MISOCOOL reminds me of Wagamama

Well, thought there was only one Misocool in HK, but there is one in Staunton Street, despite finding out too late, I still went to the Quarry bay one.

Quite an array of restaurants there, Epoch, Habitu, Misocool, and even KFC on that road.

Got there early in the evening, was allocated to this communal type large table, the décor and settings reminds me of WAGAMAMA http://www.wagamama.com/
At Wagamama, there are huge long tables, where people sit in rows with people opposite each other, and they are also specialists in noodles as well.

Anyway back to Miscocool, I ordered the White carrot gyozas, Stir-fried ink noodles in soup, Spicy Konjac noodles in soup, and a Miu Miu Berry (Strawberry milkshake).

The gyozas, was the main attraction that drew me to Misocool, normal gyozas are wrapped like dumplings, however these gyozas are minced gyoza fillings in between a folded sliced white carrot.

Presented on a plate with a drop of Japanese mayonnaise and fish roe on top. The gyoza is crunchy and the white carrot on the outside has been pan-fried. When dipped in the soy dipping sauce, the taste of white carrot is more evident, as the crunchiness has been softened by the soy sauce.

With or without sauce, it tastes good, however I prefer without the sauce, so that it tastes crunchier.

As for the noodles, they tasted OK, the spicy konjac noodles tasted like bean thread noodles but thicker and chewier. The noodle shape was long and cylindrical a bit different to the illustrated pictures which was long and flat like tagliatelle.
The Konjac noodles, had a sugar centred egg (tong sum daan), my first time eating one as I always had the impression it was sweet, but it just tastes like a soft boiled egg with a slight runny firm centre .

The ink noodles was also good, the bowl was worth its price, full of vegetables, seafood, even found 2 clams, 4 prawns, squid, 2 scallops. The soup base was nice and milky, however the smell was slightly milky for me. The only draw back, was the noodles were hot in temperature all the way through, which took me ages to eat, and frankly food with high temperatures, you can’t really taste it.

Lastly the milkshake didn’t taste that nice, a bit fake, no ice-cream taste in it at all, or maybe the fake strawberry taste was just the strawberry ice-cream.

 

 

 

 

 

Yummy pancakes @ spaghetti house

Spaghetti house is not my usual pick for pasta and pizza, because their branches and locations is a bit off radar.

Anyway, went to this one which is located right in front of a bus stop with long queues of people waiting for the bus, so you need to get past the people to enter the door.

I ordered the afternoon tea set, but couldn’t find the apple pie advertised prominently on their tea set menu cover, only available a la carte. I supposed it would be cheaper to just order the a la carte since I didn’t like the drinks.

Ordered the Squid ink rice with pork chops and apple, and the pancakes with peach and syrup.

The squid ink rice was very good, each grain of rice was distinct, and similar to the Japanese pearl rice, there was bits of fruit on top too, and melted processed cheese.

The pancakes were perfect too, haven’t had a decent pancake for along time, especially the Jif lemon ones, everything was the right sweetness too.

Pork with squid ink @ Mang Ambos

Finally found a quiet time to try this place, Filipino food is rather new to me, the last time I tried it was at Jolibee but that is commercialized Filipino food. I tried the pork with pork blood gravy, pork with squid and this vegetable dish.

The pork with blood gravy was rather smelly at first, but the gravy was nice, with little curds of blood in it, some of the pork was soft, some was dry.
The vegetable dish looked strong in taste from its sauce and colour, but it was quite gentle, there was dab of some red stuff, which turned out to be salty garlic and dried shrimp, probably to give the vegetables some flavour.

Overall, the food was Ok, felt a bit like school, served in those trays.

Christmas Turkey @ Spaghetti house

I was surprised they had special dishes for Christmas, so I ordered items from their seasonal menu.
Most of the items on the list were truffle related.

Ordered the Risotto in squid ink sauce with lamb and the turkey lasagne with truffle sauce.

