New York - Caffe Falai

I guess I'm starting to understand what people mean when they tell me I come from a place where there's a vibrant cafe culture. There aren't streets after streets of little cafes in New York or Boston - there are diners, ethnic eateries, restaurants and chains. If you want a coffee, you usually go to Starbucks. There are as many Starbucks (and Dunkin Donuts, in the case of Boston) as Pret a Mangers in London. Scary.

I need places that are open for breakfast in the morning, right through lunch and afternoon tea, probably even early dinner that serve good coffee, light meals and are nice to sit in in between Olympic shopping sprees. Actually seemed kinda hard in the States. Maybe I'm just not "in the know", but it was with great relief that I found Caffe Falai. It's exactly what I wanted, and they have their own bread (probably not baked on the premises but I know the owner has eateries/bakeries elsewhere, like Falai and Falai Panetteria, which I also visited the next day).

Caffe Falai is a recently opened small 20-seater-ish place (definitely small in American terms - everything seems bigger over there haha) on the border of SoHo and Nolita, perfectly located for shopping. It's bright and airy, in an all-white space with two large shopfront windows facing Lafayette St. The fittings are probably best described as modern day vintage. Think granny's furniture, mirrors, and her tiny tile bathroom floor, but all white. Nice.

It's about 14.30 when I step in, a bit beyond the usual lunch peak, but Falai is humming along nicely. Guess I wasn't the only person who was attracted by the news on Gridskipper or wherever. Seat spacing is Parisian - i.e. be slim or it's elbow to elbow. How pompous, just like me! Haha. Nah, not really, it's actually really chill, but classier than sister store Falai Panetteria down in the slightly dodgy LES.

They have two menus, one for breakfast (all day as all good cafes should - 0800 to 1700 - yay!) and one for snacks and lunch - simple pastas, panini etc. Prices are very friendly; you can definitely leave for under $10 if you aren't starved. I order something entitled "root vegetable" under the insalate section, expecting a cold salad, and a minestrone. The vegetables were actually served hot, and in shallow pool of clear broth and were fresh, sweet, and perfect beyond description. They were all baby veggies - dutch carrots, brussel sprouts, parsnip etc. and despite it being late winter, seemed like spring vegetables. Really never had anything quite like it. Hopefully they'll keep up with the fresh ingredients, because that's what makes the dish.

The minestrone was good too - more like a stew than a soup and was great with the crusty fennel seed bread. It came in a quaint soup dish, complete with a cover. Coffee was decent, typically less strong than what I'm used to, as with every American coffee I've had thus far, plus they use the infamously smooth but hard-to-extract-flavour Illy.

Perfect perfect perfect is all I can say. Excellent value, swift service, and exactly what I want from a cafe. Better than the best in Melbourne (bar the coffee). Now that's saying a lot.

Caffe Falai
265 Lafayette St (near corner of Prince)
Soho, NYC
Tel: +1 917.338.6207

Mak's Wonton Noodles

I raved about how good the wontons are at Mak's on Wing Kut Street before, so to be fair, I went to the other more well known Mak's on Wellington Street as well, and in short, I can now say with complete confidence that the wontons at the Wing Kut Street store are better.

The two stores, despite sharing the same name, are actually separately owned, although I believe that initially, they weren't.

The portions at Wellington St. are smaller but cost more than at Wing Kut St. ($25 vs. $21). The up side is that this store is easier to find and is brighter, though both are just as cozy. The wonton soup at Wing Kut is undoubtedly more pleasing, with its savoury, peppery flavour, and the wontons themselves seem to have better prawns and tastier pork.

I guess that's all I can say - at least I know where I'm going for wonton noodles from now on.

Mak's Noodle Ltd.
G/F, 77 Wellington Street
Central
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2854 3810

Carb-conscious on the search for a breadwinner - Le Velo, Tufei Pain Pain, Lime Organics

(Read: Anorexic gold-digger on the loose... not.)

I LURVE bread, and all manner of carbs for that matter. Who can resist a perfect, steaming bowl of Japanese rice, a plate of hand-made pasta, or an excellent loaf of sourdough? (All can be hideously expensive) I don't know about you, but I can't anyway. They call these things 'staples' for a reason, you know. If I had to go on the Atkins diet, I think I'd rather be obese. Besides, there are so many different diets out there. Maybe an all-carb diet would work too?

