We Have Become A French Toast Nation

i remember when i was 14 and Kim Gary had just opened in Mid Valley. cheese baked rice was still quite new to me. and i cant recall the exact moment i first tasted Kim Gary’s french toast, or why we’d ordered that, but i do know that i was head over heels in love with it from day 1. i remember i loved it so much that i told my then-boyfriend that i loved Kim Gary’s french toast more than i loved him. and the boyfriend after that. and the boyfriend after that. and all my boyfriends to date. in fact, i think i’m going to wake my dad up right now and tell him i love Kim Gary’s french toast more than him.

it’s been several years since then - and just like the mushrooming of steakhouses, or fruitjuices in humongous mugs in the year 2000, Hong Kong restaurants and cafes have been mushrooming as well. there are lots of places now that serve the ubiquitous cheese-baked rice in dimsum baskets as well as Nissin noodles (we will never really know if it’s truly Nissin) and all those weird colourful drinks with names like Blue Sunset and Gem of the Sea. so when it comes to HK restaurants, we’re spoilt for choice. but i’ve got 4 favourites - the only ones i keep going back to!

and here i’m going to pit them against each other! :D hehehe. they are the Kim Gary chain, the Wong Kok Char Chan Teng chain, Tsim Tung, and Food & Tea. this is gonna be a comparison of their borsch soup, sandwiches, cheese baked rice, and of course, the absolutely heavenly HK french toast :)

1. Borsch Soup

to be honest, i have no idea what borsch is doing in an HK menu. the ones we get here taste and look nothing like the original beetroot borsch - in fact, it’s more tomato and onion than anything else! but it’s still damn good, so who cares :P in HK borsch soup, there is typically onions, carrots, cabbage and capsicum all boiled in a thin tomato base. very yummy! i much prefer it to the Campbell shit they try to pass off as mushroom soup in the HK restaurants here.

Kim Gary’s borsch isn’t as good as it used to be. it was so much better back in 2002-2003, thicker and heartier. now it’s kinda watery. it’s tangy with a strong capsicum taste, for you if you like capsicum. personally, i absolutely hate it, so i’ve grown to dislike KG’s borsch.

Tsim Tung’s borsch just sucks. it’s super thin, not tomatoey at all, and it tastes like a mouthful of capsicum juice. okay maybe the last bit was an exaggeration cos i’m super sensitive to the taste of capsicum .. but believe me, you dont want to order borsch at TT.

Wong Kok’s borsch on the other hand is such a delight. the taste of vege melds really well with the tomato, and although it’s a thin soup, it’s not watery like TT’s. it’s just one of those soups that taste so good you cant stop spooning it into your mouth! :D

Food & Tea doesnt have borsch so i replaced it with their Mushroom soup in a bread bowl cos it’s sooooooooooooo gooooood. the bread is crusty on the outside and soft on the inside, and is really fragrant. i have no idea what bread it is - all i know is that it’s not white bread. but whatever it is, it’s really good and compliments the soup so well. the soup isnt grossly starchy like most mushroom soups, and has just the right texture. it’s got lots of little mushroom bits too, and a subtle herby taste. it’s actually one of the best mushroom soups i’ve ever had!

2. Sandwiches

(at first i intended to compare only the beef n egg sandwiches - cos i think any eatery can just plonk luncheon meat out of cans or thaw out frozen ham and throw them onto bread and it’d all taste the same .. but bloody WK and F&T dont serve beef n egg. so i’ve got ham & cheese for both those places instead. blah. stupid WK and F&T. why?! beef n egg sandwiches ARE SO GOOD!)

let me just say that Kim Gary’s is the beef n egg sandwich to end all beef n egg sandwiches. the filling, as you can see from the pic, is super thick and super generous - the beef is succulent and sooo flavourful, the omelette soft and ample. plus the bread is lightly toasted (great texture) and has the nice light taste of butter. it’s so awesome.

and when you compare KG’s to Tsim Tung’s, you just wanna send TT’s sandwich back. it’s honestly one of the worst sandwiches i’ve ever had .. the egg is a paper thin omelette that’s disgustingly flourescent in colour??? beef is dry and overly peppery. sucks, dont buy.

as for Wong Kok’s and Food&Tea’s, there’s not much to say cos it tastes like any ordinary ham and cheese sandwich. though i liked Food & Tea’s more cos it was toasted. and the cheese was nicer. milkier. i donno. nicer lah!

