Eat Drink Hong Kong

57 Wyndham Street
Central
Hong Kong
Tel 2526 7993
Fax 2525 6733

At first this didn’t look like it would be an all that comfortable place to eat. The music was loud and the tables seemed a bit pokey and suitable only for drinking at. I was about to pass on by when I noticed a flight of stairs to the right.

I asked the waitress if there were more tables upstairs. “You want to go upstairs?” she asked somewhat surprised. I’d like to take a look I told her.

Upstairs was much better. The music wasn’t so loud and there were tables that looked like you could eat at them. Cafe Iguana serves Mexican food. You don’t need a menu to tell you that. One wall is green the others are yellow. They are hung with paintings featuring colours from the red end of the spectrum. A pile of sombreros lay to one side.

It’s not a big menu but what it does it does well. Four variations of guacamole are the first items. I ordered a Poblano ($68) and a bottle of Carta Blanca beer ($50). Poblano is a mild type of chilli pepper from Mexico. It adds a gentle spiciness to the avocado. Also in the mix was corn and asadero cheese. It is served with tortilla chips which are used to scoop it up.

The cocktail menu, on the other hand, is quite impressive. Patron, Don Julio and Herradura and the three main tequila brands used but for connoisseurs there are almost 50 others in stock. I do like tequila but I prefer to save it for weekends and days when I don’t have to remember what I was doing the night before.

From the tortilla section I had ordered the Carnita ($98). This is pork braised in orange and tequila and garnished with another dollop of guacamole. They are served open on freshly made tortillas. They roll up fairly easily but what impressed me the most was that the contents stayed inside. Usually when I try to eat things like this half of it falls into my lap.

Following this came the Alambres Al Pastor ($138). This is a large skewer of barbecued goodies. The waitress had asked if I preferred prawn or chicken. I suggested a mix of both and off she went to consult the chef.

The skewer itself is hung horizontally over a plate of roasted lime-oregano potatoes. On the skewer, alongside the prawn and chicken were red and green peppers, onion and pineapple. I don’t normally approve of pineapple in a dish like this but this time it was sharp and tangy so it worked quite well.

I finished off with a rather agreeable coconut flan garnished with blueberries and crispy coconut shavings.

When I left there still were not too many people upstairs although the ground floor seem fairly well populated. But it’s still a very new place, things will probably change as it becomes better known

G/F 33-35 Chatham Road South
Tsimshatsui
Kowloon (entrance Hart Ave)
Tel 3428 5133

8/F LKF Tower
55 D’aguilar Street
Lan Kwai Fong
Central
Hong Kong
Tel 2905 1168

Tequila is to mescal what Champagne is to sparkling wine. What distinguishes Tequila is that it is made from the blue agave plant which is found only in the Tequila region of western Mexico. We were sitting in a restaurant/bar called Agave in Lockhart Road, half a world away from western Mexico, staring at a drinks list that offered a bewildering selection of Tequila based drinks.

“Tequila Macho”, said my companion, “seventy-five bucks, a tequila blanco with white rum, dark rum and then some stuff like wimpy orange, pineapple and lime.”
“Are you having one?”, I asked.
“No, no , no,” she replied. “I’m going to have a Heart of Fire ($70), Tequila blanco, peach schnapps, sparkling wine and a slice of orange. What are you having?”

I returned my attention to the menu while my companion ordered a plate of nachos gringos ($83), tortilla chips with cheddar cheese salsa and a huge dollop of sour cream. “Margarita I think, El Toro Loco ($70),” which translates as ‘crazy bull’. It is made with Tequila blanco, absinthe, Red Bull and a dash of lime.

I was planning on ordering another starter but the waitress talked me out of it, insisting that the nachos were large enough for two. I took her word for it - I do have a tendency to over order sometimes.

The music was quite loud but not so loud that we couldn’t talk and whilst I would hesitate to say it was latin music, it did have a distinct party feel. The decor had a very tropical latin feel, yellow painted walls with painted red beams across the ceiling.

Combine with intricate light fittings and other ornamentations along with a ceramic tiled bar, and the plate of nachos gringos, and the effect is complete. It was a big plate but I wasn’t convinced that I couldn’t have managed another starter. Nevertheless, I let it slide and we dove into the nachos.

For the main event my companion had ordered the grilled fillet steak ($180) topped with chipotle sauce, oaxaca cheese and cilantro (coriander). For those of you that don’t already know, a chipotle is a smoked jalapeno chili pepper. It is believed the practice of smoking them goes back to even before the Aztec civilisation and that it came about because the thick fleshy peppers were hard to dry properly and tended to go mouldy. Smoked, they can be kept for quite a long time.