Anyhoo, this post isn't about dieting. (None of my posts will ever be about dieting or pro-dieting at least. Bomb me if I ever do it.) It's about my recent bread-hunt. It just so happens I found out that there are two reputedly good bakeries within walking distance of my office. Both names take inspiration from French, which is appropriate I suppose, since the French do indeed eat a lot of bread and thus make plenty of it, but by no means are they the only leading baking nation. Italy, Germany, India, China even, has their own bread-making history. I guess people in this city too often associate good food with French culture. The owners probably went to France and fell in love with the bread there. If they'd gone to Italy instead, I'm sure they would have loved the bread there too. One place is called Le Vélo (The Bicycle) and the second is called Tufei Painpain (tufei = burglar in Mandarin, pain = bread in French). Both are bakeries (i.e. bake on site) and have a café on the same premises.

Le Vélo's café of about 25 seats was absolutely packed when I wanted to go in (around 1330) - I came at this time on purpose, thinking that all the nearby office people would have left by then - so I took a stroll around the neighbourhood (very uninteresting - Le Vélo shares the street with old lightbox (advertising) manufacturers and plastics wholesalers - typical old Sheung Wan, of the non-tourist variety) and went back at 1400, by which time about half the customers had left. They offer set lunches other than sandwiches, but since I was there for the bread...

The sandwich options weren't very interesting - smoked salmon bagel, salami foccaccia, egg salad baguette (ew!) etc. I settled on a roast beef baguette. The set includes a starter of soup and a coffee/tea. All pretty standard. The layout of the café is pretty standard too. I wasn't expecting a place that screams "wonton noodle place". I'm exaggerating a little, but the cleanliness of the tables, floors and visible counter areas really have to be looked at. The soup comes with several slices of bread - I got one slice of baguette and two rye-looking ones with specks of candied orange peel worked into it. All were very chewy and slightly dry and stringy- I kept thinking they might have microwaved it because the outer surface of the slices seemed like they were beginning to dry. I even left a piece out for longer to see if it would harden. But it didn't, so the bread proves itself very chewy with abnormally strong strands of gluten. *ponders* The baguette that became my sandwich was much better. Although its exterior wasn't exactly crispy, it exuded a character more similar to a country-style loaf (campagnard) - doughy, dense, and bouncy without being tough. What I hate most about some baguettes is that you have to wrestle it to secure each bite. Coffee at the end wasn't too bad either, and their lattes are cheap in Hong Kong standards ($19 - stand-alone).

Tufei Painpain seems much less popular at lunchtime despite the fact that they also have lunch sets. IMO, there are two reasons. Firstly, it's way up on Caine Rd. in the highly residential mid-levels, up past the heart of SoHo. Secondly, it seems like it hardly ever opens. Their website says they're only open Wednesday through Saturday or something lazy like that. They must have picked that up in France... (j/k, no offense - artisans need their rest and time for creative thought haha)

No time for a sit down lunch today though (I'd spent too much time walking up the hill and buying coffee - a very good one, nonetheless - from Lime Organics on the way), so I bought a pain au levain and ate it on my walk back. It wins, hands down, as my pick for the bestEST bread in Hong Kong. For the time being, anyway. I know Lime Organics has bread every Saturday and there's a Chinese place called Gourmet Kitchen (I don't even know if it's still in existence...) that apparently houses an avid baker. But for now, I'm happy.

Le Vélo
9 Jervois St. **MOVED**
Sheung Wan
Hong Kong

Tufei Painpain
58 Caine Road **MOVED**
Mid-levels
Hong Kong
Open: Tues-Sun (so the website says...)

Lime Organics **CLOSED**
2 Elgin St
SoHo, Central
Hong Kong

Ce n'etait pas si bon - bonbon Cafe

A Cordon Bleu trained chef, very favourable reviews and cute décor have not, in this particular case, added up to a good dining experience.

The service people seem incapable of smiling - and that is the smallest of my complaints about them. Our bread was microwaved (for goodness sakes, bread loses its moisture and HARDENS as it cools if you heat it in the microwave), they gave us sherry glasses for our sparkling and some wine glasses were cloudy. Food was served before the previous course was finished (this is a tiny fourteen-seater, mind you), they referred to our post-meal coffee/tea as 餐飲 (a "meal drink" as in one you'd have with your happy meal at Mickey D's)... No, the service was not good. I should really be getting used to it in Hong Kong, but alas.

As for food, I could have been in any old restaurant - French, American, British, it wouldn't have made any difference. The most French thing on my plate of pan-fried pigeon was probably the sad-looking french beans, which were boring, but probably only because I'd had them at home for lunch earlier that day and seen them on the supermarket shelves looking all yellowy and unhealthy.

