Chinese Laksa @ 壹麵館 Eat Garden

This restaurant is always packed with people, and it never crossed my mind to try this place.

However, there were not many customers that day, so I gave it a try.

I entered the restaurant as you would normally do, however I waited for ages and no-one came to take me to a table.
After a while, someone finally took me to a table, and then I tried to order, but it turns out you have to go to the counter and pay for it then sit down.

After discovering that, I went to the counter and ordered a Laksa including a drink for $28.

Then after a while I was served and had no expectations for this place.
I made the mistake of ordering ramen because the noodles looked like Shanghai noodles and instant noodles would probably taste better with the laksa soup.
The fried egg was so Chinese and the presentation could have been better without those chilli oil spots splattered all over the rim of the bowl.

Poshed up Chinese noodles @ 麵創坊 Noodle Concepts

Interestingly this neat little restaurant is dressed up like a European restaurant serving chinese noodles.

From colander light shades to wooden tables, chairs, and wooden frame windows, the whole setting is very similar to Toast box, especially the one at Tai Koo Shing.
Their noodles distinguish themselves from other chinese joints by being garnished with bitter lettuce leaves used in European salads.

Ordered thick and thin noodles with dried fish and dried shrimp roe, served with lamb and fishcake.

Both the noodles were rather small in portion, but the taste was ok. Forgot to order the spicy sauce as well, but was impressed with the range : Sambal, chili and some other one which I forgot.

Finally had the foie gras in chinese wine, it was well soaked with wine, served on a plate, not grilled.
The texture was like ice-cream, that melts in your mouth, and without the oilyness as it was not pan-fried.

Overall, this place is good, but depends what time you go, as it can get rather noisy and the staff can't hear what you want to order.
But then Hong Kong is limited in floor place, and owners are more concerned on closely packed tables rather than spacious relaxed dining.

Massive fish balls @ Cheung Chau's 時來食坊

normal and giant sized fishballs in 2nd pot

 

These fish balls are roughly the size of golf balls.

Tried the spicy version, and only the outside of the fishball was hot.
The shape of it is not exactly perfectly round, abit like a fat round droplet.

As for the taste, it tasted of cuttlefish and fish, but it didnt taste that fresh.

Cheap ping pong sized Wontons @ 權記雲吞麵

 

I am surprised that this shop does not have many reviews, despite they have many branches on the HK Island in Central, Western central and North Point.
They are famous for $10 noodles with wonton.

I remembered that there was another branch on Wan Chai road, only because of the $10 promotion, but I never ventured in there because the weather was too hot or there were too many people inside. Anyway that store has now closed down, and the remaining branch in Wan Chai is this one.

As well as this one, there are also some other noodle shops beside it and the popular Nam Kee across the road.

I never noticed this place because it is hard to stop by and the pavement is so narrow that there is only enough space for one person.

This is last branch in HK that sell the noodles at $10 per bowl, the rest of the branches have raised their prices.
The prices at the other places are around $12 for a bowl of noodles, and there used to be eight branches on HK island, now 7 after the one in Wan Chai road shut down.

Basically the choice of noodles are vermicelli, ho fun and the wonton noodles.

wontons

 

It’s the usual Chinese noodle taste, nothing spectacular, the noodles just act as a filler.
Unless the broth makes the noodles taste good, or the noodles are different, there is nothing to mention in my point of view.
This is probably why there is always pots of chilli oil, red vinegar and fish sauce around for people to use.
However the wonton noodles here are ok, they are nice and soft not like elastic bands.

 

Their wontons are good!! They are very big and contain at least two intact prawns inside, some of them may not be de-gutted but as it only costs $10, you can’t really expect much.
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The beef balls and pork balls (gung yuen) taste ok, same with the squid balls.

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beef balls

 

pure white squid balls

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pork balls

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The seaweed soup is quite nice, however the seaweed may contain sand.

 

Seaweed soup

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The dace fishballs were ok, the texture is similar to the steamed beef balls found in dimsum.
There were lots of silvery and white bits in the dace ball, bones and fish scales, so it wasn’t that edible to me, but apart from that it does taste nice.

Dace fishballs and fish skin dumplings

 

The dumplings wrapped in fish skin were good too, slightly oily inside. It would be good if you could get fried dumplings wrapped in fish skin, I reckon that would taste quite nice, and the fish skin would taste nicer after frying.
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They also do fish cake slices with noodles sprinkled with plenty of spring onions.

fishcake slices

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