Hotel Light Lunch Buffet

Hotel buffet is general expensive. But I found a hotel light lunch today which is quite a good deal. Well, not only a good deal, I actually really like it.

It has a little bit of everything.  Although there aren't many varieties, it's good enough to fill my stomach, happily!

To start with, there is a toast maker and I can make my favorite toast with boiled egg, greens, salmon and hams.  There are not too many kind of vegetables, but they are fresh and of good quality. Varies dressings are available if you want to make a salad.

Smoked Salmon

Three kinds of hams and different kinds of cheese and there are some sausages as well.  If you love yogurt, there are plenty of them.

The fresh fruits are lovely.  We can take the cut ones or we can grab a whole apple or banana.

As for desserts, there are mini coconut tarts, and couple other puddings. Again, not many choices, but good enough to fill our stomachs.  The buffet includes coffee and tea which are refillable.

At the lobby of Kew Green Hotel, the restaurant is spacious and with comfortable seats and couple of bar tables.

As Kew Green is an English hotel management group, so we find some UK style things around.  In fact, this hotel is re-branded from the Metropark Hotel owned by China Travel Services. The hotel and restaurant is newly opened in early 2017.

Since the buffet lunch is really light, somewhat like a breakfast, the cost is relatively low.  In fact it is of very good value of money - HK$100 +10% per person.  In terms of food, environment and services, it is really a very good deal.  If you want a cozy place to sit comfortably with friends and enjoy a light lunch, I highly recommend this place.  At the heart of Wanchai, it is easy to find the place.

Kew Green Hotel

Address: 41-49 Hennessy Rd, Wan Chai 

Phone: 2861 1166

Hong Kong Food Blog - Hotel Light Lunch Buffet

Easter Seafood Buffet

My Easter Seafood Buffet is free.  In fact I haven't had buffet for sometime, due to my eating problem.  However I won some free coupon by luck draw, so I have this free buffet dinner.

Coupons usually have blackout dates, but I was lucky that hotel allowed me to book on Good Friday. The seafood buffet dinner is only served on Fri, Sat and Sun.  At the Garden Cafe of Conrad Hotel Hong Kong, the place is really nice.

There were I think at least four types of mini lobsters together with some crab claws.  Very fresh, but need to eat with hands and fingers.  But our table was pre-set with tongs, scissors and moist towel, everything we need to deal with the prawns and crabs.

Prawns and clams, but where are my beloved oysters?

Sashimi - well I'd love to have more choices.  So as the sushi rolls.

After all, these are my seafood collections.

It seems all the seafood were cold cuts.  Hot dishes were limited to pan fried Barramundi and a steamed Mandarin fish.  The stir fired mini lobsters were nightmare - the meat was somehow decayed! I wasn't able to find some hot vegetables, so I went on making my own Caesar salad.  Not bad at all, at least having some balance of diet.

The cold cut dishes are not bad at all, but I rather prefer more hot items.

There was an outdoor BBQ counter, serving sausages, chicken wings, lamb racks and some spare ribs.  May be this was the best hot items I could find.  I love sausages, so I had a big one.

On Easter holiday, I was expecting the restaurant to be full of people, but it turned the other way.  May be many people went overseas for their holidays.  As there were not many guests, we could get food and eat very relaxingly and of course with very intensive customer services. 

Finally, I manage to find out the cost of the buffet - HKD558 per person on regular days, HKD638 on holidays.  That means the one I had was HKD638 per person and 10% service charge.  I'm happy with everything, except I would want more choices of seafood, especially oysters as well as some more hot dishes.

Easter Seafood Buffet Dinner

Garden Cafe, Conrad Hong Kong

Semi Buffet Brunch

Eggs Benedict made my weekend brunch very special and I do love it.  In Hong Kong it's not easy to find quality genuine western food at reasonable price.  Recently I have had a very nice egg benedict from the Town Gas restaurant in Causeway Bay.

Town Gas is the sole supplier of cooking gas in Hong Kong.  It promotes real fire cooking, offers cooking classes and at he same time running a restaurant which emphasis 'cooking on real fire'.  Hence the name of the restaurant is called 'Flame'.

I went on Sunday when they serve semi buffet brunch.  The cost varies upon your choice of main course.  Salad bar and dessert on buffet table; soup, main course and coffee being brought to you by waiters.

Eggs Benedict - HK$128 (US$16.4)

 

My eggs benedict was very nice.  My friend's king prawn linguine was also very good.

 

Prawns Linguine HK$148 (US$18.9)

We had an option of upgrading the daily soup to lobster bisque by adding HK$20.  This was highly recommended by the shop manager, so we decided to give it a try.  It was good but personally I thought the taste was a bit too strong for me. 