Apologies - the photos didn't turn out too well because of insufficient lighting, my reluctance to use the flash mode because I hate white light, and basically, a sh*tty camera.

Goat's cheese and hazelnut in filo

Okay, for an amateur cook like me, filo may be a little tricky to handle - sheets prone to ripping, keeping it all moist etc. But for a trained chef, it really shouldn't look like this - a piece of crumpled up paper from a five year-old throwing a tantrum. Tasted fine, but I'm a hazelnut freak. Put them on mouldy toast and I'll still eat it. Point made I think.

Sweet potato and apple soup

Looked and tasted more like apple puree for babies, but who said baby food was bad?

Pan-fried pigeon with foie gras

See what I mean by meat and three veg? And I think it really takes a photo to communicate how huge my prices of pigeon were. I think I've had duck that's smaller! Perhaps it was the knife, but I had a hard time sawing through it. To that end, I'd better get my teeth checked too. It was slightly undercooked, and scared my bird-flu conscious relatives away a little.

Creme brulée

Likely to be the only thing I can't complain about in the meal, which doesn't really say much. It was fine; the texture closer to the bottom was better than near the top - can anyone explain? Some sort of sedimentary effect?

To their defense, it was a public holiday, but on the same note, we did pay a hefty premium ($400/head as opposed to around $250). Percentage-wise, this is huge, and it's a big ask for a little café like this. I can't believe I gave up Commercial Radio's awards ceremony for this.

bonbon Cafe
G/F, Shop A2-A3
96 Electric Road (Enter form Tsing Fung Street)
Tin Hau
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2525 2523

In Hong Kong, health requires wealth - Life Cafe

The customer rep guy from PURE fitness (gym) called me the other day to remind me that my credit card entitles me to a reduced joining/monthly fee. I went into PURE about 3 weeks ago (?) for a free trial and I have to say, it's one of the best I've been to in Hong Kong. I can say this with a little authority because I had a lot of spare time on my hands when I first got back to Hong Kong so I did actually go and take advantage of quite a few of those "one-day free trials" out there. PURE costs quite a bit more than most of the other 'executive' clubs, but if you can afford it, it's worth every cent.

So I went in and had a listen about this deal, which turns out still to be about double of Fitness First and Seasons, so I suppose I'll have to give it a miss for the time being, considering my current situation.

A couple of days before this call, I visited a cafe on Shelley Street, next to Eat Right. I wonder if it was pure coincidence that these two cafes for the health-conscious are right next to each other. Maybe soon we can call Shelley Street "Vego Street"...

I remember reading about Life as a hippie kind of place with a Birkenstock-wearing clientele. When I read 'hippie', I think dreadlocks, sweeping beaded Indian cotton sari-like dresses, and colourful Tibetan prayer flags. To me, 'hippies' are vegans into raw food, and, in keeping with the theme of nature, marijuana. I imagined the café to be more of a crumbling (or at least made to look crumbling) wooden shack than the minimalist dark-wood ski lodge that it turns out to be.

The diners certainly aren't dreadlocked either; the look could indeed include Birkenstocks, but paired with hip leather biker jackets (animal activists: attack!) rather than faded, tie-dye cottons.

I've spent so much space to describe the customers because they better define the price range and target market of the café. Coming from Australia, where fresh produce is plentiful and organic is increasingly becoming the norm rather than a niche, the prices on Life's menu are a little astounding. The least expensive food items are the soup and dahl of the day, going for $35 for a small or $55 for a large (which, to their credit, lives up to the size). Both come with house bread, which was on this particular day, a yeast-free heavy millet-looking slice. (WTH do yeast-free and organic have in common anyway? What makes you think people who suffer from coeliac disease have to consume organic products? They're put together in the 'niche' category so often that you wouldn't be blamed if you thought it was common knowledge.) A serving of edamame beans, so often offered as a complimentary starter at Japanese restaurants, will set you back $45.

I went for salad, and was advised that a mini ($30) would only be a scoop and that the next size up (small) would be $75. The benefit of choosing this size is that you can choose a maximum of three salads, for a bit of variety, which was welcomed wholheartedly by this indecisive eater.

The roast pumpkin salad was great, the mushroom (white button - boring!) and potato was fine, the beetroot and chickpea, I suppose, would have been good for roughage, as the chickpeas seemed hardly cooked.

Although a little pricey, I must admit that the quality of the ingredients was very good on this visit, which is absolutely necessary for a place that offers so little in the way of culinary skill (salads, pizzas, simple noodles). For coffee, pop into Eat Right next door, unless half-heartedly frothed soy milk is your thing.

