Queen of the East for vegetarian dishes

This restaurant used to be in ShauKeiWan on the East side of Hong Kong so it was too far for me but now have moved to Causeway Bay which is good news for people in the city.



The restaurant is peaceful and relaxing.
Here was what I had and it was impressive they had a good variety of nutritious fungi in the dishes and not boring mushrooms such as shiitake.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Sauteed Chinese yam, okra and fungus in black truffle:



I loved this dish because it had my favourite okra and Chinese yam as well as prized fungus which had a light and viscous texture tossed in a fragrant truffle sauce.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Deep fried taro paste wrapped in seaweed and beancurd skin:


They tasted great without the sweet and sour sauce and personally I would have liked a spicy or savory sauce for dipping.
Interestingly, they tasted like oysters with a coconut aftertaste.

★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Black tiger paw dish:


This was similar to the truffle dish above but it had tasty black tiger paw fungus which was earthy and meaty in taste tossed with spicy chilis that made this dish spicy.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Fried rice with ginger and vegetables:


The fried rice was good because the finely diced courgettes and carrots gave it sweetness and the preserved vegetables added a salty kick but the ginger could not be tasted.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Vegetarian mock sharks fin dumplings:

The dumplings had a light thin skin with juicy diced vegetables inside.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Osmanthus pudding:

The pudding was really sweet loaded with wolfberries and longnan berries.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Almond soup:

The almond soup was slightly bitter with lots of lotus seeds and white fungus in the soup.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★

Queen of the East:
25/F Circle Tower, 28 Tang Lung Street, Causeway Bay

The difference between Macaroon and Macarons (Pret A Manger)

I have always wanted to write about macaroons but not many places have them.
Thanks to <<IVY>> for getting me these from Pret.

Macaroons are coconut based and mainly made up of desiccated coconut whereas macarons are made of egg whites and almond.

The macaroons tasted like a bounty bar and there was so much coconut in it.

The labelling is quite amusing!~

purple dream at Small Potato Ice Creamery

Went here because of the purple potato softserve.
Attempted to go before but there was a big crowd so I didn't bother wasting my time so went another day when there was less people.
As I was greedy I went for the mix which was salted caramel and sweet potato but unfortunately there was more salted caramel icecream than sweet potato which can only be seen on top so I couldn't really taste the sweet potato.

The doriyaki filled with sweet potato was nice though and not too sweet.
I will definitely come back again for the sweet potato icecream on its own

Troisieme La Creperie dans L'Hong kong

I was excited when this third branch opened after two successful branches in Hong Kong.
Apart from Hong Kong, they also have branches in Shanghai!
Since my last visit, there are other dishes as well as crepes.
The restaurant was laid out with wooden tables and chairs, lighthouse salt and pepper shakers just like the other branches.





It was like walking into a restaurant by the seaside.
As they have just opened, there were not many people and gradually the restaurant got busy into the evening.
There is a lot of promotion on French food this month because of the LeGourMay so I was able to try some special galettes.

I had the duck confit galette and a sweet crepes.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆
La cannette:

This was a savory galette with duck confit, emmenthal cheese, bell peppers fondue and its piment d'espelette jelly.
The galette was crispy and chewy with evenly sized holes on the surface. The confit was delicious with a hint of sweetness from the bell peppers and there was a hint of spiciness from the chili jelly.
Duck in French is Canard which is why this is called a cannette as it is a galette.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆
Jus de Citron

I know there were lots of fancy crepes on the menu but I just wanted something simple so I chose this which just had lemon, butter and sugar.
The crepe was chewy and the lemon juice made me hungry again.
I loved the strong lemon juice taste.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆
Strawberry fizz:

To finish off I had the strawberry fizz which was fruity and cooling.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆

Ruined by the presentation at Chung Kee Dessert

Went here randomly because there was no queue.
There were quite a few interesting desserts such as green tea jelly noodles.

Mint chocolate oreo which was sold out (typical).

Anyway, went for the glutinous rice roll.
When it arrived, they ruined the presentation by pouring the sauce on top, otherwise you would have seen the rice roll and sweet potato filling as shown below.



There was too much ice which was annoying.

Overall the glutinous rice tasted nice because it wasn't too sweet and the cream went nicely with it but the sweet potato filling in the middle was too sweet.
Luckily the dessert wasn't too expensive.
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Chaoshan delights at 心夜來潮

It just so happens that two Chaoshan eateries have opened around the same time and I was planning to go there for the vegetable tea.
I ended up going to this after trying 粿煞好味.

Got there too early and they were not open yet but according to Openrice their opening hours are from 11am to 3am so I didn't expect them to be closed around 6pm.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Vegetable tea:


Previously tried a failed version at Tea academics which was sweet.
http://www.openrice.com/en/hongkong/review/wan-chai-the-tea-academics/2413382
The vegetable tea here was really nice and wholesome with finely chopped snow peas, vegetables, Chinese sausages, puffed rice, peanuts and glass vermicelli.
I really enjoyed it because it reminded of me minestrone but in Chinese form!
Compared to 粿煞好味, it tasted lighter and less oily with a strong vegetable taste.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Salted crab and urchin with rice:

It was meant to be salted oysters, salted crab and salted urchin but they ran out of oysters so they gave me extra urchin instead.
It was really salty so you only need a tiny bit to go with rice.
The urchin had a creamy bitter taste which was quite nice but the piece of crab was too tiny to get anything out of it.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Little rice dumplings:

I found the pastry too thick and the meat inside was a bit gritty.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
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 心夜來潮
Shop A,G/F, Skyline Tower, 18 Tong Mi Road, Mong Kok

Duck in brine at Ilis

The restaurant I wanted to go was not open so I was wandering around Austin Road and Hill Road but didn't discover anything interesting to eat.
There was the new Let's Jam place but I have already tried the Sai Kung branch.

Went here because the menu was rather weird, they had breakfasts, Japanese food and this salted duck which is not Japanese.


There were two dishes that were interesting, the salted duck and the marinated beef tendons.
I went for the salted duck.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆
Salted duck set:

The salted duck set cost $48 which is about right because the portion is not exactly big and it was bony pieces of duck.

It was quite nice because the duck was tasty but not salty and it tastes like duck that had been soaked in brine.
The rice was Japanese pearl rice which I don't like but it was ok and the soup was a mix of miso soup and Chinese soup with Chinese radish in it.

It was quite a nice meal but it wasn't very filling.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆
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The bill: $48