Ginza Tsubame Grill 銀座つばめグリル review

For those who follow my daily blog, you must be anticipating my blog post about this place, and I am FINALLY writing about it!

restaurant logo

Tsubame Grill opened in 1930, which means they have been in business for 89 years!... that's a very long time! (especially in Tokyo where the lifecycle of a restaurant is usually 5 years).

The inside of the restaurant leaves a Showa ambience, but it is new and very clean. Their wet wipes were very thick and the cutlery was very sturdy. There is usually a wait during lunchtime, but I came after lunchtime, so it was fairly empty.  (btw... they have several locations around Tokyo).

I ordered their seasonal special, which was approximately ¥1400 (this is the lunch set... you can get a cheaper option, the only difference is there is no salad). It was very bold for me since I have not found a single Hamburg place I like... in fact... I don't like Hamburg... it doesn't have the same meat texture as steak... however, this place changed my mind.

The Tomato salad came... I certainly wasn't expecting this... a whole tomato! There was a pile of chicken salad at the bottom. It was tasty... did I mention I don't like tomatoes? And I liked this O.O

The next item was the baguette, the bread.

This bread deserves 2 pictures because it tasted so good!! I am a fan of bread... and the last time I had something so tasty was when I was in Macau... (but that was a Portuguese type of bread). This bread was REALLY good!! ...It was crispy, fresh, and... just tasted so good! 

This is the seasonal veggies with hamburg steak. It came with a soy-based sauce with mustard. This hamburg steak was very tasty... the meat was tender and was marinated with a bit of salt so that you can taste the freshness of the meat. It was grilled so that it wasn't overcooked or undercooked. Just right!

The seasonal veggies were done very well... just enough seasoning to make them tasty but did not steak away from the tastiness and freshness of the veggies. The potatoes were fried very well, crispy on the outside and soft and creamy on the inside. 

I had to do a close up of the eggplant... it was really good :P

My conclusion is, if things are made right... everything can taste good... included by lifelong hated tomato and hamburg steak. I will be back for more!

Ginza's Tsubame Grill
銀座のつばめグリル

score: 9.5/10
website: https://www.tsubame-grill.co.jp/

Buruzu Azabu Juban Yakiniku short review

Happy New Year!!! I ate this back in 2018... but I didn't have time to write about it... so here it is! 

the name of the place is: ブルズ焼き肉 (BULLS in English)

I had one of the best dining and also worse services at this restaurant. I was torn when I had to rate this place. The food was fantastic but the service was one of the worse.

This was the set menu... unfortunately, the ¥6000 set required us to tell the restaurant well in advance. Out of ¥8,000 and ¥10,000, we chose ¥10000. The reason was the UniNiku (雲丹肉 Sea Urchin with Beef)

 The 雲丹肉 was the deciding factor when we chose the restaurant as well as the set. (only the ¥10000 included this in their set... regular price is ¥800 / piece).

Pumpkin soup and beef tartar

presentation of table

Add caption

in the dish next in front of the uniniku, you can see a sauce dish. Left is a strong yuzu sauce and right is salt.

the sauces from left to right: onion sauce, some sour sauce, lemon sauce

the salad was really good. I really liked the salad dressing... it was salt based.

the kimchi Korean platter

the meat platter... :9 (is your mouth watering yet?)

it deserves another picture

and another one

the stove was big making the meat look small... but they weren't... 

in the end they gave us pickles

this dish required us to cook on the stove 5 seconds each side.

the result (there was a piece of rice we had to wrap around

we had an assortment of ramen to choose from cold, spicy to mild. I chose the spicy one

a sherbert to finish the meal off

and finally... the candy basket. which contained a lot of random candy, breath mints, some mints to clean your stomach and gum.

the service:

it was terrible. First, the servers did not know what food was included and couldn't answer any of our questions. They were unprofessional and extremely rude.

the restaurant closes at 11:00. But they started kicking us out at 9:15... and then ushered us out by 10:00... (we gave them the benefit of the doubt thinking maybe we were the only ones left... BUT when we walked out of the booth, there were two more tables still eating... and there was no line).

