R&B Research & Bakery - Great food concept but.......

R&B Research & Bakery has almost everything you can ask for from a good eatery - a convenient location, a creative menu that spurs anticipation, chic decor and even a beautiful banyan tree right outside the window. 

But what's missing, and most fundamentally important for a restaurant, is the cooking...no matter how well the food is being plated afterwards. On the up side, R&B has great potentials, and it's mainly the chefs to be counted on to make things right as they are supposed to be. Let's just hope, it doesn't hurt to stay positive right? 

Really love this natural light and tree view idea... :)

Here comes the food...let me start with the best - Elote - grilled corn cob with chili, butter and LOTS OF CHEESE! It doesn't look like a lot but in fact every kernel I had went with an abundance of cheese - amazing. The corn tasted really sweet and crunchy. The tricky part of this elote is you've got to cut out the sweet corn kernels from the cob, which is a bit large to handle, collaborative effort is recommended if you don't wish to make a mess. 

Here's another one worth trying - 

Ice cube coffee/ chocolate

Lovely concept about freezing the coffee/ chocolate into ice, and serving it with warm milk to melt it down. The end product is cool, not cold not warm. And the coffee I had was on the bitter side...it means quite bitter as I drink black coffee on a daily basis...anyway it was fun haha! The chocolate comes with mint leaves and orange peels, a thoughtful touch :)

Alright, you can stop reading from here as I have finished the 'recommendation' part. The rest of the food we tried only looked good. So if you have the leisure, read on~

Uni gnocchi

How exciting to see these two word being put together on the menu~ sea urchin and gnocchi...but when you have taken a bite and felt the sogginess of the overcooked gnocchi, you will be immediately turned off...putting the not-so-uni tasting sauce aside, I am more concerned about why the kitchen did not even prepare a simple pasta properly...

Chicken nuggets

I like the idea of it not using the processed McNuggets but chicken meat (with skin) marinated with lemon juice then deep fried. It comes also with fried garlic and a tartare-tasting mayonnaise. It's nice in general only the chicken was over fried, i.e. very dry...

Buttermilk fried chicken Benedict

There was an incidence with the Hollandaise sauce of our Fried chicken Benedict...didn't eat it and cancelled the order in the end...no comment

Chocolate blackout cake

It's huge!!! 4 layers of fudge and (very firm) choco pudding can feed 4 people after a normal to big portion lunch. The cake wasn't bad, very chocolaty. I could taste marzipan(?!) in the pudding in the rim part..okay

My friend and I literally blacked out after eating...haha! Will give it another try...have faith!

R&B Research and Bakery

Address: 3/F, Pacific Mansion, 172-174 Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

Tel: 2191 5445

M&C Duck 美中鴨子 - Chic Peking Duck

Partly curious about the food and partly appealed by its fame, 美中鴨子 M&C Duck at Harbour City turned out to be a nice choice for a girls dinner.

Forgive my superficialness for being easily impressed by nice looking food :P The sliced pork in garlic and chili sauce (蒜泥白肉) was one of them~ and the taste was stimulating too. Every slice was a perfect combination of thin sliced pork and cucumber, crispy garlic and subtle spiciness. I like the efforts they put in the presentation~ it's already appetizing by the look :)

Their famous Peking duck was okay, with light-flavored and lean duck meat, which was good. Probably a bit more seasoning of the skin would be better.

 <-- comes with a duck bone broth

Duck slice with osmanthus pudding (桂花糕凍伴鴨件) was a fun dish~ can't say the two ingredients match very well but not bad to experiment. Let me further explain the anatomy for better judgement - duck skin + mayo + cucumber + osmanthus pudding + Pringles chip --- like it or not it's totally subjective :P

Chicken thick soup with vegetable（翡翠雞茸羹）- delicious soup with flavorful chicken broth, don't remember tasting any vegetable, probably it refers to the splash of green soup on top? 

Also had xiao long bao and minced beef cake~ not bad

“M&C Duck” is Maxim's Chinese Cuisines’ latest brand created under a youthful and minimalistic concept. It offers young customers an innovative experience of the Barbecued Peking Duck and a chic, relaxing go-to in town.

美中鴨子 M&C Duck
Tel: 2347 6898
Address: Shop 3319, level 3, Gateway Arcade, Harbour City, 17 Canton Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

Lab Made Nitrogen Ice-cream - The Art and Science of Forming Ice Crystals

Science is gradually making its way into the world of gourmet, giving rise to molecular cuisines and the fancy terminology called mixology, even to "molecular ice-creams". A year ago, Ronnie and his girlfriend, two UK-graduated pharmacists, gave up their well-paid jobs to open the first nitrogen ice-cream shop in Hong Kong - something thy felt very impressive and passionate for. And the formula justified too, the combination of pharmacists with good understanding of science + experimental spirits + passion for good tastes = Lab Made Nitrogen Ice-cream.

The secret of the smoothness and creaminess of Lab Made's ice-cream is the freezing time. The longer it takes to to freeze ice-cream, the bigger the ice crystals, so the more grainy and icy the texture. Using extremely cold liquid nitrogen at -196℃ to rapidly freeze the ice-creams within only 60 seconds, much smaller ice crystals are resulted, and hence a smoother texture. The vaporization of "boiling" nitrogen at room temperature during the ice-cream production also creates cool visual effects at the open kitchen/ lab.

