Sunday, 18 October 2009

Food Journey #28 - One Night in Happy Valley

Ever since my mother has relocated to Happy Valley, I have done my part to regularly visit many different restaurants in the neighbourhood to find interesting restaurants or venues for Geoff's Twitchen. Curiously asked my colleagues at work in which whether there are any interesting venues in Happy Valley which does a good curry as I was craving for curry throughout the morning & afternoon. Colleague responded that The Chapel Bar located Yik Yum Street apparently does the "Best Curry in Hong Kong" and is a must try. With such response, I visited The Chapel Bar to check out -- noted in inverted commans "best curry in Hong Kong" and my lord, I have never had anything as bad as this. No disrespect to my colleague or anything, but it was just purely utter sh*t!

Recommended Dishes

There were simply no recommended dishes from we ordered on the evening therefore enough said!

NOT Recommended Dishes


The food was so bad which I do not even know where to start. We ordered a traditional Chicken Tikka, Lamb Vindaloo (with 5 chilli signs on the menu), 1 portion of Garlic Naan Bread, 1 portion of Balsmati Rice & 1 bottle of Singha Beer. We waited for the take-away for around 15 - 20 mins which I was fairly impatient about and when it arrived, I thought - "this better be good". Opened up the boxes when arrived at flat, see below photos and all it is is just a big aluminium tin with lots of curry sauce and a few cutlets of lamb & chicken.

What was Wrong?
*
Everything was wrong about the curry! It tasted sour and far too much tomatoes were used in the cooking process. The curry sauce was far too "watery"!

*Portions were far too small for the price of $80 per portion

*
Both Chicken & Lamb was a disaster, both had no taste & was flavourless. I wonder where did The Chapel sourced such rubbish products.
*
Never knew that the Balsmati Rice was that expensive at $28 per bowl which was so small that I probably needed an extra 3 bowls for my usual meals

*
Garlic Naan Bread tasted more like a regular Naan Bread. It was only when I diced up so garlic from the kitchen made it tasted more like a Garlic Naan Bread

*
The good old Vindaloo gave me a a runny stomach all night and I dont want to go into much details on the aftermath

To sum up, the whole meal was so so bad that even at such small portion sizes, I could not finish the meal. I dont think I have ever had bad experiences with every single dish which I ordered and the Chapel Bar must be the first to achieve such standings. I have had much better experiences with Indian food in Hong Kong at venues such as Gunga Dins, Bombay Dreams, Gaylord, Curry Houses in Chung King Mansion and to have recieved such "best curry in Hong Kong" comment from a colleague of mine is a fellow foodie who recommended this visit was an embarrasement.

The Chapel Bar in Happy Valley may be a good chilled out place to have a few beers, I vow never to return there again for food

Address: 27 Yik Yum Street, Happy Valley, Hong Kong (
跑馬地奕蔭街27號地下)

Tel: 2834-6565


Food Quality (5* the highest): 0*


Price for Dinner (5$ = very expensive): **


Wasakuraya 和櫻屋


No disrespect to The Chapel Bar, the meal above wasn't enough for me so I wandered out with my partner for some dessert to fill us up whereby we got attracted by the bright lights at Wasakuraya (
http://www.wasakuraya.com.hk/index.html) , a small Japanese dessert house which serves up traditional Japanese style puddings. Just like my previous journey to Tai Hang area in earlier posts on Geoff's Twitchen, my evening was rescued by this visit to Wasakuraya.


Had a good chat with the staff and found out that all of the ingredients are all freshly imported from Japan such as eggs & milk from Hokkaido to ensure the best quality puddings are produced.

Highly Recommended Puddings:


*Sesame Flavoured Custard Pudding -- Not too sweet and very strongly sesame flavoured!


*Green Tea Flavoured Custard Pudding -- This was my personal favourite and for me, this is a better & slightly healthier substitute to a green-tea flavoured ice-cream. The green tea flavours was so pungent and the custard was smooth as silk. PERFECT!


*Classic flavoured Custard Pudding with Chestnut syrup -- This was my partner's favourite and her comment was similar to mine above. The custard pudding was smooth & creamy.

After finishing the Greentea flavoured custard pudding by myself, I also tried out my other 2 highly recommended custard puddings. My firm conclusion is that the usage of the eggs & milk from Hokkaido makes a huge difference in the taste. Such a simple dessert but yet with such intense flavours, this has become one of my recent favourite dessert places around the neighbourhood and I shall return very shortly.


Point to Note::
Hokkaido has become almost synonymous and is ranked the #1 region in Japan with gourmet food given the rich variety of dairy products and fresh seafood to be found on the island located in Japan's northern most regions. High quality & production of dairy products such as butter, cheese, ice-cream, yoghurt whereby most of the products are now exported to many countries around the world. If
you are travelling to Hokkaido, please do check out, purchase & EAT their dairy products, it is heavenly! Hokkaido is also extremely infamous for its seafood such as Matsuba crabs, Uni (Sea Urchin), Botan Shrimp etc & its glorious weather!

Address: 1, Fung Fai Terrace, Happy Valley, Hong Kong (跑馬地鳳輝臺1號地下A舖
)

Tel: 2575 3328


Food Quality (5* the highest): ****


Price for Dessert (5$ = very expensive): ****


UPCOMING REVIEW -- Fancy some Spanish Tapas at TAPEO on Wyndham Street?


Happy Eating!

Geoff

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