At least I left feeling I did something good to my body for once. Akin to a session at the gym, really.

Life Organic Health Café
10 Shelley Street
Soho
Central
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2810 9777

Wonton noodles - Not the Mak's you know

It's been ages since I've been to Mak's - almost forgotten how to get there. This isn't the one featured in tourist guide books, that one's on Wellington Street around Soho I think, and should be a lot larger (and a bit more expensive). This one's tucked inside the narrow Wing Kut Street, off Des Voeux Road Central, with street hawkers and random clothing stores as its neighbours. We got there at around 12.45 and I was half expecting there to be a line, especially because it's not much more than a hole in the wall, but to my surprise, we got seats straight away (albeit sharing a table with two other lone diners).

The waiter comes to take our orders before we even had time to settle on the tiny stools, which was fine since we both wanted the wonton noodles they're most famous for anyway. Wonton noodles come in two sizes, large or small bowls. Usually small is sufficient if you're not particularly hungry. At $21, it's a steal, especially since Wellington St is selling them for $25 (I think) and Tsui Wah (which isn't even a specialist wonton store) is probably asking around the $30 mark.

There are about five wontons in the small serving along with plain egg noodles that are excellent clean-cut strings. The wontons themselves have a similar fresh, almost crunchy quality that unfortunately does not seem to be able to be expressed by a word in the English dictionary. In Chinese it's 爽. The pasta around the dumpling is extremely thin, delicate and silky, allowing diners to see almost exactly all the ingredients within - which is mostly, a very fleshy and tasty prawn.

We even polished off the soup afterwards...

Mak's (Chung Kee)
Wing Kut St
Sheung Wan
(strictly speaking between Sheung Wan and Central, close to Central Market)

I can't believe it's not summer! - 798 unit & co

Hau Fook Street has always been a bit of a refuge for hungry shoppers on this side of the Victoria Harbour, since eateries along Canton Road can be pricey and/or unreliable, and a bit far from us 'hip' people (look, it's a euphemism, okay? No need to spell out that we can't afford a new Bottega every weekend...) who shop at Rise, and in and around Granville Road.

Then again, Hau Fook can be a bit boring, dominated by cheap and cheerful Canto outlets, with the dessert shop that everyone knows (I forgot the English name) as its only salvation.

Introducing 798 unit & co. - a new(ish) NY bistro type place in the heart of Hau Fook Street, right next to the groovy design/homewares store Homeless. According to my friend, 798 is in fact the Hong Kong outpost of a restaurant by the same name in NY. Anyone been (to the NY one)?

Located on the first floor, the dining room is quite spacious, especially by HK standards, featuring a stainless steel open kitchen at the entrance, where cakes are also displayed. There is an almost nautical feel with the round windows lining the side (painted black) of the space that looks out to HF Street, and mirrors on the back wall where several white banquettes are also located. Tables and chairs are simple solid wood that squeal and grumble like a kid and a grandpa rolled in one (though both would be quite unhappy making those noises) when moved upon the black and white tiled floor. Tables are sans tablecloth and with paper napery, but good basic silverware (as you would expect at any decent cafe, not to mention restaurant in say, Melbourne). Lighting is a little in sufficient for me, but then again maybe I'm just not enough of a romantic. One last comment before getting onto the food - the aircon is bloody freezing.

I've been here two times now, and my impression of the food, unlike the quality of food itself, has been quite consistent - not exactly up to scratch... sometimes.

The first time I went, I had a fennel risotto with some sort of fish, which was fine. I remember being glad that the risotto was actually cooked to the correct texture (though it was nothing amazing). It was the fact that fennel was on the menu that caught my eye. Ask someone at some so-called 'western' restaurants and they wouldn't have a clue what it is. That was the night I had a glass of wine off their winelist. I couldn't resist at $38 a glass (yes that is HKD), but just let me say, price can never determine quality, but can be suggestive of it nonetheless.

On my most recent visit the service was unattentive to say the least. Do they understand that the same course for people on the same table have to be served at the same time??? Just because I ordered roast chicken doesn't mean my friend's (mediocre) Thai-inspired risotto had to sit under the freezing aircon-created conditions for a full 10 mins (at least) before my dish arrived. errr, sir, ever heard of planning? Or even an apology?!

