My restaurant review radar must be malfunctioning because I had a terrible dining experience tonight. Where, the magazine that is found in hotels worldwide had a decent blurb about Soho Spice and their website looked good, so I made a last-minute reservation for a late dinner. I took the Midlevels Escalator up to it and walked into a dark narrow room. I opted for a table at the back which turned out to be open to the sky above, with a view not of the stars, but of laundry and air conditioners from the surrounding flats.
My first disappointment was noticing the menu was different from the outdated Where review and the online version. Where were the dishes that I wanted, soft shell crab in rice paper rolls, grilled lamb salad and pumpkin custard? I ended up getting a mango juice and deep-fried soft shell crab in chickpea batter. Blech. Watery, canned juice and a greasy bland crustacean. I suppose it was my own fault for not ordering anything with vegetables but halfway through the crab, I was sick of it.Thinking I would make it up with some fruit for dessert, my first choice was the blood orange jelly with tropical fruit and mango sauce, but they didn't have it. When I asked about the selection of ice creams, the waiter told me, "Chocolate and vanilla."
You've never seen me pay a bill so fast.
I took the escalator all the way up to the top then walked back down. The whole area is quite grungy, dimly lit in places and difficult to navigate, maybe it's nicer during the day. I made my way over to D'Aguilar Street while pushing my way through a crowd of soccer fans. As there is a large contingent of Canadians in Hong Kong, and because it's an excuse to have a party, Lan Kwai Fong was celebrating Canada Day early. There were Canadian flags hanging, people wearing white cowboy hats, flag tattoos, stickers with witty sayings like "Hockey: better than sex" and "Kiss me, I'm Canadian" and even dancers in the street (the women wearing cutoff T-shirts, the men in cowboy hats and hockey sticks).
No comments:
Post a Comment