Hong Kong: Teawood 茶木, Quarry Bay

Teawood is one of my sister's favourite restaurants, which offers Taiwanese cuisine and is famous for their honey toast stacks. So upon setting foot on Hong Kong, my sister decided to take me to the Teawood in Tai Koo Shing, which was one of her few usual food haunts when eating out.

Sign Outside Restaurant

After a long wait in the queue, we finally were seated at a booth table and got to skim through their extensive menu. Given the limited eating time, we quickly made our orders and the food was quickly churned out.

Marinated Food Set in Taiwanese Style (HK$71)

Their combination platter - consisting of soy-marinated egg, pork belly, beef brisket, chicken wings - was slightly sweet but well-balanced against the saltiness of the dark soy marinade. The meats were cooked to a soft texture that almost melted in your mouth.

Teawood Noodles with Stewed Beef (HK$75)

Teawood Noodles with Stewed Beef (HK$75);
Rice with Fried Chicken Fillet and Marinated Minced Pork (HK$67);
Rice with Fried Pork and Marinated Minced Pork (HK$67)

We ended up sharing three mains between four of us in order to leave room for dessert. The noodle soup was a simple, wholesome dish with ample chunks of beef and carrots. The fried chicken and pork tasted very similar - given that they were both flattened to paper-thin thickness, cooked with same coating, and served with the same condiments and rice - but they were still satisfying to eat together. I thought it was amusing how the spoons were shaped like miniature shovels but I'm not quite sure how practical they are as an eating utensil.

Then came the dessert, which was the highlight of the meal for me:

Strawberry Vanilla Honey Toast (HK$78)

This was the first honey toast that I'd tried - it's basically slices of thick bread that have been hollowed out, toasted and stacked with loads of fruit, ice cream (perhaps frozen yogurt given its slightly tart taste), ample mini marshmallows and strawberry sauce. The dessert was such a hit with the entire family that it was the battle of the quickest eater at the table.

I have to say that the dish portions were substantial and prices are relatively comparable to what you would pay in Sydney (but expensive for Hong Kong). However I did have an issue with the cleanliness and service offered here.

Cleanliness in Hong Kong has always below par when compared to other countries, although it has picked up in restaurants over the years. I guess white, cloudy stains on cups after dish-washing is probably the norm but when combined with fingerprints and what not around the cup rim, I was a bit skeptical about drinking my cup of water during my first meal out in Hong Kong. As a result, I was practically dying of thirst by the end of the meal.

Menus

Service, on the other hand, left a lot to be desired and dampened the entire dining experience - as we were eating dinner during peak hour, we ended up waiting over 30min in line for a table inside the restaurant, a fact which was not helped by seated customers (couple + young child) shifting from a small table to a booth seat capable of sitting a group of four. When we were finally seated, the waiter stated on two occasions (in seriously fast Cantonese) that we had to vacate the table within 1.5 hours, which seemed to be norm to ensure quick turnover in this popular restaurant so we promptly selected and ordered our main dishes, with the dessert to be ordered when we had nearly finished our mains so that the ice cream would be all melted by the time we moved onto dessert.

Food didn't take that long to arrive and it certainly satisfied our hungry stomachs but it took forever to flag down staff to order our dessert as they had either disappeared to the kitchen, busy chatting near the bar, or basically ignoring our flailing waving hands. Tables were left uncleared for a while after customers had left so they were either inefficient or under-staffed. The service actually reminds me of the old-school Hong Kong cafes with abrupt waiters that won't take no crap but in this case, it just felt more like there was insufficient staff to cope with the workload.

So... good food vs limited eating timeframe and mediocre service - is it really worth it??

Link to Open Rice: Teawood