3. Cheese Baked Rice

cheese baked rice, for those who’ve never tried it, is rice and meat coated with cheese and red/white sauce, and then baked in aluminium foil. meats of choice are chicken chops, chicken wings, beef, fish, pork. my personal fav is fish in red (tomato) sauce! chicken or pork chops go really well with the white (cream) sauce. the above cheese baked rice dishes are all with chicken chops in red sauce.

Kim Gary’s cheese baked rice, like its borsch soup, used to be better i think. in the earlier years, they were more generous with the meat and cheese, but not anymore. the sauce is still good - mild and subtle, with a really distinct asian taste to it. the meat is better than most, tender and marinated just right. but! the secret! to Kim Gary’s super yummy cheese baked rice is! … dumdumdum .. lotus leaves placed at the bottom of the rice! during baking, the rice really soaks up the fragrance of the leaves - and the moment a spoonful of the rice hits your tongue, the lotus leaf taste is unmistakable. really good, and lends such flavour to the rice. which is the upper hand that Kim Gary has above the rest when it comes to cheese baked rice.

Tsim Tung’s cheese baked rice is .. not too bad i guess. the cheese is really full-bodied, so if you’re a cheese fan then TT is where you wanna go. the red sauce however, is just tomato paste right out of the jar. it’s frankly too tangy for my tastes, almost rude. they could have diluted it a bit, i think, to make it taste better. but to be fair, i’ve got a few friends who love TT’s cheese baked rice.

Wong Kok’s is so-so. theirs have the little mixed frozen vege (corn, cubed carrots and peas) in them which is like damn sesat. their sauce also tastes like those straight out of the cans, but is at least more subtle than TT’s. cheese is alright only lah, but the unforgivable was how bland the meat was. not very good cheese baked rice.

my brothers like Food & Tea’s though. it’s different from the other 3 places cos the taste of it is actually very Italian. the sauce has a very obvious bolognese taste to it cos they actually use oregano. cheese is mozzarella as well. overall, pretty good!

4. French Toast

and of course … the all-important French Toast :D Hong Kong french toast is basically white bread dipped in egg and then fried to golden perfection. they are then sandwiched together with copious amounts of chunky peanut butter as filling, then drizzled with honey-flavoured sauce (no, it’s not honey, believe me) and topped with a big dollop of butter. it’s so orgasmic. and one of the best comfort foods ever!

Kim Gary’s french toast is utterly fantastic. its quality has never wavered and i absolutely love it. everything about it is just in the right proportions - the honey sauce and the peanut butter and the butter just come very well together. it’s the perfect French Toast :)

Tsim Tung has good bread though - it’s thicker and softer and tastes eggier, but there’s not enough peanut butter and honey sauce on it.

Wong Kok’s could give KG’s french toast a run for its money - the one-up it has over KG is that it actually feels healthier and lighter. not a lot of butter and honey sauce is used, which is a good thing if you dont like your french toast too scarily unhealthy. when you cut into WK’s french toast, you find lots of ooey gooey sticky melted peanut butter goodness in the middle and that’s really niceeeee. the bread doesnt contribute anything to it though, kinda tasteless.

finally, Food&Tea’s french toast has a light taste and feels less fattening as well. the bread is excellent here, and the honey sauce is sparse as well. not too shabby :)

so, in a nutshell -

Best Borsch Soup - Wong Kok
Best Sandwich - Kim Gary
Best Cheese Baked Rice - Kim Gary (Food & Tea is a close 2nd)
Best French Toast - Kim Gary (Wong Kok close 2nd)

i just want to say that Tsim Tung, despite the bad food, actually has the best service. Kim Gary’s staff need to stop hitting on their patrons, and Wong Kok’s need some manners, and Food & Tea’s need to be more efficient. the common factor is that they ALL need staff who can speak english … sometimes damn headache wan when i want to tell them certain stuff and dont know how to say it in Cantonese :(

ambience-wise, KG and WK is where you go if you like the hustle and bustle, Tsim Tung is warm and comfy and friendly (with free wifi access!), and F&T is the quieter and more chillout place. pricing is more or less the same in all places.

Kim Gary
@ Mid Valley, Sg Wang, Avenue K, Sunway Pyramid, Jusco Maluri, Plaza Damas
Other must-tries : French-style fried rice

Tsim Tung
@ Pandan Indah
Other must-tries : Char siew bun, Char siew sou (bbq pork puff pastry)

Wong Kok
@ SS2, 1 Utama, Leisure Mall, South City Plaza
Other must-tries : XO rolls, XO fried rice, Handmade noodles with honey chicken

Food & Tea
@ Taman Segar (outside Leisure Mall), Berjaya Times Square
Other must-tries : Cheese baked spaghetti, Mantao with crab sauce

Comments July 9th, 2006