The burger from Wagyu

I'd been looking forward to the burger from Wagyu for literally, months, since the first time I had it for dinner. Finally grabbed L and A last Friday for a late leisurely lunch, eagerly anticipating the burgers we were all going to order.

Wagyu is a restaurant from the Castelo Concepts restaurant group, which also owns the quite delightful Oola up on Bridges Street, one of my favourite venues for lunch and dinner.

We made our reservation at 1pm and the place was packed and noisily festive when we arrived - everyone is taking the opportunity to have a nice long lunch at the start of the weekend, very nice. The restaurant is an all day dining concept, open from breakfast and all the way through, which means you can satisfy your burger or wagyu steak craving at three in the afternoon, should the urge beckon. They also offer a 3-course set lunch at a very good value HK$145, which we were briefly tempted by, but we came to Wagyu for the burger, and so all three of us ordered the burger.

I ordered mine sans vegetables, the way I usually like my burgers - just the wagyu beef and with cheese (3 choices of swiss, cheddar or blue). And requested for french fries (skinny) instead of the fat fries which was the standard side. L and A's fat fries looked nice and succulent, and they said they were very delicious. The bread was lightly toasted, fluffy warm white bap, which complemented the meat very nicely.

The burger was as good as I remember, with the juicy patty from wagyu minced beef, and even though I ordered mine well done for obvious reasons, it wasn't dry at all, and was juicy and flavourful, with a nice hint of cumin and spice. The fries were nicely done and I gobbled up every single fry, alternating between ketchup and horseradish dip, as well the whole entire burger, though I had well meaning intentions to perhaps leave about.... a quarter behind. Yumyum!!

Actually, on a side note, L felt that the blue cheese which was her choice of cheese was a tad overpowering, but my cheddar went nicely with.

A quick mention about the dessert I forced my friends to "share" with me (actually I ate about 95% of it) - the apple crumble consisted of more crumble than apple, the way I like it, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a light sprinkle of strawberry and apricot sauce, topped with a decorative gooseberry. The sauce baked into the crumble tasted very slightly reminiscent of the Teochew taro dessert orh nee and was not typical of what you'd expect in an apple crumble, but I felt its warm sweet gooeyness was well incorporated into the entire concoction.

A return visit please!

A Complicated Noodle at Greyhound Cafe

Greyhound Cafe in Siam Paragon is a must-go for a quick snack whenever I'm in Bangkok.  It's been awhile - more than 2 years since I've been to BKK, so when Greyhound Cafe opened up in Hong Kong, a visit is definitely imminent even though I was skeptical of whether the cafe's hip vibe of thai-western fusion would be able to be reasonably replicated outside of Bangkok.

Today, after running some errands in the area, I ended up in IFC just before the lunch rush and managed to grab a table.

The eatery was flooded with blazing light because it was along the side facing the harbour, and the chairs were a mix of retro fabric ones and clean hard structured ones. The general decor scheme was black and white, and naked bulbs hung from the exposed ceiling, with specials of the day were written in chalk on blackboards. Casual, hip, apt. Ok, I found it a tad toooo bright but I tend to find places too bright.

At Greyhound, I always order the Complicated Noodle (literally, that's what they call it on the menu), and so I did that. It's actually a typical thai minced pork stew, served with the lime and fish sauce chili on the side (this chili is the kind you'd find everywhere on the streets of Bangkok), and fresh lettuce. Greyhound serves it with a twist with square pieces of flat white noodles  - the same noodles you'd commonly find in a vietnamese pho or chinese noodle dish, except for the funky square shape.

Top: Complicated Noodle as served. Bottom: my attempt at piling everything unto the noodle

I guess it's named Complicated because eating it is not straightforward - I tried tearing up the lettuce and cilantro into little pieces, and sprinkled some chili and the pork unto the flat noodle piece, and folding the creation in half. Miserably failed to elegantly shove it into my waiting mouth with my hands though. It didn't work much better when I used a fork and knife but at least I didn't have pork stew juice running down my wrist.

That aside, it was as delicious as I remember, and I think they even dumbed down the amount of garlic in the chili. Even though you can see the pieces floating on top in the picture, I wasn't left with the stubborn lingering aftertaste of garlic, which pleased me tremendously. The chili was tangy and cut through the warm pork stew, and with lots of cilantro and bites of lettuce, provided a nice crunch to the entire morsel.

The rest of the menu looked interesting too, with pasta items that incorporated asian/thai ingredients like salty fish, Thai anchovies, fresh chilis and basil.

Must return to eat more!

2 locations - IFC Mall in Central and Ocean Terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui.
greyhoundcafe.com.hk