We came by late (~10-ish) on a weekday for a few drinks. The cocktail menu looks a little boring,…read morelisting only classics--e.g. negroni, mojito, etc--but the drinks we got were perfectly done. My mojito was light, not too sweet, exceptionally refreshing on a hot night. I'd have ordered drinks off menu based on the strength of the classics. I don't remember the cost exactly, but I remember thinking it was comparable to New York. There are four two-seater tables outdoors, facing a tree-spined, stairway-street branching off Gough St. The decor is chic and/or gentrified. And I didn't try the food but it's a French spot, and some of the staff were themselves French.

3.5-star rounded up to 4-star restaurant…read more I was looking for nice little restaurant for a date night on Sunday and this is the only one on my list of places I wanted to try that was opened on Sundays. Soho and the Hollywood Road area always seems a bit quiet on Sundays. I did my research and visited their website. Their full sized pictures on the website attracted me as it seemed to have a decent menu and the ambience looked great. Tucked away in a side street just off Hollywood Road, Cocotte is a small Parisian restaurant that has a very "elegant" interior design. There weren't many people in the restaurant on a Sunday night and I thought it was just perfect to have a quiet date night there. When it comes to the food, there was nothing bad about it, but I just felt that it was missing something. I ordered a lobster bisque to start and a steak for the main course. I really like lobster bisque in general but nothing about Cocotte's lobster bisque surprised me. For the steak, it had really nice plating but I felt that the portion was too small for me and for the price. I guess I was somewhat disappointed that there was nothing special as it makes you feel like you could find similar food just anywhere, not to mention the food is a bit overpriced. Trust me, the food was good but just not enough for me to find another excuse to come back again. Hence the 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars.

Maison ES is tucked away in a small street in Wan Chai. It has a really nice neighborhood…read morerestaurant feel and the interior is beautifully designed. However, I really didn't think the food matches the decor and price point. Food: 3.5 stars Ambience/service: 5 stars Value: 2.5 stars On my visit I had three courses: poke tuna appetizer, the longastine ravioli, and the chestnut dessert. 1The tuna appetizer was ok. It is a passable dish but I really didn't think it was anything special and nothing really distinguishing from eating something similar at a pole shop. 2The langoustine ravioli dish was the best of the night. The laksa broth it was served in had a nice richness and wasn't too heavy. The noodles it was served with was also nice. I'm also a sucker for a poached egg so this is a dish I would like. The portion was a bit small for a main but the flavors were good. 3The chestnut dessert I really didn't like very much. There was too much chestnut purée and the brownie bites it was served with wasn't that great. This dish could have really used some ice cream.

Time of visit: September 2015…read more After reading that Maison Es is one of the new must-try restaurants in Hong Kong, I put it at the top of my list (mainly because of the girly interior decor). Needless to say, the whole experience was very, very disappointing as you might have already read about on my Instagram. Suffice it to say, everything was overpriced and the food quality definitely did not justify the pricey menu. I ordered the following: Blueberry Pancakes with Orange & Lemon Curd Five sad-looking mini-pancakes that were too dry and floury. For $180, I'd rather go back to Tabibito and order their super-fluffy pancake with caramelized bananas. Mushroom & Eggs Crêpe Don't remember the exact name for this dish but all I can say was it was another overpriced dish. Croque Madame If you're not ready to pay $200 for a disappointing Croque Madame, don't come here. Crab Cake Soufflé Let's just say, I prefer sticking with soufflés for dessert. Valrhona Hot Chocolate They can't possibly mess up Valrhona chocolate though right? All in all, the food was overpriced, the staff didn't know what was going on and the food was mediocre (and that's a generous statement). The interior decor and the flowers by the entrance are a nice touch. Our server told us the chefs recommend that we order something sweet first before the savory. We asked him why that was the case and his response was, "I'm not too sure. It's just what the head chef said." From this conversation, here's another lesson I learned from this experience. While most restaurants treat the servers as part-time workers who only need to take down people's orders and help the customers refill their water glasses, these are the people who are customer-facing and are essentially, the face of your brand. If they don't understand the restaurant, the brand and the concept well, they won't be able to help you persuade the customers to order an extra dish or try an additional dessert after their meal. I'll admit, I was quite harsh when I said I don't think Maison Es will survive for too long if they don't make any improvements but since the F&B industry in Hong Kong is so competitive and the customers are more and more demanding as the middle-class continues to grow, F&B establishments need to continue to improve.

