Chinabites

Posted: Mar. 12, 2009

This afternoon I visited Lan Fong Café in Causeway Bay during its lunch hours.

Lan Fong is about as working class as any restaurant in the neighborhood gets. This small diner has daily lunch and tea specials that are served in disappointingly shoddy thin aluminum service reminiscent of college cafeterias on mainland China. I had the pineapple and lemon chicken lunch set.

The soup was the most interesting part of the meal, with thick chunks of carrot, dates, and citrus peel, served in a relatively week broth. The centerpiece of the set meal, the pineapple and lemon chicken, was uninspired. It was one step above dumping canned pineapple, sauce and all, over chicken and calling it lunch.

The pineapple chicken was was completely inferior to a comparable dish of the same price at Chuen Cheung Kui a few blocks away.

There are dive diners that are full of character and cuisine with personality in Hong Kong. Lan Fong cannot be counted in their ranks. Spend a couple of extra dollars in this neighborhood and have a great meal, rather than a mediocre one.