Shop Info:
The Frank
Near footbridge to central direction, Queensway Plaza, Admiralty, Hong Kong
The Frank (& yo mama) is the latest opening at the newly renovated Queensway Plaza and is a shop which I have eagerly anticipated ever since its boards went up. Renovations took forever and it missed its promised August opening. Fortunately it finally opened in this second week of September and I promptly went to get a bite.
This new restaurant shares the same shop space with Yo mama, the now rather well known frozen yoghurt chain. Seats are available if you want to dine in. The majority of the counter space is occupied by the extensive selection of ingredients for your froyo and the section for making hot dogs is surprisingly small.
Unfortunately, just like it missed its opening date, its quality missed what it claimed (gourmet sausages? Nah). I ordered the double cheese dog (cheddar sausage, mozzarella, ketchup, mustard) expecting a really quite cheesy lunch, but that was not to be. The photo below says a lot, but let me illustrate a bit more:
Looks like a cheap hot dog, tastes only of ketchup.
1) The bread was dry, only slightly toasted / grilled and tasted old.
2) The sausage was lukewarm after a brief walk back to office, and it wasn’t hot enough to even partially melt the “mozzarella” in the hot dog.
3) The cheddar sausage tasted just like… an enlarged version of the cheese sausages you bring to BBQ.
4) The “mozzarella” was strange. It did make me pause and check the menu to see whether it’s actually mozzarella. Shredded like cheddar (how do you shred a proper mozzarella ball?) and sprinkled on the sausage the cheese did not contribute to the flavor at all and was completely overwhelmed by the ketchup and mustard. Even when eaten alone, which I deliberately did, it was completely tasteless.
5) There was way too much (cheap, squeezy) ketchup and mustard, which flavours dominated. All I tasted was the ketchup.
See the "mozzarella"...
Frankly, at this price ($35 for the hotdog, +$10 for drinks) I really wouldn’t expect much of the food, and I do understand that there is always an Admiralty / Central premium which jacks the price up. But think about this: for about the same price I can get a McDonald set plus an apple pie (not that I’d want to…), or a (not very good) BBQ pork rice at Hokkaido Dairy Farm Restaurant, or a wide range of options at Fairwood / Café de Coral. The rather philosophical question is: Why would I want to pay this price to get a dog which is of similar quality but only half fills my stomach?
I couldn’t find an answer to that.
But of course, this is a new shop, and they might be ramping up and smoothing things out. I’ll withhold any recommendation for now (although that might be obvious!), but the only reasons I find to try the Frank again may be to sample their sausages or in hope that they’ve improved. This will be updated when that happens.
