Honbo - the burger joint on elevated ground behind a tree in Wan Chai

I seldom use Google Maps in Hong Kong but I did for Honbo (G/F New Sun House, 6-7 Sun Street, Wanchai, Hong Kong, tel : +852 2567 8970). That and that I had to exercise a little instinctual navigation in spite of the app. After we found it, we realized that it wasn't so hidden. It's just on elevated grounds behind a tree.

Words like homegrown, grassroots and perhaps indirectly - a touch of locavore-ism is being hinted at for their food which showcases what can be done from local farmers and brewers. Vegetables that are harvested from Yuen Long, milk buns that are supposedly baked 15 minutes away and maybe that USDA beef doesn't quite count here.   

That's that Honbo burger, 2 X 2oz smashed looking beef patties with more surface ratio for the flavour from char and crust. There's onions which I thought was nicely done with a sharpness cutting through the meat and cheese along with house brined bread and butter pickles. We asked for less sauce and less sauce was actually perfect. Buns held up well.

Cheese burger featured 1 X 4oz patty. There's lettuce and as far as I can tell, those and the single patty was the major difference with this and the Honbo. An ounce or two more of that beef would be nice-r but I think I can live with their balance. Flavours weren't unnecessarily complicated and I thought these guys did a good job with being straight forward.

I even liked their crisp shoestring fries.

Found a nice local brew by Coco Espresso and Carbon Brews. It's a stout as far as I'm concerned with hints of coffee - a chocolate-y bitter aroma with the malt which I enjoyed. Been a while since I've had beer from a can and thought well of it.

Cafe Seasons (四季常餐), Wellington Street, Hong Kong Central

This cafe (Shop C, G/F Sunwise Mansion, 112-114 Wellington Street, Central, tel : +852 3594 6612) was relatively new but they've gotten their marketing game on with social media. That was how we found out about them.

Their menu doesn't have very much. We were here at breakfast for their bun with corned beef, scrambled eggs and cheese. That sandwich was much lighter and easier to inhale than appearances belied. It had the prerequisite fat and salt along with energy providing carbs that made breakfasts and yes, I'd come back just for this again.

There's regular toast with scrambled eggs and luncheon meat as well. Those were also as delicious as they looked.

Note to self, there's no 茶走 here. Only regular milk tea.

Mei Garden (味苑), Lockhart Road, Wan Chai

I noticed this restaurant (128 Lockhart Road, Wan Chai, tel : +852 2880 0112) last year and made a note to come back. So here we were. After a bit of searching online, we found out that Mei Garden is a homegrown brand that isn't run by any conglomerate. This outlet and the original from Tsuen Wan were all there is of them.

This dish was described as honey baked spare ribs with preserved olives. I liked them. Whatever preserves they had used reminded me of preserved plums or lemons. That and the caramelized sweetness from the honey pretty much made these ribs. 

We had claypot lettuce. What we didn't see coming was that the lettuce was cooked with dried prawns. Not those little dried shrimps that's commonly in use but meaty strips of dried large prawns. The flavour from those along with garlic and whatever else they put in made it a very umami vegetable dish which was great with steamed rice. 

Those above were deep fried beef briskets with crispy batter. Pretty tasty with the sweet sauce that was provided but I thought they could have done better with slightly thicker slices for texture.

The sweet and sour prawns with peaches were a letdown. For some reasons I was thinking that the prawns would not be battered. There was too much soggy batter and on top of that, their rendition of the sauce was mundane. We had to scrape all those gooey batter off to get to the prawns which we subsequently dipped in the broth from the claypot lettuce.

Those canned peaches were nice though. Haha!

With all the flavour going on, steamed white rice was a no brainer.

Some strong jasmine tea helped with the make believe that we had washed away some of the grease from the food. 

Complementary dessert from the restaurant when we got the bill.

Sun King Yuen Curry Restaurant (新景園咖喱小廚), Spring Garden Lane, Wan Chai

We read about this eatery (G/F 20 Spring Garden Lane, Wan Chai, tel : +852 2574 9172) known for their pork chop rice with curry and its crowd, but nothing prepared us for the crowd like the actual crowd. There are two queues at the front of the restaurant; it would be prudent to understand that one of them is for take away orders. Also be prepared to share tables.

They've a bunch of things on their menu but the majority of the people seemed to be ordering pork chop rice with curry and rice noodles stir fried with beef. We skipped the latter because we thought it glistened too much for us to be comfortable with the grease. The pork chop was delicious. Tender, boned in, a little sweet amidst the savoury and had a mixture of meat and fat without excessive grease on the breaded exterior. Whew! Still trying to understand their curry which I believe is a local rendition that I personally haven't gotten used to.

Going against the grain of the lunch crowd and by the recommendation of one of the wait staff, we ordered some stir fried vegetables with shrimp paste. It was actually a lot more than just shrimp paste that were stir fried with the vegetables. There were also cut chilli, garlic and small dried shrimps which added a load of tasty flavours. The vegetable was called tong choi by the lady that recommended us - it's also commonly known as kang kong in the southern part of Asia. The portions were pretty damn large as well.

Sing Heung Yuen (勝香園), Mee Lun Street, Hong Kong Central

I've been curious about tomato noodles for some years now. It's apparently a thing. So we ended up in Sing Heung Yuen (G/F, 2 Mee Lun Street, Central) to find out definitively if it was also our thing or not.

There're a mind boggling number of combinations that one can get with these tomato noodles. The idea is to choose the noodle type and then melt your brains with the options of available toppings. This bowl had luncheon meat, hot dogs and fried egg. The luncheon meat was delicious - tasted like those from Hoi On Cafe. The broth was a mixture of something and tomato so it was savoury yet tangy. This tasted pretty much like how it looked.

It wasn't half bad.

We ordered a crispy pork chop bun with egg for good measure. Fried omelette, sliced tomato, pan fried pork and mayo in a crumbly dry bun. It was okay. 

Hot coke with ginger and lemon was awesome though.

Beef Sukiyaki Don Keisuke, Kee Seng Street

Keisuke Takeda has a few non ramen shops. The Gyoza King, the Tendon Ginza Izuki and even a hamburg place which I haven't been to. This outfit for sukiyaki don (#01-01 Onze, 11 Kee Seng Street, tel : +65 6535 1129) is his newest and another one of his non ramen places. 

If you didn't catch that correctly the first time round, it's sukiyaki don, not sukiyaki. There's only counter seating available and there're only 14 seats. 

The menu was simple. The only thing to order was their sukiyaki don and the only options were basically US Prime beef or Kiwami wagyu which also mentions that it's Yonezawa A4 from Japan. I'm a little confused here.

There's goma tofu and aka miso soup which comes with each order. The egg (soft boiled) they provide is for pouring over the donburi rather than a dip for the meat.

The US Prime beef sukiyaki don is served in the silver bowl. The donburi also has cabbage, shimeiji mushrooms and tofu. What I loved were the left over "sukiyaki drippings" from the beef which was provided as extra sauce for each bowl.

The wagyu bowl sat in the golden bowls. Between this and the US Prime, we preferred this. The meat was pretty much disintegrating in the mouth after you've popped them in and didn't have any the chewiness.