The building that houses Panda Hotel has quite a number of exits and one of them looked out to a small mall by the name of Smartland. I wouldn't have given it a second hoot if not for the seemingly popular Hong Kong style cafe located on the ground floor.
We decided to visit Downstairs Cafe (樓下冰室) for breakfast on day four of our journey since it would be the day we checked out from Panda Hotel and moved to the more centrally located Dorsett Mongkok Hotel.
Deciding what to eat is always problematic as i would love to try a bit of everything! The sets were quite worth it since coffee / tea was included. By the way, do Hongkongers enjoy heavy breakfast? Noodle / macaroni with toast (Sets A-C) seems like a lot of food. Anyway, even though the menu included English translation; the server absolutely refused to take orders in English and i had to use my half-past-six Cantonese.
Coffee - i have the tendency not to drink any coffee when i am overseas unless i bring along my own 3-in-1 sachets from Singapore. However, i am craving for caffeine and decided to opt for coffee instead of tea. To put it bluntly, this was a cup of very weak coffee!
Set C (Instant Noodle in Soup) - for someone who would crave for instant noodles sometimes, this was pretty good even though i don't think i would have pay the price of more than S$5.00 for it. The accompanying sausage was tasty whereas the omelette was a weird yet normal-tasting addition.
Pineapple Bun with Fresh Butter - see that thick slab of butter peeking from the middle of the polo bun? Now, i have high hopes for this as the ones i had in Singapore were real good and their origin points towards Hong Kong. According to Wikipedia; "In June 2014, the Hong Kong Government listed the pineapple bun as a part of Hong Kong's intangible cultural heritage."
Taste wise; loving the crisp top, the fluffy insides and who can resist that chunk of aromatic butter in the middle?! Somewhat similar to the one i had in Honolulu Cafe in Singapore; albeit at double the price. To be fair, I admit this was the one and only pineapple bun i had on this trip and there could be better ones around.
=====
Address
16 Tsuen Wan Street, Ground Floor of Smartland Mall,
Tsuen Wan, New Territories, Hong Kong (Next to Panda Hotel)
Pricing
Set C (Instant Noodle in Soup) - HKD $31
Coffee - Complimentary with the Set
Pineapple Bun with Fresh Butter - HKD $25
For the summary of my seven days' itinerary to Hong Kong (with a day trip to Shenzhen), please click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment