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2014-04-24
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When I was in college, my favorite meal at the dorm was chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, fried okra and mac & cheese (can you tell I went to school in Texas?). I would eat that whenever I felt down, or felt like I deserved a reward, or just felt like it. It's amazing I'm not 500lbs. Anyway, you can't really get food like that in HK, but I certainly rushed out the door as soon as I learned that there was a place that did chicken fried steak here in HK...They start you off with a free plate o
They start you off with a free plate of bread, pate, and pickled veggies. It's kind of like a make your own banh mi. The pate was a little too powerful for me, but free is free and there's nothing to complain about.
Call me crazy, but an egg yolk in the mac and cheese seemed like too much, and we asked for just the mac, no egg. It was nice and creamy and cheesy. I normally like al dente pasta, but for mac & cheese, I tend to go for a little softer; this was rather toothsome, but I could dig it. Very good: B+
I haven't had fried pig's ear much, but in the past when I had, it was more meaty. These were just crunchy sticks without much flavor or substance. I'd personally prefer pork rinds, and pork rinds are way cheaper too. Alright: C-
We wanted some veggies but not much really struck us. Finally we settled on the smoked cauliflower. Now I'm somewhat finicky about smoked things ("taste the meat, not the heat" as Hank Hill says), but these weren't obtrusively smoky. The cauliflower strongly tasted of curry and I will say didn't really go with the rest of what we ordered (partially our fault). It was pretty run of the mill, and most aloo gobhi leaves this stuff in the dust. OK, C-
Chicken fried... tenderloin. OK, if that's what we're doing. Chicken fried steak is a redemptive dish. You take what's not the world's greatest cut of meat, "tenderize" it (I've always loved this euphemism for pounding the heck out of it with a spiky hammer), and then fry it in so much fat it becomes heavenly, redeemed. I guess you could always put a good cut of meat in there, but then all you'd have is... breaded medium-rare tenderloin, I guess? Well, there you go.I'm not saying I didn't like it, as I in fact did. But it doesn't beat the dorm chicken fried steak that cost me a handful of USD, and I don't even think it beats the stuff at Chili's. It does beat the only other chicken fried, um, beef that I know of in HK-- the horrible, terrible stuff at Awakening.
Would I come back for it? Well... actually, maybe yes. CFS is on my death-row last-meal menu. This is the best version I know of in anything like proximity to me, so I can even see coming back here on my birthday. I went to Chili's on my birthday in Jersey because Jersey has as much chicken fried steak as Hong Kong does, almost none.
Still... I've had better gravy out of a McCormick powder mix. Final score: Good: B
I'm inordinately fond of dill pickles. For a while City'super had some pretty amazing kosher dills at the deli counter, but I haven't seen them in months. These were advertized as 'spicy dills' and I snapped at the chance. I will say, first of all, that they were in fact spicy. Not terrifically spicy, but about as spicy as spicy American food ever is. They were nice and crunchy, but in my opinion too sweet. Good: B-
The absolute worst thing about "small plates" places is how ridiculously uninformative their menus are regarding portion sizes. Yes, it's small plates, but how small? How many should I order? Is there a difference in size in the different parts of the menu? We asked the server what we should order, and she said 2-3 per person. We had picked out 5 things already, but we decided to add the brisket b/c we thought the pigs ear and pickles would be small (and they were). But 2-3 per person is still a huge amount of food.So we got the brisket but I only ate a little of it. It was disappointingly soggy. My dad cooks brisket for 8 or more hours and it comes out tender as all get out, but still meaty. I couldn't really understand what had happened to this meat. Well, you can't win 'em all. Acceptable: C
The food here is OK. The mac & cheese and chicken fried tenderloin make a really good meal, and I would come back for them. Neither is A-material, but the competition at the upper echelons of mac & cheese/ CFS is actually really stiff. (Hong Kong itself has lots of impressive mac and cheese.)
Still, everything here is ridiculously priced. "Tarted up" is really the word. Straightforward American customers such as yours truly just want straightforward American fare: not fois gras and imported capuchin tears, or whatever it is that makes everything cost an arm and a leg. It does remind me a lot of Pizzeria Pubblico. I'd be there, genuinely enjoying a slice and then think to myself, "Wow, this is not as good as the stuff a block away from my house in Jersey, and it cost me 5x as much... oh, Hong Kong!"
題外話/補充資料：
The restaurant was neither crowded nor empty on Wednesday night at 8:15.
They have a website (exemplary: please take note other HK establishments with only an uninformative facebook page)... however, their website is less informative than their facebook page. How is this so hard?
(以上食評乃用戶個人意見 , 並不代表OpenRice之觀點。)
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