Shashlik Restaurant 10 years later

It's been about a decade since the last time we were here. Seems that time wasn't our last after all. Depending on how one interpreted that last post, it technically it still is because we didn't have any shashlik today. 😏 

The restaurant's ownership has been passed down to the sons of a previous co-owner. Things have changed a bit.

While the restaurant looked mostly the same, it also did look a little sharper.

Bread's as good as I remember. It's soft. And warm so that it melts the accompanying butter nicely.

The sweetness from the bread paired so well with the pat of salted SCS butter. Additional serving of bread and butter after the first complimentary one are 60 cents each. Because it was so good, we paid for it.

Borscht/borshch was not bad - with an extra scoop of sour cream. Beefy and tangy, smoothened by said cream.

Wanted to try some stuff that we've never had before. Like their stuffed portobello mushrooms, which were topped with minced chicken and I think bacon bits, slathered in a cheesy tasting milk sauce.

Finally tried the egg millionaire after seeing it on their menu for so long. It's chopped up hard boiled eggs with bacon and a bit of cheese that were baked in their shells. They taste exactly like how one would imagine them.

This was their baked fish in mushroom sauce. Menu states halibut. In a mushroom béchamel sauce. I'm not sure I can relate from the flavour of the sauce but it was creamy and not unpleasant as a whole. Did not taste bad.

What unexpectedly turned up as a pleasant surprise was their beef stroganoff. Tenderloin strips with a savoury brown sauce and soft melted onions. According to the menu, that's basmati chicken rice there but I couldn't quite tell. A little pricey methinks but it was delicious.

Beef & Liberty, HKIA

Haven't eaten at Beef & Liberty since that time at Wan Chai. This location at the airport was in the way so I wanted to know if they were still like before. Menu's a little different.

Their basic burger uses Raclette - which was what intrigued me. It's apparently just for the shop at the airport. 

I got one with bacon. The glaring omission to the burger was salt. Considering that there was cheese and bacon, this was woefully bland. Seriously. I had to salt the meat to normalise the flavour. The other thing that bugged me were the caramelized onions which were a dominant flavour. It made me feel like I was eating a raisin burger.

While it didn't taste bad after the salt, I was somewhat disappointed with it.

What I didn't expect was fish & chips. It's called the Cod Father. Beer and vodka battered MSC Alantic cod they mentioned. Comparing with Smiths, the batter's a little dense here and not as well flavoured. One could easily excuse that since they aren't known for fish & chips. What's I loved about it were the fries, house made tartare sauce and their mushy peas.

Wouldn't say that I'm a big on mushy peas in general but these were minty and buttery and it's also now on the top of my list for mushy peas. 😬 The other memorable ones being the one from the old Lad & Dad when they were in Maxwell and those from the defunct Portico.

Sun Heung Yuen (新香園), Kweilin Street, Sham Shui Po

Came to Sun Heung Yuen (G/F, 38 Kweilin Street, Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong, tel : +852 2386 2748) after hearing about their allegedly delicious minced beef and omelette sandwich (a.k.a. their 馳名蛋牛治 on the menu). Those are apparently a thing here. 

A piping hot 茶走 to start.

What came as an unexpected and pleasant surprise was their beef brisket macaroni. First thing that reeled me in was the piping hot beefy broth. And then the tender beef briskets. I could come back just for this.

This was their signature beef sandwich. Today, I have confirmed that it's regular minced beef and not corned beef. I'm not a fan of what most of the char chaan teng calls fresh or minced beef because by tradition in the way of prep, they're sodium bicarbonated to death leaving behind a smooth, unnaturally textured and bland-ish protein I wouldn't call beef.

This one wasn't as bad as some but it was still processed. And there's a sweetness in it that I didn't like. Edible but will not come back for it.

Their rendition of company/club sandwich (公司三文治) features the same minced beef omelette with ham and luncheon meat.

Lok Yuen (樂園), Kowloon City Municipal Services Building, Kowloon City

Breakfast at Lok Yuen (3/F Kowloon City Municipal Services Building, Kowloon City, Hong Kong, tel : +65 +852 2382 3367). Their menu at this shop has a bit of variety which consists of ingredients that are put together in various permutations. Just like many of the bing sutt or char chaan teng.

While they've caught up with a QR menu for ordering, payment here appears to be cash only still.

Red bean with bottled milk. Kinda nice.

I was curious about this one.

Satay beef stuffed in French toast with butter and condensed milk drizzled over. Not so different from eating a fried bao with the sweet meat fillings. It's not bad.

Lok Yuen's special stir fried noodles feature bits of chopped up luncheon meat, pickled mustard, fried egg, spring onions and cabbage. A little pricey but portions were good and I enjoyed this.

