Shop info:
Hokkaido Dairy Farm Milk Restaurant
Shop D1, G/F, Far East Finance Centre, 16 Harcourt Road, Admiralty
Various dates, lunch
~$50 per head
This is a restaurant that I fail to comprehend. Like Bentopia downstairs, I looked forward to the opening of this place, tried it in its first few days of business, liked it, and eventually not returning as quality deteriorated. YET, countless office workers queue along the bridge connecting Queensway Plaza and Far East Centre, sometimes stretching all the way across, for a takeaway cha siu rice with fried egg. Baffling.
THE ENVIRONMENT
There frankly isn't much of an environment to speak of. The dining area is tiny compared to the large office population that frequents this restaurant and it is near impossible to find a seat despite fast turnover time. A row of high table seats faces a busy path along the shop front (yes, you'd be watching and watched by the office lunch crowd as you eat) and more normal tables lies behind. Decor was bright and rather comfortable but completely ruined by the proximity to the crowd.
This is a place where you'd at most like to have a quick lunch during its busy hours and not to linger any longer than necessary.
THE SERVICE
There isn't much service to talk about, and what would you expect - this is a busy cha chaan teng. That said, the ordering process is strange and perplexing, which does deserve some mention.
At most restaurants, when you what to take away your food, you tell the cashier guy / girl that it's a takeaway after you place the order. Here, you must tell them before the order - a rather awkward habit that takes time to get used to. Then, you must wait. As the staffing and kitchen space afforded by this restaurant is not sufficient to cope with such a large lunch crowd, you can be sure as hell that the wait would be long and uncomfortable. What else would you expect, blocking the path on one of the busier routes in Admiralty?
Then there is the "I don't give a damn, bugger off" attitude by the staff. I once had to stand there and wait without a number and with my order hanging in the air - because the cashier girl made a mistake with my order and couldn't be asked to fix it, and instead continued to serve others when I was told to wait. On another occasion, breakfast service was cancelled since the key holding staff couldn't get up to get to work. How brilliant is that?
THE FOOD
Back when I still visit Hokkaido Dairy Farm, the only real option for lunch was the "Otaru" BBQ Pork Rice. Now for those unwilling to read my bickering on this so-called BBQ pork: It's crap. Period.
To begin with, I do not understand how "Otaru" is a pile of poorly made chaa siu - it is not Japanese style chaa siu. Obviously, the owners of the restaurant chain wants to make their products sound Japanese so they can charge more for exoticness, or maybe it was intended as a suggestion for quality which it somply doesn't have. The meat itself is consistently tough and chewy across a few visits, as demonstrated by the photo below.
Tough.
Then, as suggested by the use of sauce on the chaa siu, the meat itself was rather tasteless. So bad, actually, that the restaurant has to add flavour via the overpowering and salty sauce.
A mess.
Worse still, the chopping up of the chaa siu was horrid. Usually in siu mei shops the chaa siu can be reassembled into a whole piece and are laid down accordingly. Not here. The "Otaru" chaa siu always seems to have been butchered with an unbelievably blunt hatchet, ran over by a truck then with the remaining pieced picked back up to serve. Although it's probably not, it always felt like it is made up of leftover bits and pieces.
Poorly made scrambled egg.
Oh, and did I say that you can order it with scrambled egg? If you do, there could be two outcomes: 1) they'd still give you a fried egg despite what they input into their system, as shown in first photo below, or 2) you'd get a scrambled egg that hasn't been properly mixed - with white bits in it. More often than not the surface would be overcooked despite having a "flowing" core. It's obvious that the chef wasn't putting much effort...
Scrambled-turned-fried egg. Note that the receipt says scrambled!
At $39 plus at least 15 minutes of wait, this is by no means cheap. The now closed siu mei shop used to serve a far superior chaa siu rice at much lower price. Oh, and if you come after 12 noon, the queue would be so long that it'd be more like a 30 min wait.
So I couldn't help but ask... what are these people queueing for? The fun of it?
CONCLUSION
On price alone, not expensive, but if waiting time and quality is taken into consideration, a ripoff. Even if it is worth the $39 price tag, which I don't think it is, it is not worth the wait.
Summary (rated 1-5):
FOOD: (2/5) "Otaru" chaa siu is quite bad.
SERVICE: (2/5) not much service to speak of.
ENVIRONMENT: (2/5) Uncomfortable...
BIG LOCUST'S RECOMMENDATION: (2/5) Don't bother. Not worth the wait.
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