Not only the texture, the flavors at Lab Made also never fail to impress. Their menu changes every two weeks, creative ice-cream flavors are replaced by even more creative ones, some previous wins include HK Custard Bun (流沙奶皇包!!), purple rice sweet soup (紫米露), super lemon meringue pie, The Big Daddy - whisky chocolate, sea salt caramel...so what's on right now?

9/7 – 21/7 flavors
A – Birthday Cake
B – HK Custard Bun
C – Banocolate Rice Crispies
D – Blueberry Breakfast

Another thing that impresses me is that, Lab Made's scientists don't hide in a lab inventing new flavors, they are indeed aggressive in marketing and bringing out their inventions to the public outside Tai Han. They have extended their reach, and made themselves available for private or company parties' catering! Here's a recent adidas event featuring Lab Made - reeeeally CooL!

 This is ice cream re-invented. Happy 1-year Birthday to Lab Made Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream!

Lab Made Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream Laboratory
Address: G/F, 6 Brown Street
Tel: 2670 0071

Bricklane - The Egg Benedict Place

After an exciting night watching the Cheung Chau Bun Scrambling Competition, you shall be waking up at brunch time and it's just perfect time to see this post :) Bricklane is an eatery with reminiscence of its namesake in London East End. Located in a relatively quiet corner of Tsim Sha Tsui, it's a nice place to sit back and chit chat for an afternoon if you go for a late-brunch (at least after 2:30pm), so you could have better chance to avoid being kicked out after your meal.

They serve a phenomenal egg benedict with Parma ham (yes! they do have this unique offer), with a perfectly poached egg with flowy yolk and delicious buttery Hollandaise. I especially like its 'English muffin' which seems to be a piece of burger bun instead toasted with savory butter. It is not as chewy as English muffin but still lets the sauce and ham hang on it perfectly well. One precaution is that you can't let the bun soak in the sauce for too long or it'd become soggy pretty soon. So yummy I'll go back only for this!

They have a supersize beef burger in the menu, with a patty of 10oz beef. It looked good but too heavy for me so I ordered fish and chips. The presentation was fun with chips building a jenga tower and a piece of crispy fish fillet laying on top. However, both the fish and chips were a bit too oily...it disappointed me when I was only craving for french fries at that time.

Out of curiosity I also ordered a red velvet cake for the sake of comparing with the one I made. I think my cupcakes could also be priced at $65...on the menu it recommends to order some time in advance for the cream cheese filling to soften at room temperature. I asked to verify, and the server said no need coz. he could take it out from the fridge in the restaurant across the street (?!) Anyway, the cake was a bit too hard, but the taste was fine, just like the red velvet cakes I had in Southern US. It would really be better if the cake was allowed to soften for maybe half an hour, guess the servers was only trying to be helpful though.

Overall it was a pleasant and relaxing afternoon sitting by the windows of Bricklane. Its location and egg benedict were major contributing factors to this :)

Bricklane [Menu]
G/F, 2 Blenheim Avenue, Tsim Sha Tsui
2736 8893

Smile Yogurt - The frozen yogurt means to make people smile

This is one of the most mouth-watering dessert shop displays in Hong Kong. With a mission to make people smile, Smile Yogurt totally lives up to it.

Original flavor is the only yogurt flavor served in this store, but I think a single perfect flavor would suffice. The yogurt itself has a moderately firm texture that holds the beautiful swirl well until you finish the whole cup.

Accompanying the yogurt are the wonderful house-made toppings such as vanilla noodles, crumbles, passion fruit banana compotes, chocolate explosive mikados, strawberry meringues, lychee rose sauce, osmanthus jelly...etc. The menu comprises of frozen yogurt cups in different combinations, some popular ones are Banana Split, Vanilla Sky and Pink Lady. Looking at the menu, they are already mouth-watering, taking a spoon you are going to fall head over heels in love.

To make one smile, it takes sincerity and a mind for detail to make sure every frozen yogurt cup served is of perfection. While standing at the bar enjoying my froyo, I observed the froyo-makers and gave my full respect to them as I saw them putting red berry crisps (something considered as sprinkles to be sprinkled on)  one-by-one evenly on the yogurt swirl like decorating a piece of jewelry with gemstones. I appreciate food vendors who could turn something simple into amusements by creativity and a persistence for quality. Keep smiling :)

Smile Yogurt & Dessert Bar
Kowloon City branch - 2382 6669 - G/F No.65, Lion Rock Road Kowloon City, Kowloon
Tsim Sha Tsui K11 Branch - 2138 6210 - Unit G15A, G/F, K11, 18 Hanoi road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon
Causeway Bay Hysan Place Branch - 2811 8321 - Shop 509, 5/F Hysan Place, 500 Hennessy Road,Causeway Bay, Hong Kong 

Party tips:
Dessert cups are available for parties to delight your guests. Their mikado pretzel sticks are also pretty party gifts too!