Fun fact: when I met up with a friend and told her that we could go to Simply Life, she thought it was a furniture store.
I don't blame her though, it really does sound like a modern lifestyle store! But that aside, Simply Life is actually a cafe that serves western food. It's got a couple of branches including at Festival Walk, Queensway and Tai Koo Shing - in my experience, it's the one at Festival Walk that's always the most crowded. I have had both lunch and afternoon tea here a few times, and what I love is that they have a lot of choices to choose from. They have anything from a hearty English breakfast to a mushroom beef burger to pasta in cream sauce! The lunch and afternoon tea set menus are very similar, so needless to say the afternoon tea sets are incredibly filling.
All sets at Simply Life come with their daily iced tea, which is usually summery stuff like peach tea or passionfruit tea. I find their teas refreshing, but for example, I don't find the peach tea very peachy nor the passionfruit tea very, well, passionfruit-y. The set menus don't change very often, and one of my favorite mains here is the spring chicken. It's very tender and nicely flavored with herbs, and not too salty. The burgers here are pretty good too - if I'm here for tea and it's on the menu, I'll usually get it. They have different kinds and they all come with a side order of either regular or spicy fries. Once, I ordered the regular fries but was given the spicy instead. I didn't want to return it so I just had it, and it wasn't very spicy - but that may be because I swept most of the powdered seasoning off. My mother adores the big breakfast here - it's got a little bit of bacon, eggs, toast and the like and everything tastes very fresh.
Every time I walk into Simply Life, I pass by all the pastries and the cakes and they look simply delightful. They've got tons of danishes and tarts, and I've been meaning to try one for a while now!
Simply Life loses a star for its 24/7 ridiculously long queue. My mother likens it to a line for an amusement park ride. There's no avoiding the queue, but come by on weekdays - and early too, if you're here for lunch - and there will be less of a wait! read more