Lobster Bisque (HK$20 surcharge)

The bread basket was also nice.  The crunchy fingers and warm breads served with homemade butter.

There were many cold dishes and we love green vegetables the most.  There were several salad dressings and I found the Balsamico to be the best, while my friend said their classic caesar dressing was really good.

Jet-Fresh Mesciun Mix Green & Fresh Romaine Lettuce

As for dessert, there were tiny cups of jelly, creme brulee, puffs and cakes.  Of course the creme brulee is always my favourite.

Creme Brulee

 

Having a cup of latte to wrap up our Sunday brunch was absolutely perfect.

Latte, cappuccino or any other kind of beverage at your choice.

 

Flame

G/F, 59-65 Paterson Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

Tel: (852) 2367 2710

www.towngasavenue.com

Paleo Breakfast

If Paleo diet sounds new to you, let me do a little briefing here. It is a diet that resembles what our ancient ancestors ate - foods from hunter gathering, wild game, seafood, fresh fruits, vegetables and nuts, whatever naturally from nature. There is no wheat, no grain, no rice, no pastry, no dairy.

What is special about Paleo diet and why I go on with it?  I have digestive problem, some of my readers did suggest Paleo diet to me.  But I’ve been doing well with intermittent fasting, so I’ve put this idea aside.  Recently I’m suffering from some seasonal allergy, my doctor suggested a number of holistic healing methods and one of them is to go on a temporary Paleo diet. 

Actually I don’t really fond of the idea of food restriction, as it is quite inconvenient when I have to eat with others.  So buffet is a good idea, as each one of us can eat whatever we love to eat.  Today I have a free coupon to eat at Café Too of Island Shangri-La.  Below is a summary of my Paleo breakfast.

Anna - Paleo Breakfast at Cafe Too, Island Shangri-La Hong Kong

One Egg Omlette with Ham and Mushroom

Vegetables and Meat Balls.  The string-like thing is not noodle, they are green bean sprouts.

Chicken Curry and Cucumber - I invented this combination!

Usually I do curry with rice, but on Paleo, I chose cucumber.

Poached Fruits - Prune, Apple, Appricot are very delicious and healthy.  The one next to appricot is a baby pear.  It's my first time to come across a pear of such size (like the fist of a new born baby).

Fresh Fruits to wrap up my Paleo Breakfast together with a cup of coffee.

 I'm still eating what I love to eat.  Not bad at all!

 

To do Paleo diet is not that difficult, but in the first few days, I do feel miss my favourite fried rice, fried noodle, pizza, hamburger etc.  After the first week, it becomes much easier.  As I’m not on strict Paleo, so I can still enjoy coffee and tea with a bit of milk.  However at the buffet table, I do miss my favourite toast.  Anyway, temporary food restriction is a test of my willpower.  I’m sure I can do it, especially I’m doing it for my health.

If you want to try Paleo diet, please understand this diet encourages weight loss.   I’m quite below par according to BMI, but I lost five pounds in the first week.

If you want to find out more about Paleo diet and learn prepare your own Paleo meals, here are some links for your reference.

 

Paleo Diet  Paleo Power Lunch  Paleo Cookbooks

 

Buffet Breakfast at Cafe Too: HK$298 + 10% service charge

7/F Island Shangri-La, Hong Kong

German Buffet in Wanchai

I love buffet, but good deals are not easy to find.  Some are too expensive, some are not my favourite taste.  German buffet is not too expensive, however the foods are quite good.  I had it couple of years ago and had one recently. 

Don't assume that knuckles and sausages are crown jewels.  On the day of my visit, the dessert and salad bar were doing the best.

Here is the crown jewel of the day - Serradura.  I had never tasted such silky soft lovely serrudura even at Macau top notch Portuguese restaurants.

My top pick of the day - Serradura.  I would really appreciate to have mini cups instead.  But big bowl was ok.  I ended up had several rounds of it.

Something new - German Luncheon Meat.  It was hided inside a loaf of bread.  The chef open it up for me to take a photo.  Of course, I had a slice of it, very yummy, taste really like luncheon meat.  But I thought it should be ham of some kind.

These mini lobsters were sitting on the salad bar along with some very lovely salads and vegetables.  Healthy and nice.

We could also picked our own ingredients and had a dish of cook-to-order spaghetti.  We could chose between spinach noodle and bow noodle; white sauce and tomato sauce.  However the dish size was quite big, we had to share between the two of us.

Here are the knuckles, but not stars of the day.  It was good but for some reason I thought it could be better.  The sour cabbage was however very good.

The sausages really upset me.  I really don't think a German buffet offers only two types of sausages and they were in no way pleasing.  They didn't look good nor taste good - extremely salty.  If you notice the assorted mushrooms and mini eggplants on the right hand side of my dish - those were the stars.  I collected them from the salad bar for several rounds.