I did sneak a taste of the sauce and it was still quite tangy, not too spicy and altogether rather delicious. I would have been envious but I had a bowl of Camarones al Diabla ($160), or sauteed prawns in devil sauce. It had three little chilis next to it on the menu suggesting that it was going to be very spicy indeed.

It was quite spicy but not so much that it would challenge a seasoned chili aficionado. But I was impressed with how the flavour of the habaneros had been brought out without threatening to take the roof of my head off. Both dishes were served with Mexican rice and refried beans.

The waitress enquired if we still wanted the other starter or if we would prefer a dessert. We plumped for dessert. I could have eaten the starter but my companion was beat. Well almost. Any hopes I may have harboured for keeping the crepes with caramel sauce all to myself were very quickly dashed, “That’s so yummy” she said.

The waitress wondered if I’d like another Toro Loco. I was tempted but I knew that if I did I would soon be looking for a sombrero to wear and a sturdy table to dance on.

El Taco Loco is its full name but I think I must be the only one that knows that. To most people it seems to be simply Taco Loco. My son had no idea where I was talking about when I said; “meet me at El Taco Loco”. He called me from Lan Kwai Fong and said “well where is it?”

I directed him to the escalator and when he finally arrived he said “Taco Loco?, everyone knows where that is, or why didn’t you just say the Mexican place with the pink walls?”
“You’ve been here before then?” I asked.
“Yeah, loads of times.”

Me too but I hadn’t actually been for quite a while. I used to come regularly for lunch when I worked in the area.

El Taco Loco is an informal easy-going place in a great location on Shelley Street, right next the mid-levels escalator and just above Hollywood Road. The food is good and very affordable. They offer a wide range of tacos, burritos, and fajita’s plus finger snacks.

My son ordered a Carne Asada burrito with guacamole and pico de gallo ($52), I opted for a chorizo and potato ($42).

We also ordered a small basket of nacho chips ($22). Small is plenty big enough for two people, even when one of them is my son. For people with smaller appetites a small basket would probably be enough for three. Remember the burritos that follow are also very filling. We also ordered some refried beans ($10) and a smoothie each ($36).

My son proved to be quite an expert at eating burritos and dispatched his rather neatly. I usually find myself retrieving a substantial portion from my lap though that doesn’t diminish the enjoyment in any way. It does give the boy something to laugh at.

He decided he wanted to go to Krispy Kreme for dessert, I decided to pass.

Pampa is a “quechua” word, the language of the Incas of South America. It means “open space” and is typified by the grasslands of Argentina, upon which arguably the worlds finest beef cattle ruminate. I don’t know if it is the grass, the air or the incredible blueness of the Argentine skies that makes the beef special, but the country exports around 260 tons of prime beef a year. Fortunately, some of it finds it’s way to a small restaurant called La Pampa in Staunton Street, and the other evening I made my way up the escalator to graze.

The restaurant is simply but tastefully decorated with a countryside feel to it and, since I was the first customer of the evening, I had the waitress all to myself. Starters was a tough choice there were sausage options and meat pie options that I fancied but in the end I plumped for the grilled provoleta cheese with olive oil and herbs ($78). While that was being prepared I was treated to some mini kebabs - cubes of beef on a cocktail stick, with pieces of onion and pepper.

The provoleta cheese is not a dish for people with small appetites. About the size of a small pizza and lounging in an ocean of olive oil and oregano, it was indeed delicious, but I thought it was going to finish me off for the evening. Definitely one for sharing next time.

Fortunately there was a respectable pause between that and the main event and I was able to rally my resources. The last time I had Argentine steak had been in a small restaurant in Buenos Aires several years ago. It was there that I first heard the music of the legendary composer Astor Piazzolla. Probably a little too esoteric for most Hong Kong diners but the pop music playing at La Pampa was interspersed with both Andean folk music and, what sounded to to my uninformed ear, a quite modern tango singer.

The main course was grilled tenderloin. After some hesitation I’d ordered the smaller of the two options, a 225g piece at $168. After the provoleta cheese it turned out to be a wise decision - I might not have been able to finnish a 350g serving. The steak was wonderfully tender and juicy, and the balance between medium and rare was just about perfect. It was presented simply with a baked potato, sour cream, and corn on the cob.

To accompany it I had a glass of Trapiche Malbec 2003 ($48), the very fruity house red. I gave the salad bar a miss, I knew I wasn’t going to have room for that and a dessert.

