Thalassic Thai Restaurant

> Location : Shop C & D, G/F, Chi Ping Building, 38 Hau Wo Street,
Kennedy Town, Hong Kong
> Cuisine : Thai
> Tel. # : (852) 3606-3111
> Website : N/A

Yes, we have another Kennedy Town special! But how is it this time? Thalassic Thai Restaurant is in the back streets of Kennedy Town in Hau Wo Street. It's suppose to be a pretty new restaurant. When I first stepped in, the lighting, the decoration (especially around the bar area), are all pleasant looking. The people who served us, attitude wise, were all friendly.

The menu is pretty straight forward. There's a section for curry, salad, appetizers, vegetables and other major categories common to Thai cuisine. I actually got to try quite a few items from this place and I'll share it with you all right away!

Their Tom Yum Kong soup was okay overall. It was more sour than spicy. I was hoping the two could have been more balanced but it's acceptable. Ingredient wise, it's filled with everything that should be there so that's a big plus! Overall, if you're craving some tom yum kong, there's no major low points to prevent you from ordering it here.

Next up, we got the appetizer combo (varies in size/price depending on how many people are eating). There are egg rolls, fried fish (crab?) cake, chicken wrapped in lotus leaf, and other stuff. I had the chance to try the fried fish cake and it had little taste to it. The chicken in lotus leaf was much better. The chicken was marinated and seemed to be fried before being wrapped in the lotus leaf. The rest of the items are what you would imagine them to taste.

I also got half a Hainan Chicken. The chicken came with a similar sauce that a lot of the times, comes with egg rolls in Thai restaurants. This, sweet and sour like sauce. The chicken essentially didn't have much taste to it nor any reminiscence of Hainan chicken flavor. It was more dependent on you to use the sweet and sour sauce which made me felt disappointed. The Hainan chicken Thai style from Lanna Thai (Causeway Bay) was done much better.

Another item i got to try is the pomelo, fried cocunut strip with shrimp salad. This salad is an interesting concept. the pomelo (grapefruit meat) was obvious sweet and maybe just slightly sour. The coconut strips fried would be a little salty with a slight sweetness to it. shrimp would be how shrimp would taste like. What I thought was missing was something "green" to this salad. A salad after all has greens or vegetable related items in it no matter what other non-traditional ingredients are involved. I enjoyed it but after a few tastes, I just thought something green/a bit sour would have perfect this salad.

Next, I had the yellow curry with chicken. Yellow curry in this case would be panang curry (the menu all provided descriptions of the dishes in english and chinese for most of the dishes. only some came with the original Thai name). Panang curry has a sweetish and slightly spicy flavor to it. It's one of the most commonly famous Thai curry around. As for Thalassic, the "yellow curry" had that famous panang taste but not as strong as I would like. The spiciness was strong indeed. My curry came with an ordered of their so-called "pizza." The "pizza" was essentially like a thousand layer pancake (a Northern Chinese delicacy) but fried with more oil, salt and butter added. If you try it, you might have come up with other things that you might have been reminded of (Indian style bread or even Malaysian if you ask me, other than what I said previously).

In the end, I had an alright experience at Thalassic. They had dishes that almost made it to the "finish line" but never quite got there (e.g. the pomelo salad). I actually had this rice dish that I didn't even bother to mention about because it was so bald. The decoration, creativity involved was great but the taste just wasn't there. The environment was festive especially if you get to sit near the bar area because that's where all the jungle-like decorations are. The service was good besides the fact that I just didn't enjoy how the waitress kept asking me to order the most expensive items. The costs justified by the type of item, location but not through the quality as I've described above. If you really want to have some Thai in Kennedy Town, I wouldn't beg you to not go. Overall, it's an average feeling from me.

< 3 out of 5 >

SanQiaoyiyi

> Location : Shops A & B, G/F, Ivy on Belcher's 26 Belcher's street,
Kennedy Town, Hong Kong
> Cuisine : Japanese
> Tel. # : (852) 2816-7722
> Website : N/A

SanQiaoyiyi is a well rounded Japanese restaurant serving various items in its respective cuisine. From noodles to rice to fried/grilled dishes to sushi/sashimi and various other things. SanQiaoyiyi has three other locations besides the Hong Kong island one. There's one in Yuen Long, N.T., and two in Kowloon (Sham Shui Po and Tai Po). The Hong Kong location, the one I'm reviewing is in Kennedy Town. The restaurant is split into two shops. There's a residential/business building right in between. For one shop, it's designed for rotary sushi style and for the other, it's for tables and traditional sushi bar.

I had the chance to seat on the table side for my review. The environment was bright with lots of lighting. There are quite a number of seats for both shops. Since SanQiaoyiyi has been recently opened here in Kennedy Town, there have been a lot of customers lining up to try the new place. Make sure you go early if you want to try! Not only because the place is new so people are flocking to go, the prices is noticeably below average so it's bang for the buck! But is it still of good quality?

There are two menus I was provided with. One was the table paper menu which shows most of the cooked items. The other was a pictured menu leaflet that has the following sections: salad, warship sushi, snack, sushi, sashimi, grilled sushi, cocktail sushi, roll, ice cream, drinks and liquor.

I got the chance to try a little of everything from SanQiaoyiyi. Their tempura was nice and crispy. Something that is tough to cooked improperly. Their puffer fish smoked skin was chewy, pleasant with a strong BBQ flavor to it. It's similar to the flavoring from Aji Ichiban's dried fish snacks. I also tried their soft shell crab hand roll and found it great until I tasted some mayo in it. To me, I just don't think a soft shell crab hand roll really matches up with mayo in my opinion. To me, the best hand roll for mayo would be scallop. Next, I tried the smoked/grilled salmon head. It was alright and nothing to be crazy over. If you're into grilled fish Japanese style, I always recommend yellow tail collar! I also heard the udon soup was good. Lastly, I had their daily special which was tamago (egg) filled with cheese. As expected, it was that sweet tamago sushi taste with cheese melted within. Interesting indeed. On the side, their presentation of their dishes are nice which makes your experience more special.

So how was the raw stuff? It's actually quite cheap I must say. That's one large reason why there's so many people lining up. The combination sushi plates give quite a lot for a small price. I tried this $150 HKD so combination plate that had about 25-30 pieces of sushi/rolls. It's actually quite a deal. How was the freshness? Well, to see if there's a difference between the fish served in a combination plate compared to individually ordered, I ordered some yellow tail and tasted the quality. It melted in my mouth somewhat but still preserved a bit of the chewiness. Comparing that to the salmons, white fish and other items on the combination plate, there wasn't much of a difference. Which for me concludes the freshness was adequate but not great. However, we must remember the price they give you justifies the quality! So it's not so bad overall.

How about the service? The service was average. Considering the place is brand new, it seems like some of the waiters and waitress' don't know if certain isn't even served. I ordered a certain item and the lady said "okay" but when I noticed it never came, I asked another waiter and he says they don't serve that item. Considering the situation, it was half excusable to me. Most of the waiter's attitude were fine (except for one) and the manager there was friendly. Overall, it's a pass.

For the price you are asked to pay and what's served to you, SanQiaoyiyi does exactly what it's suppose to do. It would be great if the quality, especially the raw stuff, were a bit more fresh. However, please don't look away because if you're just a casual eater, this is definitely a go. Unless you're looking for some better/top notch quality sushi/sashimi, then a close place would be Oonami (also in Kennedy Town), which I did a short review recently for. Also, if you're looking for cooked items only, I don't see much of an issue not going. Just go early because there's quite a line!

< 3.5 out of 5 >