Milk tea with almond. I saw them adding the almond powder into their brewed tea. The beverage turned out to be pretty viscous with both the flavour of the almond powder and the tea coming through. For the benefit of those that may not be aware, the almond referred to here is Chinese almond which are actually apricot kernels.

Lemon tea's pretty astringent. But that's how we usually like it.

Wing Kee (榮記茶餐室), Yuk Wah Crescent, Tsz Wan Shan

Wing Kee (Shop A-B, G/F, 12 Yuk Wah Crescent, Tsz Wan Shan, Hong Kong) is known for their satay meat noodles and claypot rice. We trekked uphill from Diamond Hill MTR and was disappointed to discover that there were no claypot rice dishes as it was a public holiday. 🥲 The friendly proprietor did furbish us with how to get some the next time though.

Note to self: 

• claypots only available from 5pm

• not available on Sundays and public holidays because they close at 5pm
• not available on 1st/15th of every lunar month.

First time having ginger Horlicks. Both the ginger and Horlicks were a little thin here.

That's their claypot satay beef instant noodles. It's apparently a thing for those who're in the know. For some reasons, I had the idea that the satay gravy would be viscous. It wasn't. There were bits of crushed peanuts and toasted garlic in it which added flavour and the taste was somewhat more intense, but otherwise, it was kinda similar to the regular satay beef noodles. Didn't think was bad tasting. That being said, I also probably wouldn't get them again. 

The menu described this sandwich to contain minced beef and smoked meat. The minced beef component was corned beef - which we had already guessed. But the smoked meat wasn't the sliced pink sludge that's commonly used. I'm not sure what ham this was but it was indeed a little smoky and better tasting than the regular variety.

Dinner at Kam Wah Cafe (金華冰廳)

First time getting dinner at Kam Wah Cafe. Admittedly, this wasn't one of the better dinners we've had.

Their rendition of yang zhou fried rice (扬州炒饭) had char siew, shrimps, ham and cabbage. In terms of ingredients, it looked to be much better than the majority back home. But it was too oily and a little too bland. The suitable adjective to describe it is 'edible'.

Also couldn't get behind Kam Wah's rendition of xing zhou mi fen (星洲米粉). Turmeric laced, spicy and a tad too oily. Tasted nothing like the version back home which we much prefer. Why the bell peppers? The flavour profile of this plate tasted...Portuguese.

The club sandwich (公司三文治) was a better eat than the other two things we got above. Should've just stuck to this.

Thankfully as well, their 茶走 remains a reliably good cup of creamy aromatic tea.

Tonight's a valuable lesson about how a nice breakfast spot we like doesn't necessarily agree with us during dinner. All the greasy burps we got was enough incentive telling us that we should never come back for any of their post breakfast food.

Mon Kee Cafe (旺記冰室), Tung Choi Street, Mong Kok

Dinner at Mon Kee Cafe (Shop 7, G/F, Block B, Hung Fai Building, 2Q-2Z Tung Choi Street, Mong Kok, Hong Kong, tel : +852 2894 8268). These guys have a stall at The Food Place at Raffles City that's been generating a crowd that I don't understand.

Teas. The one at the bottom was ginger milk tea. I asked for extra ginger juice and after emptying the little pitcher of it, I realised how much real ginger juice it took just to get the flavour to be prominent through the tea and milk. Makes me wonder how Indian masala/ginger tea is made back home.

XO pork chop rice - decent tasting I suppose. Pork chop was tender enough that only spoon was needed to cut it. That XO sauce was pretty good with rice though. That being said, it's not something I'd look forward to again.

Our order of tomato broth macaroni came with buttered toast and scrambled eggs. 👍🏼

That's the mentioned tomato broth macaroni with luncheon meat. I ended up liking this more than I thought I would.

Little Rogue Coffee, Yong Siak Street

Lunch at Little Rogue Coffee (27 Yong Siak Street). These guys have been around and previously operated at Tanjong Katong before moving here. They appear to be another mostly all day breakfast-y food kind of place. This spot which they're occupying used to be Soi 47.

Not bad breakfast spamwich. Eggs, spam, hash brown, cheese and mustard. It has that combination of fat, salt and protein that made it pretty easy to like and there're no surprises here. 

From what I gathered, they're known for their scrambled eggs with ikura. Also pretty good. The eggs were creamy and purposefully flavoured with the brininess from the ikura and some richness from the truffle cream. Nice with the buttered sourdough.

There's espresso tonic here.

Maple thyme hotcake was delicious. Love the crusty texture on the edges. Flavour of the herb came through the hotcake. Think that was a miso caramel sauce drizzled over. Ice cream was Earl Grey.