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2015-02-06
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Valentine's Day is a holiday that is a very controversial time of the year. Some hate it, some love it. Some think it's overrated. Some have high expectations from their loved ones to bring them the moon on this day. And there are those that sit around at home crying on this day, wondering when they will find their valentine. And every year, you see some poor guy going broke as he stands around with a big bouquet of roses while he brings some one special to some dinner that'll cost so much, he'
Yeah ... no one.
Be it as it may, Valentine's Day is day to celebrate love. Be it romantic, a friend or your family. Or as I like to say ... love yourself most of all. And all over the world, many restaurants have Valentine's Day set dinners that cost an arm and a leg. But then RBTea let me try their Valentine's Day set dinner that cost a mere $198. So on this day, I brought one of the first friends I had in Hong Kong because she will always have a special place in my heart, to try this out.
RBTea is located in Prince Edward in the shopping center called Pioneer Center. A long time ago, RBTea was place for Taiwanese bubble tea and other inexpensive snacks that appeased to students for their affordable prices. It later had a revamp and it served waffles and pancakes. Following the other popular Taiwanese cafes, I suppose. The place is in a fairly open space, with low tables and comfy chairs and sofas. All over were decorated with little stuffed bunnies.
Their Valentine's Day promo is rather pretty to look at.
Menu is unfortunately, only in Chinese. But not to worry. The staff do try their best to explain things and there is a menu with the photos of the food. In a nutshell, for $198, you get to choose one of the three main pasta dishes to share (creamy mushroom, spaghetti bolognaise or cream of clam linguine), one of three sides to share (chicken wings, pizza), two drinks (with the option of upgrade after adding money) and a heart shaped pancake dessert.
The cafe is very semi-self service. You order and pay at the cashier, they give you a super cute bunny number sign and they bring the food to you later.
For the Valentine's Day set, they give you two macarons. One was chocolate and the other caramel. The caramel was ok. A bit too sweet. The chocolate was surprisingly strong in chocolate flavor and was much better.
My friend ordered the mango smoothie as her drink. It came with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. She liked it and said it was a fairly strong in mango taste.
I ordered a passionfruit tea. This wasn't very sweet and actually tasted fruity. The drinks were pretty good.
We chose the creamy mushroom pasta. It was served with spiral pasta. Usually at these types of places, I always experience really soggy pasta. Let me say one thing ... I was super surprised that the pasta was al dente. I was also surprised that it tasted pretty good. There was a generous amount of cheese. The mushrooms were abundant. Only thing I can say is the serving size was a bit small. For two people to share, this is definitely an ok size for girls but for a guy? He would starve. Unless the point is for the usual "oh I'm on a diet excuse" girls give on first dates so the guy can eat it all.
Our side dish we chose was chicken wings. A purely nostalgic thing for when we used to go to RBTea when we were younger, ordered the chicken wings. These chicken wings were served with raw celery sticks and mayonnaise. I, personally, love raw celery sticks and there are days I have these as snacks at home. But I wasn't so keen on only have mayonnaise as the dipping sauce. As my friend noted, it would have been better with ranch dressing. The chicken wings were a bit dry but at least the marinade was tasty enough.
Dessert was a heart shaped three layer pancake. It was drizzled with condensed milk on the plate with some heart shaped marshmallows. There were sugar crystals and strawberries on top. I'm biased over marshmallows as I love them. No matter how artificial they taste ... marshmallow love for me all the way. The strawberries were sweet and fresh. The sauce was a strawberry sauce that wasn't too sweet. The pancakes were ok. Not great but acceptable.
The drinks at this place were really good and worth coming back for. The pasta was good, too. Service was ok but it was mostly self service. However, they did bring you stuff when asked (like eating utensils or plates for sharing). As a Valentine's Day set, it's pretty inexpensive. A definite change from the usual places to bring your special someone for that big day. And if you fear she may not like it ... girls deep down just want romance. It doesn't have to break the bank. If she really loves you, she won't want you to spend too much. If she isn't willing to go on a date at somewhere that doesn't cost less than $100, then that person isn't worth your time.
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