During the moments they think they could charge us extra (for the ramen, if we chose a Spanish Paella, we had to pay ¥700 extra) they came acting nice and trying hard to convince us to upgrade when we declined they gave us a dirty look and left.

service score: 4.5/10
food score: 9.5/10
website: http://yakiniku-bulls.com/

if you are interested, please check out my personal blog and follow me around Tokyo :)

Hong Kong Pizza Hut Afternoon Tea review

inside dining area

Pizza Hut has come a long day from it's pizza restaurant days in Hong Kong. What used to look like a cafeteria has been transformed into a much presentable restaurant. It would not be exaggerated to call it a cafe... A pizza Cafe.

As I walked into Pizza Hut, I was immediately surrounded by the familiar aroma of Pizza Hut's pizza

After sitting and waiting for food I realized that soft commemorate jazz was being played.

Where ever you are, you can hear the noise of workers hard at work in the kitchen... I didn't mind but when they started talking loudly outside their work area (inside the dining area), that was when I started to mind.

Afternoon Tea Set

After carefully choosing (you can find their menu on their website) I opted for their Supreme Pizza Set. There were a lot of choices... but this appealed to me the most. You can either choose a specialty drink or a soup... I chose soup. The cost of this was $65 HKD.

Supreme Mini Pizza

Supreme Pizza

Pizza was delicious. The pineapples complimented the taste very well

Olives gave it that extra push of savory

Pizza crust, very crispy on the outside, very soft and moist on the inside.

I found the crust at the bottom to be slightly oily though.

Score: 8.5/10

Cream of Chicken and Mushroom Soup

Cream of Chicken and Mushroom Soup

I love this soup. It is one of my favourite items here and I'm glad they have kept it till now! 

The soup is not thick and can be considered thin by "cream soup" standards (but this is what I like about it). Although the Chicken and Mushroom taste is not very strong, you can still taste them and there are a lot of chicken and mushroom bits inside. I really like the soup brooth/base, it leaves your mouth feeling savoury.

Score: 9.5/10

Service

The service was fair but not very efficient. I find myself making an effort to capture the staff and servers' attention. And it took them a long time to clear out finished dishes. And the noise that I mentioned at the beginning... not very happy with that.

Website: http://www.pizzahut.com.hk/en/restaurant/tea.html

Sorento Wood Oven Stove review

For my Birthday (yes... sorry... I know this has been a while) my cousin decided to take me to this Mediterranean place which cooks their food on a Wood Oven Stove.

Escargot (Appetizer)

Escargot

Impressions:

• portion is small (only 6 escargot)
• small size of escargot
• loved the cheese and sauce

I found this quite expensive... for almost $10 CND... the portion is quite small...

Taste-wise, it was good... the cheese and spinach cream sauce was delicious. The Escargot didn't seem fresh though.

Score: 6.5/10

close up of Escargot 

Sorento Specialty Pizza

Sorento Pizza

Impressions:

• hot! lots of hot peppers
• thin crispy crust 
• very filling

I liked the pizza... it was definitely much more worth than the escargots, the pizza was around $12. Be careful though, there are quite a lot of salty hot peppers, they were quite a surprise when I ate them... I didn't expect there to be too many... but regardless, it was a well made thin crust pizza. 

AND... although it looks small... it is extremely filling.

Score: 9/10

Sorento Specialty Spaghetti

Sorento Spaghetti

Impressions:

• lots of sauce
• would be much better if they used a thicker pasta (e.g. fettuccine, Linguine)
• Portion looks small but extremely filling
• lots of chicken
• loved the sauce

I was obsessed with the sauce, it was very tasty. The blend of herbs with the cream was perfect, this was a Spinach, Mediterranean herb sauce, I also appreciated the amount of sauce contained... but wished it was a thicker pasta... the Spaghetti was having a hard time holding the sauce and it was too thin making it less tasty.

Score: 8.5/10

I was quite happy with this meal, the service was not too good though, they were not very tentative and we had to make an effort to grab their attention.

website: no website

吉列豚肉專門店銀座梅林 Ginza Bairin @ K11 review

logo

First, I would like to apologize in advance. The restaurant had dim lighting so it was hard to take better quality pictures. >___<

different dressings

I got to try each of the dressings. The Sesame dressing was great with the salad. The Wasabi dressing and Tonkotsu Dressing were great for the Tonkotsu.

chopsticks and wet napkins.. I like their calligraphy font and colour

sashimi

Sashimi

Oooh, this was definitely one of the best sashimi I had in Hong Kong... Although I couldn't exactly tell the fish apart... how shameful of me.