The first word that springs to mind when you walk into I Caramba is ‘margarita’. Perhaps it has something to do with the sunny decor and the cheerful latin music that greets you, or perhaps it was partly to do with the fact that I had just walked up the steps on Pottinger Street and was in need of a cool drink anyway.

But I Caramba! doesn’t simply have margarita on the menu … it has a menu of margaritas. Seven in total starting at Margarita of the Month (you’ll need to ask what flavour they have this month) at $48 per glass or $192 for a pitcher. Top of the range is the Ultimate Margarita which is made from Herradura Anejo tequila and Grand Marnier. I plumped for an Extreme Margarita ($76 glass/$345 pitcher) which is just as luxurious but made with a reposado tequila. The difference is the age and the type of wood that the tequila was aged in. Connoiseurs would probably like to note that altogether the menu offers 26 different tequilas.

For one of the worlds great cuisines, Mexican restaurants are still something of a rarity in Hong Kong. I Caramba! was one of the first, indeed it was one of the first restaurants to open its doors in the Soho area, way back in 1993. I ordered a plate of mixed mushroom quesadillas ($59) to keep me going while I took my time over the rest of the menu.

I should have taken more time over that first margarita. Already I could hear the infamous “wall of flame” starting to sing to me and I had a strange desire to don the sombrero that takes pride of place on the bar. Fortunately I resisted the temptation to wear the sombrero but the wall wasn’t to be denied. The wall of flame is a huge collection of chilli sauces. I didn’t count them but I would guess there were about 50 or 60 altogether, and before long I had half a dozen of them on my table, some of them with names you wouldn’t want to repeat in polite society.

The quesadillas, toasted tortillas served with jack cheese, salsa, guacamole and sour cream, arrived and were a perfect match for Blairs Heat, a Jalapeno sauce which had a sharp, fresh taste. It was hot, but not so hot that it overwhelmed the food, which was fresh and tasty even without the addition of the sauces. Towards the end of the course I tried two other sauces that I had singled out. Maddogs Liquid Fire which is made from jalapenos, bird eye chillies with molasses which give it quite a sweet taste. Scrumptious combustion according to the label. The other was called 911 Hot Sauce, helpfully named after the telephone number for the emergency services in the US where it was made. This was much hotter, the Scotch Bonnet peppers very much in evidence.

To follow I’d ordered Las Fajitas with Snapper ($148). This comes as a sizzling plate of onions and bell peppers with the grilled snapper on top and served warm tortillas in which to wrap them. I gave my taste buds a chance to recover a little during the course and enjoyed it with only the salsa, guacomole and sour cream dips that come with it. But I did save a little bit. There were still two chili sauces that I wanted to try and I had saved them to the very end.

The Hottest F***ing Sauce is a combination of habaneros, scotch bonnets and African oleoresin which is a pepper extract. Even hotter than that is Da Bomb Ground Zero. In fact Da Bomb claims to be the hottest chili sauce on the planet according to the Scoville Scale. The Scoville scale was invented in 1912 by Wilbur Scoville, to measure the heat in chillies. To give you an idea, the average bottle of Tabasco sauce has a Scoville rating of around 5,000. The Scoville rating of Da Bomb Ground Zero is a staggering 234,000! But what does it taste like? I honestly don’t know but it did combine very well with the margarita that was sent in to quench it.

After that, a pause was required before dessert - it’s worth remembering that even for seasoned chili addicts these sauces need treating with respect.

For dessert I ordered fresh lime cheesecake ($48), rounded off with a Mexican coffee and leaned back in my chair with a contented smile as the other customers perused the wall of flame.

G/F Beverley House
93-107 Lockhart Road
Wanchai
Hong Kong
Tel 2866 3228
Fax 2866 3229

LG/F 7 Staunton Street
Soho
Central
Hong Kong
2522 0907

Shop G08A, Block A
Discovery Bay Plaza
Lantau
New Territories
Tel 2987 2848

G/F 15 Knutsford Terrace
Tsimshatsui
Kowloon
Tel 2316 2525

26-30 Elgin Street
Soho
Central
Hong Kong
Tel 2530 9963
Fax 2530 5289

2/F 8 Observatory Court
Tsimshatsui
Kowloon
Tel 2316 2525

114-120 Lockhart Road
Wanchai
Hong Kong
Tel 2861 2221
Fax 2861 2223

G6/UG16 Tsim Sha Tsui Centre
66 Mody Road
Tsimshatsui East
Kowloon
Tel 2722 7101

33 D’Aguilar Street
Lan Kwai Fong
Hong Kong
Tel 2521 2010
Fax 2521 2098