Hong Lin Restaurant (康年餐廳) has 2 branches and one branch is just one street over from the other. Like Man Wah (Hong Lin is 2 doors down from Man Wah), I’ve walked by this place (well, both places) many times but never visited due to the crowds. This place does baked HK classics like Cocktail buns, Pineapple buns, egg tarts, etc. as well as tea restaurant fare.
The french toast is a Cheese flavoured French Toast which I thought would be interesting. Sweet and savoury work together, a lot of Hong Kong baked goods are based on that principle (HK bakeries tend to use a sweet soft dough for their breads, so think raisin roll type bread minus the raisins and add hot dog.) I had high hopes for this one, it came out and looked pretty thick with a large pat of butter on top (the plate they used was branded by Anchor, continental breakfast fans know what I’m saying), and was golden brown. Unfortunately, it was a disappointment. There was barely a smear of crunchy peanut butter, and it tasted burnt somehow. The cheese flavour was weak; I think it was a cheese spread instead of sliced cheese, and I’m not a cheese snob, give me a bag of chips and a tub of fake Tostitos queso and I’m like pig in shit so I can appreciate ‘fake’ cheese but this was on another level of mediocre.
If you think you would like cheese spread and peanut butter inside of a bread Ménage à trois wrapped in egg, then you would still be disappointed since there is barely any filling to speak of, for me, this was a blessing. It was like a fried french toast club sandwich with cheese in one level and peanut butter in the other, and that sounds like it could be good but it really wasn’t. I don’t know if they didn’t heat the fat enough when they cooked this but it was soggy with grease, this could possibly be from the melted cheese product but who knows. Check out the video to see what I mean, the fat was oozing out when I try to cut it, and it’s soggy with fat which made it hard to cut through.
This is a 3/10, almost no redeeming qualities but marks for doing something different.
Cost:
It cost between 35-40 dollars and a bit of my good mood that day.
Location: (link)
康年餐廳
Hong Lin Restaurant
G/F, 143-145 Tung Choi Street, Mong Kok
旺角通菜街143-145號地舖