The risotto is always consistent, however the lasagne was slightly different to how I imagined it to be, I was expecting the turkey to be finely chopped or at least shredded, and the lasagne served in a dish rather than a plate.
However it was slices of pasta sheets, and huge turkey slices (a bit like roast dinners with meat slices) and topped with cranberry diced jelly.
The truffle sauce wasn’t that strong, and there wasn’t much cheese either.

Tasteless soup @ 開心麵皇 Happy Face Noodles

Came here because of the noodle variety and the good reviews about their non MSG soups served with noodles.

Anyway I picked whelks in black peppar sauce, clams in Sake sauce, Abalone in Oyster sauce, squid ink noodles with various of toppings.

Whelks in black pepper sauce: these were slightly over cooked, but reasonably clean, had bits of crushed black pepper corns, tasted ok, however the portion was abit small.

Clams in sake sauce:these tasted the best, strong sake sauce, the clams were slightly different in anatomy to other clams, but not sure in what way.

Abalone in oyster sauce:
tasted like canned abalone, but at that price what can you expect, and also it was sliced for easy eating.

Squid ink Noodles:Order two squid noodles, both in fish soup, however the one I had was so bland, it was like water.
Totally bland compared to the reviews saying how good it was.
As for my topping, i chose pigs blood, bamboo pith, and fresh yam.

For drinks, the red / green juice was ordered, there was a white one too.
Basically they were made from the relevant coloured fruits, it was quite a big glass for $12.

 

Marks n Sparks squid ink pasta and Scotch eggs

1/7/2010
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/marks-n-sparks-part-2-e2096560

Came back for more treats, this time got prawn and pasta, cocktail sausages, porridge, cheese and cranberry.

Prawn and Pasta:
Tasted how it should, not the Hong Kong style sugary salads.
All in all, they all tasted great and the same as the UK M&S!

Saizeriya success in Hong Kong

Saizeriya is a success in HK since it opened, but it never drew my attention before.
Being located in Nan Fung plaza in TKO, I just assumed it was a local chinese-italian restaurant.

After seeing all those positive reviews on Saizeriya, I decided to try it someday, but the strange thing was, HK Epicurius hasnt reviewed it yet. After consulting HKE, it turns out he had a better deal trying it in China, it is nearly 40% cheaper than the already cheap prices in HK.

HKE’s review in China:
http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/commentdetail.htm?commentid=2051443

When I sat down and looked at the menu I realised it was a Japanese branch. It was established in Japan in 1968 and then opened their first overseas branch in China in 2007.
Other branches in HK are located in Tsz Wan San and Tsuen Wan.
The restaurant has been in the news in Japan for serving pizza with melamine-tainted dough from China in October 2008.
Saizeriya is not limited to Italian food; gratin and Hamburg steaks were also added to the menu

From the pictures posted by others, it didn’t really stand out against the other Italian places such as Pizza express or Amaroni’s so I was totally sceptical about the food there.
I also heard the food was ridiculously cheap too so I didn’t have the expectation it would taste good, the total bill for ordering starters and mains etc was under $100.

Ordered squid ink risotto, Chicken demi-glace, Prawn cocktail.

Squid ink risotto:The rice was nice and soft, although slightly bland.

Prawn cocktail:This salad tasted the best, especially the sauce, it wasn’t too sweet and the sauce may be slightly savoury for others.

Chicken with Demi-glace sauce:This was the highlight of the meal, tender and juicy chicken thigh with crisp chicken skin.
The sauce was interesting, it tasted like yellow bean sauce, however demi-glace is meant to be a rich brown sauce in French cuisine traditionally made by combining equal parts of veal stock and sauce espagnole.

Apart from the food served to your table, the rest is self-service, which enables the staff to primarily take orders and bring food faster to people.
The drinks are available at the drinks bar, which is self service, same with the condiments.
To pay for the bill, you need to bring the bill outside to pay.