Coffee Ming: a discreet relaxing corner

Shop info:
Coffee Ming (咖啡明)
Stalls near the "red market".


Locusts Visited:  March 2011


The one great difficulty to manage to have "breakfast" here:  get up early.


I have no idea when this place opens but it closes at 12:00. Fortunate for my locust friend and I, despite our serious detour due to the misplaced pin (which was a few street blocks away by the way), we managed to find Coffee Ming. Note that this place is not on any main street -- you need to turn into some sort of alley to reach here. As a pointer: find 紅街市, then follow 高士德大馬路 (on the red market side) to the southeast. Walk past the HSBC then turn LEFT (it's not a proper road). You should see Coffee Ming straight ahead. 

We got ourselves the coffee, noodles and toast. The noodles were slightly soggy but other than that good.  Sausage was slightly fried and the overturned "sunny-side-up" (as shown in the photo below) was jelly-like inside.  Probably my fault for leaving it submerged to take the photos though.  At MOP25 per head including both coffee, noodles and toast I really couldn't complain. 

The coffee was nice as well -- a less refined, less deliberate flavour than the coffee found in other places, as "dei mou" coffee usually is, but good coffee nonetheless:

What we liked most of this place was the atmosphere. Everybody sit on XXS sized chairs with butts almost touching the floor (which turned out to be surprisingly comfortable) and cleanliness wasn't expected by anyone. Nobody pretend that this is an elegant restorante ming and everybody is happy with the coffee. Everybody was friendly and willing to share, turning this somewhat run-down stall into a relaxing escape.

Summary (Rated 1-5)
Food:  (3) good for the price
Service:  (4) friendly, almost communal environment
Environment:  (4) no high-end restaurant but comfortable in another way
Big Locust's Recommendation:  (3.5) worth a visit

BO-LO'GNE: A decent cafe ruined

Shop info:
BO-LO'GNE Cafe & Bar
Shop 1, 3/F, Ocean Terminal,
17 Canton Road, TST, HK


Locusts Visited:  January 2011


Before I begin, I'd like to state that I like the Aberdeen Street Bo-lo'gne... it's one of my favourite restaurant on the island and I'd be prepared to walk all the way from the Central MTR station just for that toast. However... 

My locust friend and I decided to try out this new-ish shop at Lcx. Remember the delicious food we had at the Central Bo-lo'gne, we were rather surprised to find the shop only 70% full when we got there at around 1pm. So in we went. First impression was not favourable -- there was an empty table alongside the wall, and we were heading there when a waitress stopped us and attempted to seat us at the worst table possible -- the one facing the shop front. I do understand that when the shop is full it's not appropriate for the two of us to occupy a table for four, but it wasn't even near full. Anyway... we ended up on another table for 4, which the waitress decided to clean only the side of the table where we weren't seating... revenge, perhaps?

Ordering wasn't any better. The waiter (who seem to be one of the few staff in the shop who understands Cantonese or English, by the way...) has decided to be as rude as humanly possible and decided to yank the other half of the table away and give us the "why are the two of you occupying a table four 4" look before taking our orders.  Please, sir, this is a cafe, as you can see from the shop title... it is meant to be a relaxing place where the customers can chill out, have a drink and maybe some food... be a bit more pleasant! Or less intimidating / rude at least... I'd gladly suffer such attitude has this been 澳洲牛奶公司... but it certainly wasn't.

On to the food. The egg mayo sandwich (or whatever it should have been called) was a big disappointment. The bread was nowhere near as good as the ones served at the Central shop and the egg mayo was so cold that it's obviously it came straight out the fridge. Now I don't have any problem with storing your ready made ingredients in the fridge, but putting freezing cold egg mayo in a supposedly fresh-from-toaster sandwich and then setting it aside for some time before serving is certainly a bad idea. The result was lukewarm toast with still-cold egg mayo. The crust became soggy and the inside was no longer soft. It became like any odd bread / toast you can make yourself at home with a <$20 loaf of bread.

The deep-fried chicken pieces with fries and bread my locust friend had was somewhat better. The supposedly spicy deep-fried chicken was rather good (not spicy at all though!). The fries, however, was the cheap wavy types you get served at cha chaan tengs. Whilst I don't have any complaints against that you do expect to be served better fries at a cafe where they had aimed so high with their bread. The toast here (without being ruined by the cold egg mayo) was still not as good as the ones at the Central store -- and for that matter not as good as the ones I once got home and shoved into my good old toaster. Come on, QUALITY.

Originally we planned to order that salt and maple syrup toast... We did actually. However by the time we finished with the sets we didn't want it any more. They missed that order anyway...

The sets came with drinks. My milk-tea was served without sugar and my locust friend's coffee was served with white sugar (no coffee sugar...!?). Now do we have to beg for sugar for our drinks? Hygiene was bad as well -- the inside of the spout was obviously not clean, as the photo uploaded by my locust tunghok will show.

So obviously, this is going to be a crying face. There are a few issues which I do not understand though:

1) Given that this is Hong Kong, and this shop is located in Lcx, where most customers are either HK Chinese or Mainlanders, what insanity does the owner has to have to employ half a crew of (maybe) Japanese girls who sounds so fluent in Japanese but had only a basic command of English? AND no ability whatsoever in Cantonese?

2) Why did the manager had to use such harsh attitude to everybody in the cafe? I understand that it's busy, but this is not a cheap cafe and basic services and at least friendly attitude is expected.

3) Where has quality control gone? At that tiny little shop on Aberdeen Street every piece of bread was good and the smell of freshly baked bread was the best advertisement possible -- it's gone here.

4) It's fine if you want to showcase your "freshly" baked bread, but placing it right next to the entrance where everybody has to pass enter and leaving the cafe with no cover is probably not a good idea. Any sane customer will doubt the hygiene of your bread!

Enough of my ranting over a poor dining experience. If you're the owner of Bo-lo'gne and you're reading this, please, please... make again that delicious food you used to make... where's your heart, where's your passion gone??? And educate your staff! We food lovers definitely wouldn't want to see a good cafe ruined by reckless expansion.


Summary
Food:  going downhill
Service:  rude, unpleasant
Environment:  noisy
Big Locust's Recommendation:  Avoid