Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Benedict with Beer, anyone? - BRICKLANE

Was here for a friends' gathering. There are people in your lives whom you cant shut your mouth when you are with them, and there seem to be always new stuff to share and laugh about. The clock seems to tick a thousand times faster, and time always run short when you were with them.

 
As usual, I had to think of a good venue for our regular gathering. A cosy place that allows us to stay and chat after finishing the dishes would be perfect. Reading from a recent magazines and restaurant reviews, I was told that a new bar and restaurant had opened in Tsim Sha Tsui, somewhere behind K11. We weren't familiar with the roads in TST and so spent a little time locating the spot.



The place was still pretty empty at 6:30 pm, and we could enjoy a peace of mind when we were greeted by the friendly staff, led to our table and shown the menu. Had we been 15 minutes earlier we would have to shout at the top of our voices while discussing what to order.



The reason why I noticed this bar-and-restaurant was because of their full English breakfast. Served on a wide white plate, the sausages, eggs and stuff looked absolutely stunning. They too serve Egg Benedict, doubtlessly my favourite way of cooking an egg. What I did not expect was that we all end up ordering breakfast items although it was approaching 7 in the evening!

If coffee is the drink for the morning, beer is the mirroring drink for the night. It was Happy Hour and some of us had a drink. Their drink menu was NOT extensive, the names of the cocktails fail to amuse me, so I ended up having beer, my newly discovered love. Having beer with breakfast is a new experience to me, and the two items do not look they should appear on the table at the same time. :)


Anyway - we ordered 5 dishes from the all day breakfast menu, two of which being Egg Benedicts but with different toppings. After a brief waiting (which we filled up with chats, laughters, and more chats), our dishes were served one after another from the semi-open kitchen,pipping hot and fresh. My egg benedicts was still steaming and that scene pleased me!:)





All all day breakfast dishes come with a a little side salad to balance the meatiness of the ingredients. It was a little stale, sadly, and was only lukewarm. The dressing should be a vigerette and lacked sourness. Had it been sourer it would be more refreshing.

My egg Benedict came with smoked salmon and a thin layer of spinach in between. To be honest, the presentation was sorta bad as the poached egg covered the english muffin and salmon, and it was in an awful shape. 


My friends' were better but her bacon strips were badly folded up. Anyway, I poked one of the yolks with my knife and - nothing happened. I poked the other. Now the runny yolk flowed like lava! Too bad it was a 50% miss, and had both of the yolks been runny, I would be more happy.



But man - the egg benedicts were tasty- really nice. I was slightly disappointed when I cut into a fluffy and soft English Mushroom, not toasted until crispy as how i would usually prefer. But they were nicely buttered, and the smoked salmon was fat and sweet. While the boiled spinach enhanced the texture by giving it a veggie touch, the poached egg was silky smooth, especially the egg white. I thought it would be really tough and even 'crumble' judging from its appearance. I was wrong! The Hollandaise sauce was remarkable too, perfect in every single way. As a mixture of melted butter, vinegar and yolk, the volume was much lighter than what it appeared to be. The taste was nice, not too oily nor too sour, and nicely accompanied the perfectly poached egg + the salmon. It was the second best Hollandaise sauce I have ever tried, the best being from The Lounge@JW Marriott on my lobster egg benedict!



Three of my friends had the English breakfast set. You could either get 3 toppings at $78, or 'everything' at $98. It was a bargain really, as their big plates were covered with nicely cooked eggs and toppings to their likings. The 'Everything' was huge in portion and, judging from my friends' expression, was wholesomely tasty!



We were already 70% full after washing down our 'breakfast' with beer (the two went extremely well, I think i should substitute my daily coffee or milk tea with beef anyway...jokes), we were still craving for M-O-R-E! We did order Mozzarella cheese sticks at the beginning of our meal, but it didn't come until we have all finished our food. We didn't have to share as there were 5 sticks alright.


 I bit into mine and felt the urge of pulling my head back, hoping to test if the cheese would stretch or break - and yay it STRETCHED into a thin long rubbery stripe! :D (pardon me for my childishness, I went a little 'high' after drinking beer) The cheese had a rich taste too, and I was thrilled that the restaurant had not sacrificed the tastiness of the cheese for the stretchy texture!

I didn't know the all day breakfast dishes come with coffee or tea, and i gave away mine to my friend. The latte she had did not look nice, the foamed milk had a weird texture and afterall, it wasnt a good idea drinking coffee at night - caffeine keeps me energetic through the night!



All in all - Bricklane is a nice venue for a cosy gathering with your friends, perfect if they like eggs and breakfast items. I was slightly disappointed by the short drink list, but it was a bar-cum-restaurant anyway and shouldn't be blamed for that.



The decor was hip too, having a white bike hanged on the wall at the back of the restaurant - the background music was a bit loud at times btw, and it could get really noisy once all tables were filled. But apart from these minor issues, I rate the restaurant 5 star for the decor, 4 for the food, and 3 for the drinks. Service was quick and the staffs served us with their hearts, which was worth mentioning too.



Would consider coming back for the breakfast items in a lazy weekend afternoon!

BRICKLANE 
尖沙咀白蘭軒道2號地下

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