Resort tea

Silvermine Beach Resort is looking better under new management so we decided to give the restaurant a second try. The prices are slightly higher than cha chaan teng prices in the village. 

But the atmosphere and view is definitely nicer. 

The food was okay, better than when we were first here two years ago. But still, a word of caution. Go for the local stuff because the chefs are obviously local.

Don't bother with the more exotic Southeast Asian food because they simply can't get it right here. This is supposed to be char kway teow, a Malaysian specialty. Instead, it was just rice noodles fried with curry powder, the way they do the spurious "Singapore noodles" everywhere in Hong Kong. It tastes weird, to say the least. 

 Their black pepper beef hor fun, a local specialty, tasted so much better.

Service still leaves a lot to be desired. We had to go and call our waiter and when he turned up eventually, he gave us only one menu to be shared between us. The food took half an hour to arrive.

I must say though, they were consistently slow throughout - the bill took forever to come and we could have walked off for all the staff cared.

Cafe fare

Being Chinese illiterate, I haven't dared step into the cha chan teng opposite Wellcome. But I have seen loads of people in it so I knew the food had to be cheap and good.

Today I woke up with a craving for the local fried beef noodles so I finally screwed up my courage to walk into the place.

As expected, they didn't have an English menu but the waitress speaks English so she translated the daily specials for me.

I did get my beef noodles. And it was all I'd expected it to be: juicy slices of beef, oil-slicked noodles, sweet cabbage and an amazing smoky wok hei (wok breath).

All for HK$33, with an iced lemon tea.

It was worth going off the beaten track, food-wise, after all.