JK Brother’s (Closed)

Item: JK Brother’s
Rating: 3
Author: nuttawit.ta

342 Reviews

Taste

Decor

Service

Hygiene

Value

17490

Tsim Sha Tsui

$201-400

Korean Japanese Hot Pot Seafood Sushi/Sashimi All-you-can-eat

239

nuttawit.ta

Level3

Summary: Hard to beat price (the cheapest option meat), plenty of food options. BUT a bit of rooms to improve on the broth, sauces, and overall presentation. It's borderline ok for me mainly because of the sukiyaki soup base (too sweet) but I still give ok as overall as I will give benefit of the doubt on the other soup base. No seafood for lunch price FYI.The Goods: Price - it's very cheap for all-you-can-eat shabu. Variety of food at this price is also good.The Bads: Quality of some buffet it

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Summary: Hard to beat price (the cheapest option meat), plenty of food options. BUT a bit of rooms to improve on the broth, sauces, and overall presentation. It's borderline ok for me mainly because of the sukiyaki soup base (too sweet) but I still give ok as overall as I will give benefit of the doubt on the other soup base. No seafood for lunch price FYI.
The Goods: Price - it's very cheap for all-you-can-eat shabu. Variety of food at this price is also good.
The Bads: Quality of some buffet items is a bit lacking, although it's ok for the price. Wish they have more variety in dipping sauces. Tight space.
Damage: We went for the cheapest (because why not) for Saturday lunch at HKD88 (+10% SC), that's HKD 97 per person. A more expensive price is at HKD148 + 10%, which has better meat quality. This price is all inclusive but there's NO seafood for lunch - I'd be surprise if they have for the price.

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The shop is tucked away in a building on third floor. It's an old building do the lift is also old and tight. The shop itself is also quite tight. We were seated at the table next to the walk way, which makes it easy for us to go grab food. However, there are more table inside and if the place is full it'll be very hard to get out and I think you'll get knocked in the back from time to time (although the table behind me was empty so it's ok). The clear plastic curtain is to separate the tables, but I think it gets in the way when people wants to get through, and I got slap in the back once or twice. It's okay for me honestly especially for the price, but it's not for everyone.

The meat
The meat we got for the price is as shown. It's a very fatty piece of meat (maybe 50% fat), and also served on polystyrene foam tray. The meat is ok; it's not as tender as I would hope and a bit too fatty, but then again, for this price I can't complain much. The one thing I would comment on is the choice of serving tray. Looking at it, I bet it's reused (don't know how many times). I have no problem with it (as a Thai, this is nothing) but it doesn't present well at all. I would not recommend order at this price but if price is the most important factor then it's not a bad choice!

Beef (cheapest option for lunch)

For the soup base, we ordered sukiyaki, which in hindsight feel like a bad choice (at this shop and in general). Don't order it, as short as that. It's too sweet and salty. It'll taste much better if they just water it down and put less sugar. Also, the pot is HUGE for the burner. It takes a while before the pot is boiling. I would think they could do with a smaller pot or put in less soup at a time.

Self serviced sections
Let's begin with the counter for hotpot items. The vegetables are quite standard and fresh, and they have 2 types of lettuce, Chinese cabbage, corn, radish, Enoki mushroom, and Shiitake mushroom. All of them are ok except corn which I think it's not as fresh as it should be. In this photo there're also imitation crab stick and konjac noodle. The crab stick was frozen solid and almost impossible to break (tastes ok after we got it out).

Right above the vegetables are meat balls and other stuffs. I didn't try all the meat balls, but of those I tried, I think they have too much flour in the ingredient (not enough meat). So, I don't recommend any of the meat balls. There're shrimp wonton (the empty tray in the photo - showing how good it is) which is pretty good, because it has chunks of shrimp in it and taste quite nice. There's also fish maw but it's gone by the time I took this photo - also ok. They also have instant ramen, and udon (I didn't try).

Meat ball & other hotpot item section

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For shabu shabu, I think the third important thing (after the meat and soup base) is the sauces. This is where I think they can improve. They have 2 types of flavoured soy sauce, which if you ask me tastes almost identical. They're also very salty (not watered down) so it feels more like Chinese style sauce than Japanese. That combine with the broth, which is very strong as well, makes the whole meal feels a bit too powerful. As for condiments they have the usual spring onion, chilli, garlic, and fried garlic. They also have sesame sauce, mayonnaise, and ketchup (for other cooked food).

Moving on to cooked food section, I like the fried station the most. They have the fried tofu skin and fried fish skin. The one comment is they didn't remove the silica packets when putting the tofu into the tray; works ok but does not present well. They're both good so I could recommend (personal fav). On the right hand side, they also have Thai fish cake, spring roll, fried Takoyaki, fish siu mai, and fried banana flavoured dough (?). Of all these, Thai fish cake is surprisingly good. It's not as spicy as original but that's understandable (not everyone eat spicy), and texture is a bit dense, but other than that it's good. The spring roll is ok; a bit wet inside but it's crispy (as it should be). I wouldn't bother with the other ones honesly as they're just dough/flour.

Next section are cooked dishes, they have fried salmon bones, stir fried beef with Enokii mushroom, soy sauce chicken wings, and stir fried udon. They're ok but I would rather skip to the main thing (hotpot) and deep fried section.

Stir fried beef with enoki mushroom & deep fried salmon bones

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Soy sauce chicken wing & stir fried udon

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As for drinks they have plenty of choices, but no coke. They do have bottled water though which is quite unusual (but I like it!)

Lastly for dessert section, they have soft tofu, milk pudding, and mango pudding. I only tried milk pudding in this which doesn't taste that great - there's something off about it - I think it's too thick. The right hand side to this photo are the Korean condiments; picked baby squid, sour seaweek, kimchi. There's also another freezer (no photo - sorry!) that has green tea/red bean ice cream filled mochi, and sweet potato ice cream. The mochi is ok but I wouldn't recommend the ice cream.

Dessert section (plus some Korean pickled condiments)

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Some final thoughts.... I think the restaurant should streamline their menu a bit, cut out some that aren't particularly good and focus on the ones that do. For the price I think they don't have to offer this much, which will make inventory control harder. They could also rethink in the presentation; I bet they use it because 1) no capex, and 2) save freezer space. It probably work well though as I the restaurant looks quite full - there's always demand for cheap food I guess. Anyways, below is the final photo of the menu. Enjoy!