Visited this restaurant a few years ago. In fact, I have been to various restaurants in Kowloon City as often got told that this one is good and that one can't be missed...etc. Just like one of the hot pot restaurants - they claimed to serve the oyster from Wan Kum 環琴 (a place in between Macau and Zhu Hai and very famous for the nice oyster as it's the place for river water mixed with sea water at the Pearl River delta exit into the South China Sea.). However, if anyone who has tried the oyster from Wan Kum in Macau, they should know what that is. The shop put some unnecessary things to make the oyster not be shrunk and look "big". So that attracted the customers as it's "big". Sorry "big" doesn't mean it's fresh and tasty if your stomach is not strong enough. Then back to all the other recommended places, I doubt why they are named and they serve food like factory but the price is not factory's.
1. Curry chicken - can't say this restaurant is wrong as most restaurants do the same things. Just use frozen chicken thigh and wings and pretend it's from a fresh whole chicken. The curry sauce is quite good though. 2. garlic bread - didn't try it; so no comments. I actually don't like bread to be put with butter on it. I am often asked "how can you eat bread without anything as it's tasteless.". I simply told them the flour aroma is already tasty to me.
3. raw beef slices over noodle soup. The soup base is too artificial with beef soup powder. The essence of Vietnamese noodle soup is the soup needs to be boiled with ox bones. 4. chicken/cold cut noodle soup - no comments as I didn't try it.
5. Chicken slices cold noodle - can't comment either. 6. Stir fried Kai Lan with salty fish - it's quite at average. The salty fish is quite nice but just the Chef should have first pan fried it a bit and mashed it a bit in the wok while putting the garlic together. Then put the Kai Lan in it. This way the burnt and slightly mashed salty fish would give a better aroma with the Kai Lan.
7. Again, this one wasn't done in a right way - the Chef should also pan fry the shrimp paste a bit in the wok. I noticed this restaurant and many other restaurants in Kowloon City that they cook very fast so as to have more customers' flow. That's why I call it "factory" or "production house". 8. Another disappointing dish - bbq pork and chicken. Though the menu said so, it's not BBQ, it's deep fried and yet the meat was marinated for a long long time and the meat got no meat taste - but just sauce taste.
9. Deep fried shrimp balls - it's quite average. 10. deep fried soft-shell crab - the Chef needed to pay attention of the final step of deep frying. It's a bit too oily.
11. Fresh spring roll - this one is quite good among al the other dishes. 12. This one is quite good and made me feel refreshed.
7 comments:
I think this place is only good for Vietnamese dishes so item 7,8,9 and 10 not that good as they are not typical Vietnamese food(at least not in LA).
Sorry I should have explained that this restaurant is Viet/Thai restaurant. However, I can tell you the food in this restaurant is still better than those I tried in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.... I guess those good chefs left for the States, Hong Kong, Thailand and France. :)
Yes all the good chefs go to another country. This sounds familiar.
Just like all California Sunkist oranges go to other countries so we ended up eating oranges from Texas only. Sunkist oranges are not common in LA.
Haha... the same with Thai fragrant rice. SS, my friend used to have a backyard garden and she grew some blue berry, grapefruit, pear and lemon. The lemon has an aroma of water melon and goes so well with iced tea. The grapefruit is not bitter at all but very zesty. Mmh.. I'll show some photo of her lemon tree.
Thank you SEA for showing your friend's home grown fruits in Glendora, CA. The lemon looks huge.
I just returned from Hong Kong. My family was there for 3 weeks and we ate at this restaurant for lunch at the recommendation of a friend. It was outstanding, very refreshing and a nice change of pace compared to dim-sum. It was also priced reasonable. Highly recommended, in my top 3 eats for the whole trip.
BTW, no...these are not chefs from abroad. They are Hong Kong locals and they can cook Asian food very well, probably as good as chefs in Viet Nam.
Thanks Bill for the comments. I guess probably the last time I visited there might be something wrong from the kitchen, as the other time I tried that restaurant a few years ago was pretty good. If you like Vietnamese food, try Nha Trang in Wanchai on Queen's Rd. East at Wu Chung Bldg., next to Hopewell Center.
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