点三食。