This was their biggest Sashimi dish... I think they want to focus on their Tonkatsu instead of Sashimi. But if you are getting a Tonkatsu dinner (which you should!) this plate of Sashimi is more than enough (we shared it among 3 people)

Tonkotsu set

Tonkotsu!

Even with the bad lighting and blurry picture quality, you can see just how crispy these were.

Impressions

• Super crispy on the outside
• Tender on the inside
• Not oily 
• pork was so tasty

There is a reason why people like Black Pork (?) the most... I have never tasted such great tasting pork... not only was the flavour but there was just the right amount of fat to make it so tender, and it was perfectly moist making it super juicy!

The Tonkotsu was so crispy on the outside and the inside was so tender... although it didn't exactly "melt" in your mouth, it was very juicy. The right amount of fat made it perfect, not oily at all.

another view

The set included miso soup, rice and salad. The Sesame sauce (found on the table) was perfect for this salad (the other sauces didn't work so well... though they did produce an interesting taste).

one of the best Plum wines I have ever had

Plum Wine
They made their own Plum Wine, so unless you visit this place, you can't try it. I loved it... the plum taste was just right! This was the best tasting plum wine I have ever had... I see myself going on a journey to look for good tasting plum wine now :D

Score: 9/10
official website: http://www.ginzabairin.com/en/index.php
Hong Kong website: http://www.ginzabairin.com.hk/

永樂園茶餐廳 Wing Lok Yuen Restaurant review

Wing Lok Yuen Restaurant

Wing Lok Yuen has been with many generations of Hong Kongers, my parents always recalls this place whenever they talk about working in Central or when they are eating hotdogs. Wing Lok Yuen is known for their hotdogs because of the special secret sauce they use. 

Atmosphere:

• very casual (& no dress code)
• friendly staff
• helpful staff

Different types of people come to this restaurant anyone from people who wear suits and ties (businessmen... since this IS Central) to tourist to those who just want to get food after hangout with friends. There is such diversity!

I was actually scared of talking to the staff/waiters since 茶餐廳s are known to have bad service... but to my surprise, they were very friendly. They also gave good recommendations and were very helpful.

their famous hotdog

Price: $12 HKD (approx. $1.50 USD) - restaurant price

(if you order from their upstairs take out place, price is $10 HKD ($1.29 USD)

impressions:

• the hotdog is very small (especially compared to the bread)
• the sauce is really good...
• this isn't very filling
• take out and restaurant version taste the same

After you take a bite, you can understand why they are so popular... the sauce is really good!

I think the sauce contains: mustard, mayonnaise, sandwich spread, condense milk, ... something else... I tried mixing the sauce myself and it was something "similar" but not exactly what they served... so if you are around Central, definitely give this place a try (prices are certainly reasonable!)

I found the hotdog to be too small... you can hardly taste it (especially when the bread is so much bigger than the hot dog sausage).

Score: 8/10

Cold Lemon Tea

I forgot the exact price, but it was around $10 HKD (approx. $1.29 USD)

Every restaurant's drinks should be easily distinguishable... and I feel that their Iced Lemon Tea was very unique. I liked the blend of different tea leaves they used to create this special heavy tea taste. Just like other Hong Kong cafe's, they had included the standard 4 slices of lemon. It quenches your thirst and it tastes good! I also liked how they used shaved ice, making the ice easier to melt. The amount of sugar added was just perfect too!

Score: 9.5/10

Wing Lok Yuen's HK Milk Tea

after a sip, I could understand why they were given an award for their milk tea... first, it tastes different from the other places and second it is very smooth. You can tell that they made it.

they won HK's best milk tea in 2010

sugar packet with address

The also had their own sugar packets.

I love this place! I do regret not being able to try more menu items though. I would definitely be visiting this place again soon!

Score: 9.5/10
Website: no website