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

Pad Krapow Moo: minced pork with basil rice (and garlic!!)

I love this spicy, basil-y porky dish to bits and this is a must-have each time I go to Bangkok - has it been nearly two years?! And it’s good no matter where you have it in Bangkok - dingy food courts, roadside stalls, restaurants. Is it because it’s so easy to cook?

We shall find out tonight as me, the novice, attempts to cook it. And in fact, to honour this dish's authenticity, I am using garlic for the very first time in my little kitchen - not chopped up as the real version would be, but in whole cloves (not even smashed) to get a Touch of garlic flavour but not toooo much.

It was a challenge locating Holy Basil in Hong Kong, I’m sure it’s available because there are many Thai restaurants here, but the one thai grocery store I knew in Central had a basil that was either Thai Basil or Holy Basil. Apparently both work, even though Holy Basil was the preferred one if you could find it.  

I used this recipe from Chez Pim and added two fried eggs for J and one for me on top. I also faithfully asked for pork butt to be minced from the local wet market.

The result? Yumms!! There are a few things I would do differently next time to make it even better though: 

• chopped up the chili into finer pieces and add a little more chili (it wasn’t spicy enough). 
• Smash the garlic pieces a little 

Otherwise - an easy, savoury, comforting quick stir fry that takes minutes to whip up.