Cafe de Coral, which is a phonetic transliteration of "everyone come down", is about as local as you can get. It is the MacD's of the HK cha chaan teng, and you thought it couldn't get any less classy!
Now, I am actually a big fan of Cafe de Coral. As with any fast food "factory", you always know what you are going to get, the food, taste and portioning is consistently the same, the time it takes to come out is brief, and it is cheap - very cheap! I'm not going to say it's the best food in the world, it's not, by a long shot. I doubt any of their produce is ethically sourced. But it is what you pay for, and when you pay less than HKD60 for a mixed grill hot plate, or less than HKD30 for a pork chop rice, you may find you stop worrying about these things.
There is not much else to say about it really. The restaurants are generally pretty clean, or at least the uncluttered decor will lead you to think so. The staff plaster on a smile and are efficient. I do like that the menu is in English, and dishes are numbered, so it's easy to order the "N-1" or "D-3". Worse case scenario, you could just point at the photograph.
For the uninitiated, the process is pretty simple (but can seem daunting at first). You queue to order and pay. They will give you a ticket, which you take to a different counter (essentially the pass out of the kitchen). The kitchen manager will take you ticket and put it on a tray, as a load of other staff stack it with your dishes. If you do not speak Chinese, keep an eye on your tray, as they will just shout the dish name (in Cantonese) when it is ready. It's a bit easier if you can just see it is ready to go.
The lunch and dinner menus are different, with dinners including things like hot pot. If you can, best to try and avoid lunchtimes, as nearly every branch has a queue going pout of the door! read more