Choco Duck describes itself as a "European slow cook eatery offering seasonal, delicious and…read morehomey-comfy food", and that's pretty much bang on. It is a great little place, serving a range of really hearty home dishes of meats, poultry, seafood and more. However, the real signature of Choco Duck is the fresh hand made pasta. What can I say, "OMG" (apologies if I sound like a 14 year old girl). The fresh tagliatelle may not look pretty, trading a manufactured uniformity for a rustic hand made charm, but the taste is absolutely divine, a real delight. Teaming this with a carbonara "sauce", made with lardons, egg yolk, parmesan and nothing else, just elevated this pasta dish to an ethereal status. The simplicity of the cooking let each and every ingredient do its part, which is so refreshing in over-sauced HK. At last a carbonara that doesn't rely entirely on cream. Just be warned that some of the dishes require 24 hours notice, but are unfortunately not on their online menu. If you fancy a roast chicken, you may have to pop in the day before and have a chat to Choco. One small food critique, the calamari could have been cooked a little longer, but that's fairly small potatoes when I think about how good the pasta is!. It's unfortunate that Choco Duck is on Cheung Chau island - a 45 min ferry ride from Central, followed by a leisurely 10 min stroll from the public ferry. The restaurant itself is set in a sort of public square, and has plenty of seating inside and out. Aside form the pasta, a big draw is the owners Choco and Duck. Choco is chef-patron, and it is a delight to watch her work, with only one sous chef, in the open kitchen. You will see that the pasta really is handmade. Duck is a fine fellow who likes to keep your drinks topped up, another vital part of dining, certainly in my book!

We have tried to eat here for 4 months but always missed them when they were open. Worth the…read morewait!! Choco actually served us tonight even though she wasn't "open" and the food was delicious and the service superb. It is fine dining in a casual style and one of a kind on Cheung Chau. We will absolutely be regulars here....and we'll call ahead! We recommend you do too.

FOOD: 4 SERVICE: 3…read moreAMBIANCE: 4 VALUE: 4 Another great find in Langham Place mall. They have a good selection of food and some innovative deserts. We tried the following: Cucumber swirls marinated in rice vinegar with white button mushrooms and red chili. A crunchy cooling appetizer. Sweet & Sour Tenderloin - their version of the classic Cantonese dish. Served in a cloud flowing dish. Bite size piece of meaty pork in a light batter, smothered in sweet & tangy sauce with a hint of chili pepper. Shrimp with Vermicelli - raw butterfly shrimp on top of vermicelli steamed in a clay pot table side with soy/garlic based gravy. Very umami and the shrimp were cooked just right. Fried Rice w/Truffle and Beef - honestly this is just like beef fried rice with a very very slight hint of truffle. Tasty but not special. Mango Shaved Ice - their take on shaved ice with a whimsical marsh mellow panda bear and red bean paste in the middle of the shaved ice. A very refreshing dessert and good ending to a savory dinner. Better than most mall food!

I was here last year & I even wrote a review...but since this is showing as the 1st review maybe it…read morechanged ownership...busy during lunchtime with the locals. Great lunch specials & good prices. Nice restaurant, clean & staff understands English (bonus: menus are in English). Also if you order the sizzling steak you can either have mild or spicy sauce to pour over the hot platter...but don't take too long in deciding or the older "sauce" guy will get impatient..and let you know in Chinese that you're taking too long...LOL! Overall good if you're looking for Asian/American food and service was actually decent (other then the sauce guy encounter)...Located on the 2nd floor of the Bank Centre building and next to a Mong Kok MTR entrance...I give it a 3.5 rating.

PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT I NEVER GIVE 2 STARS and this is the first time I've experienced such…read morehorrendous service. I would give this place a 1 star but at least we were seated and served and the food was edible. We decided to eat here for an early breakfast to say goodbye to my family members before my flight back home. I ordered satay beef with noodles which came with eggs and a bun. This place is always packed. From what I've seen, every time I pass by the place it is almost a full house whether it is the early early morning (8am) or later in the evening so I can kind of understand not being able to seat 6 people immediately. However the situation was handled extremely poorly by their waitresses. THE SERVICE: First of all, one person from our party arrived early and asked for 6 seats and had stated we were willing to wait a bit since we understand 6 people is hard to seat together in such a busy and small restaurant. Fortunately, there were 6 available seats within a matter of minutes and so the one person from our party was told to be seated and was told that the other 5 seats were reserved for our party. Within a few minutes another group of people were seated in our seats that were reserved (keep in mind this was within a matter of a few minutes and wasn't like the seats were reserved with no shows for hours). Obviously this caused a huge commotion when the rest of the party arrived to our reserved seats being taken when we were promised we would be seated together. After all of this, we asked what happened and the waitress seemed annoyed and asked us to sit away from each other and obviously we refused since we had reserved the seats to be together and it was our last meal before my flight home. This caused a bit of an issue and we wanted to leave and find a different restaurant that would seat us properly, however the waitress became irritated and found us a new set of tables since people had coincidently just left. We finally sat down and decided to order, however, another waitress came to take our order and gave us attitude and grimaced at every single word we said to her. It was absolutely rude and we felt the entire staff was shooting us dirty looks while we ate. THE FOOD: honestly was not very good. Maybe I was already put in a bad mood by the lousy service, but the noodles and beef were oddly greasy (as pictured) and not balanced at all. The beef tasted like it was not even seasoned one bit. I felt like the beef was cooked separately with 0 seasoning and plopped on top of the noodles and the grease just sank into the soup, making the entire dish just a messy attempt at satay beef and noodles. The eggs were also poorly cooked. The only good thing was the lemon tea I ordered. My other family members felt that the food was mediocre as well. I ABSOLUTELY HATE GIVING POOR REVIEWS and I really wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, but the blatant rudeness and attitude of the workers and the disappointment of the food was just awful. Honestly the city of Hong Kong is known for its amazing food and restaurants and I did not expect my first 2 star review to be in the city of such great food. I cannot believe with such lackluster service and food that it can still function as a restaurant in a city with such iconic cuisine.

One of the highest rated places on Yelp Hong Kong is the Australia Dairy Company…read more(https://en.yelp.com.hk/biz/%E6%BE%B3%E6%B4%B2%E7%89%9B%E5%A5%B6%E5%85%AC%E5%8F%B8-%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF-2) so I think it's no surprise that this fun and delicious new restaurant is also opened by someone from the Dairy Co. The menu here is much more extensive though. In fact, it feels overwhelming at times. Having said that though, they serve any variety of the Hong Kong classics, and they serve it darn well. I've been here twice now, and both times I've been really satisfied with my meal. The first time I had a spare ribs with hor fun with black bean sauce and cream of corn with fish over rice. The hor fun was perfectly stir fried, and I appreciated that there was a healthy portion of spare ribs. The fish was still crispy, even with the sauce on it. The second time I went was afternoon tea time so I had their BBQ pork with scrambled eggs and XO sauce over rice. I loved the extra kick that the XO sauce add, and the eggs were very silky smooth. We also got the beef chow fun which stir fried until it as perfectly dry but not too oily. It had a lot of "wok air", which implies the heat used to cute it was high enough. Lastly, we got the classic scrambled eggs with ham and toast. The eggs here were also light, fluffy and perfectly cooked. One of my favorite things about this place is the model of Hong Kong life! In a display case that spans one of the walls, you'll find what looks like a typical street in Hong Kong. It has the mini buses, taxis, people, short houses with clothes hanging outside. It's super cute! The inside is also decorated to look like a classic cha caan teng. Would I go out of my way to come to this place? Probably not, but if I were in Hung Hom it's definitely my top choice for Hong Kong style cafes.

FOOD: 4 SERVICE: 3…read moreAMBIANCE: 3 VALUE: 4 Their specialty is beef tripe and it is stewed in a pot for hours and hours or even days. Every piece was tender and full of umami. Their roast goose was meaty, juicy and not overly fatty. Their wontons had a full shrimp with minced pork and just the right amount of firmness. Can't go wrong if you crave Cantonese fast food and they are open late.

First time trying sri lanka food and I really like it. Ordered the rice dish wrapped in leaves,…read moreblack lamb, coconut roti, devil prawn,stir fry beets and wood apple juice. I like all the dishes I ordered. The taste of the wood apple juice is really unexpected. I have never had it before. I later search online and found out that it has a great deal of health benefits. The rice wrapped in leaves is really good. I highly recommend.

Amazing food, very vegetarian and vegan friendly, will adjust level of spiciness for any dish. Very…read morecalm atmosphere and warm staff.