My roast chicken was fine - huge portion - about four to five pieces of honey-glazed roast chicken spruced up with paprika or something. A little too sweet for my liking, but the baby spinach (salad) underneath helped. For dessert we had banoffee pie (they spelt it 'banoffi' - more on menu proofreading should-haves later) which was very nice. The cream on the pie seems to have been chilled for a while and by the time we ate it, was marshmallowy, which suited me fine, although my friend said it was quite different from what she had on her last visit. We also had a lime pannacotta that was way sour - I only liked it because I'm the kind of person that basically drinks vinegar from a soup spoon with my xiao long bao and drowns my viet broken rice in nuoc cham.

They've changed the presentation of the menu since I last visited; added Chinese translations (not that that affects me as such) and updated some of their offerings, which is what all good restaurants should do. But apart from the 'Banoffi' incident, we noticed a pasta dish claiming to feature summer vegetables. I know winter isn't really wintry in this part of the world, but it certainly ain't summer any more by anyone's standards. Unless of course, they were using imported vegies from Down Under or the Kiwis, which I doubt. I can smell a hint of pretentiousness in the air...

The main thing to give them credit for is for their Hau Fook Street-friendly prices. Pastas go for about HK$60-90 for more than acceptable portions, and there has definitely been thought put into the food, just not enough care on the part of management - both within and beyond the kitchen. The wine list is horrific, but I guess they're just trying to keep within (customers') budget and good enough for most of the target market. But I mean, anyone in the right mind would not have wine in HK that costs $28 a glass, $140 by the bottle (pompous comment by me that night: "I usually have wines by the glass at the price of that bottle"). Okay enough said.

798 unit & co.
1/F 9 Hau Fook Street
Tsim Sha Tsui
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 23660234

Best Burgers in Town? - Main St. Deli

The festive season's come again and for some reason I'm getting hungrier and allowing myself to eat more. Yay for oversize clothes this season! Popped down to Main St. Deli at the Langham Hotel in TST for dinner - I'd been to their 'high-end' restaurant The Bostonian before and wasn't too impressed, so I wasn't really expecting much.

I think it was a Wednesday night - mid-week, nonetheless - but they were full. The waiter at the door asked to have my name to put on the waiting list and said it might be a half-hour wait because there were three to four other names on the list. (Possibly because of the trade fair on right now?) Really weird, because every time I walk past this place is near empty. Anyhow, seeing I had to wait for my aunt, I grabbed a copy of HK Mag and sat down. So my aunt (who suggested we come here and is pretty much a regular) arrives and is equally stunned that the place is full. She proceeds to hassle the girl (in a nice way - perhaps they recognised her), at which point a table leaves, and we get offered that table. So much for a waiting list haha...

The decor is, as the name suggests, very down-to-earth, although still quite American. Think Dan Ryan's with more lights plus a bit if art deco. The four-seater banquettes would be the best seats, but unless we wanted to be back on the lobby seats, a normal dining table it was.

The food - burgers, sandwiches, salads and grilled meats pretty much says it all; portions are at least 1.5 times of what is usually offered, i.e. very American. My aunt tells me that the Monster Burger is the best - a pretty 'standard' sort of beef burger with pickles, tomatoes etc. The burger varieties are pretty standard and if I remember correctly there's a vego one too. We order the most expensive one on the menu (one of the things you can do when dining out with aunties and uncles kekeke...), a wagyu burger with foie gras. Thank goodness we're 'supposed' to gain weight around Christmas. The wagyu, according to the manager there, is graded M7 - if that means Marble Score 7, then it's pretty damn good (max is 12, anything above 9 is great). In Australia, only really bad cuts and bad grades of wagyu are ground into mince for burger patties, and I've had a pretty bad one before at Urban Burger.

The foie gras is actually a foie gras terrine (which is usually cheaper and should have been indicated on the menu but wasn't), and although encased within the wagyu patty, makes no effort to stay inside it once you bite into the burger - it just comes oozing out. All very messy as the juices, oils and sauces start dripping and soaking the so-so bun, but at the same time extremely indulgent.

Along with a generously sized grilled chicken salad and a huge slice of NY cheesecake (both very decent), I felt like I didn't need to eat for the next three days (but of course I did and had custard buns for breakfast the next morning...)

I'd probably go back on a cold drizzly day when everything else seems to have failed me, because I know their burgers won't. Although I think I'll stay away from the foie gras (terrine) for a while.

I'm a little inspired for a burger hunt now. I've heard good things about the one at the Lobby Lounge of the Intercon...

Main St. Deli
Langham Hotel
8 Peking Road
Tsim Sha Tsui
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2375 1133