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2014-02-17
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Confession of 2 silly Asians spending ~$770 on "delicate" street style Vietnamese food.Another once and for all restaurant that I had ticked off the box for life and was over and done with it. This little place presents to us the up market "highlight of Vietnamese street food" (That I probably disagree with).We went there the night of the last day of CNY public holiday but the wait is within an acceptable range, i.e. 15 mins, which was way more reasonable than the regular 1.5 hours wait at Littl
Confession of 2 silly Asians spending ~$770 on "delicate" street style Vietnamese food.Another once and for all restaurant that I had ticked off the box for life and was over and done with it. This little place presents to us the up market "highlight of Vietnamese street food" (That I probably disagree with).
We went there the night of the last day of CNY public holiday but the wait is within an acceptable range, i.e. 15 mins, which was way more reasonable than the regular 1.5 hours wait at Little Bao round the corner.The curry doorman (I am not being racist, my frds with darker skin do call themselves curry!) was quite friendly, very good at remembering names and great in logistics. The store is tiny with only 45 seats (as said), and we were a bit unlucky to be seated at an awkward table right next to a pole. Mr. Cafe-radar offered to seat next to that pole considering that I was left handed. Aww, how sweet haha!
Not a massive fan of beer and never think Vietnamese food would go right with red or white, leaving me with the option of soft drinks or tea. I spent my childhood drinking iced lemon water while I ate at "cha charn tang". Not until the recent half year did I start enjoying drinking iced lemon tea. Now I was a bit addicted to it.The major thing that distinguish a Vietnamese Lemon Tea from all the ordinary once was that, they added mint leaves, brown sugar (instead of white sugar), lime and lemon (instead of just lemon) and they shaked it up before serving. The taste of the tea base was not as dominating and it was less sweet. (If this was an accurate reflection of an authentic Vietnamese Lemon Tea)
First dish to the table was the BEEF IN BETEL LEAF. The leaf was not merely for decorative purpose, and the chilli flakes are fresh chilli babies. Despite I was not entirely happy with the finger food size of the 4 or 5 slice of beef, they are really flavoursome. Love the extra herbs on top of the well marinated beef.
They ran out of one of their signature PHO ROLL, therefore we switch to the BEEF ROLL. This beef roll was so....normal and unmemorable. It totally did not fulfill by craving for fresh spring roll at all. I want some cheap springrolls from Marrickville/ Cabramatta plsssss!
The dish of the night was VFC, 10 times better than KFC, haha! Although majority of the herbs and chilli fell off quite soon after you pick the pieces up. I am loving these extremely unhealthy chicken wings but no one can resist them. Crispy yet very juicy inside, and with the splash of lime juice, it does kill part of the oiliness. Smiley face for scoring the second point thus far
The next dish which was our main was even more disappointing. Don't get me wrong, not that it didn't taste right, but it's just so ordinary to a sense that it just tasted pretty much like what we had at home yesterday for CNY dinner. I thought I am reasonable to expect sth more than an ordinary beef tenderloin dice but obviously it didn't come as "gimmicky" as I imagine it would be.
Since they served food in kid size, Bun Cha Pork Skewer was the extra dish we order half way through. This was a comparatively interesting dish, very appetizing and the pork skewer was very very soft yet not entirely fatty.
We were warned by bloggers online that they don't serve pho just coz they are too "mainstream" vietnamese food that everyone expect. This didn't quite bother me but it might disappoint a lot of people out there who did not come prepared with this bad news.For a more complete dining experience, we usually like ending our meal with dessert but all they have is a fruit platter, one that you find riskily interesting. I knew RAMBUTAN and all the other melons are most definitely be great but this fruit platter comes with sweet and savoury dipping salt. I hesitate but if I miss the subtle signature dish of the restaurant, this could possibly be one of them. And another for sure is the PHO-JITO. (FYI that is a big chilli stick soaking into a glass of classic mojito).
I enjoy the vibe of the restaurant because it reminded me of dining out @ Sydney. Their Vietnamese headchef Peter Cuong Franklin was particularly concerned about how diners were enjoying their meal and he wandered around several times just to check and greet his usual diners. I read into some of the biography of the headchef just to find out that he was one smart white collar man in the States before he gave up the billionaire dream for his passion of food - starting from Cordon bleu (as usual) or maybe from his mum's little noodle stall? ;)
Chef mentioned that, "There is really tasty Vietnamese food that he wanted to introduced to Hong Kong because the market for Vietnamese food is very limited." I guess the major reason why we weren't particularly amazed by Chom Chom was because we were well-introduced to both traditional and modern Vietnamese food in Sydney. Miss Chu (simple but great), Ms. G (not the best but way more creative than average Vietnamese restaurant), Phamish (a lot of people's fav but not mine), Red Lantern (hey they were on Masterchef), Pho Tau Bay (can't beat the traditional) etc. And I would not deny that Chom Chom is already taking the lead of modern Vietnamese cuisine in Hong Kong.
One funny thing about this whole dining experience also came from what was happening at the next table, which was literally an inch from us. A white dude (Nory, which his Japanese frds often called him Loly) and an Aussie Chinese girl (Elaine) was on a tinder date. We concluded that from their convo, and we were listening to what they were saying throughout the dinner, e.g. how she was sick last week, her daily life interactions with her mom and brother, she currently goes to HKU, her experience of talking to other people she on tinder, etc. We both agree that Elaine is very pretty and I really wonder how they went right now =P
I thought this place would be a bit too noisy for a first date, while Mr. Cafe-radar, an unauthentic half Viet =P thought that this place is overrated and not ideal for first date too.
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