The various desserts, jelly candy, serradura, puddings...all are lovely, not to mention the ice creams.

To wrap up the buffet, a cup of coffee/tea was included.  However if you want to have latte or Cappuccino, you would need to pay extra.

King Ludwig Beerhall

G/F, 183 Queen's Road East (tel: 2861-0737)

Weekend Buffet:  HK$189 +10% per person

Buffet starts 12:00

Hong Kong Food Blog - German Buffet

Japanese Buffet

Holiday is a time for me to binge.  Today is the first day of Easter holiday, I kick start my crazy eating by a Japanese buffet lunch.  To be accurate, it's eat all you can at a fixed fee.  The restaurant I go serves lunch buffet on weekends and holidays only.  Here is a summary of my Japanese feast.

Sashimi - there are over 10 types of fishes for us to choose

Beef and Vegetable

The Ox Tongue is my top pick of the day, very delicious.  The teppanyaki beef sheet (top right) simply melt in my mouth, very well done.

 Grilled Mackerel

 Fried Rice and Noodle

 Tampura - prawns, egg plant and pumpkin

 Pan Fried Assorted Mushrooms

 Vegetables and Dumplings in soup

 Soba and Cucumber Salad

 Deep Fried Oyster and Cheese

 The beautiful cheese cake wrapped up our buffet.

Actually I'm not that keen to eat the Hong Kong style Japanese buffet, although it has the advantage of 'cook to order' and the foods are freshly prepared.  However there is one big disadvantage that I don't like.  The food that they brought us are not 100% ordered by us.  At the same time, some of the foods that we order never arrive.  When I eat buffet in Japan, I just go collect food from the table, food type and quantity are fully controlled by me.  In terms of size, the bowl of fried rice was so big. Of course we tried our best to not wasting food, but we were unable to eat a lot after that.   So we ended up ate something we didn't order and missed something that we really love to eat.

After all we are quite happy with the food as they are really yummy, especially the tepanyaki beef and ox tongue.

Kaneda
74-80 Johnston Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong
Tel: 2866-1128

Luffet buffet available on Saturday, Sunday and holidays 12:00 - 2:30
HK$158 (US$20.2) (Adult)
HK$128 (US$16.4) (Senior and child)
+10% service charge

Hong Kong Food Blog - Japanese Buffet

Cafe Too Tea Buffet

It seems tea buffet at Cafe Too had a price increase. But I have re-gained my confidence of eating at Island Shangri-La. Unlike the terrible experience at Waterside Terrace the other time, Cafe Too is much closer to 5-star.

Tea buffet is relatively inexpensive, though my boss said we may be eating the left overs from lunch buffet. Anyway, what I enjoy is keep eating. I still have one cash coupon, so I paid very little for a very nice tea buffet.

My table was nearby the Indian corner, and I had fun watching the chef making naan breads. See video below. Kind of playing magic!

OK, here is my naan bread. Does it look nice?
To go with the naan bread, there are spicy fish sauce, sweet mango sauce and couple other sauces. And of course we enjoyed the chicken and vegetable curry. Though we were busy eating with fingers, it was fun playing around with the naan bread.
Spicy fish sauce and sweet mango sauce
The noodle booth is also next to my table. I also enjoy watching the chef taking orders and producing a bowl of hot and delicous noodle in just minutes or even seconds.

Here is my cooked-to-order Minced Meat Noodle with Black Fungi. A little bit sour but yummy.
The other ingredients available are vegetables and meats.
Guests just placed an a la carte order, and the bowl of noodle will be ready very soon. Of course there are various kind of sauces for guests to add on.
Dessert lovers should find their favourites here. Ice creams of various flavour, tarts and cakes, fresh fruits, instantly made pancakes...Thai sytle pomelo salad, mango and sticky rice in coconut sauce, Japanese shushi and sashimi...The Chinese corner is relatively less attractive with some finger foods, fish and chip, and some dim sum.
Finally, I really enjoy making the Malaysian Kacang madly with the plenty of ingredients provided. The one I have here contains laichee, mango, pineapple, coconut meat, grass jelly, red beans, milk and coconut juice. Unfortunately the service lady was busy and didn't provide me with ice. Well I'm still very happy with it.
To wrap my my tea buffet with a cup of cappuccino, I was extremely full and had to go to the nearby Hong Kong Park to walk off some food.

Cafe Too
7/F Island Shangri-La
Tea Buffet only available on Saturday, Sunday and Public Holidays, 3.30-5.30pm
HK$268 (US$34.4) + 10% service fee for each person

Hong Kong Food Blog - Tea Buffet at Cafe Too