It’s a known fact that dining out is on my to-do list every weekend. What is rather unknown is the quest for a new restaurant and a new cuisine just gets more intense. It’s not just with me, but with Sunny and Kiran. Each of us scouts for places that we need to visit and make sure we go there sooner or later. On one such hunt, Kiran found Hong Kong Hustle on Church Street. Again, the name sounded just right and we decided to pay our respects.

 

I still can’t believe that I never noticed their neon signboard until now. It actually is pretty dim and does not ask for any attention. This was our first feedback about the place.  It’s above Ruby Tuesday and I guess the boards of Ruby Tuesday and Oye! Amritsar take away all the glory. Now that you know where exactly to go, make sure you don’t get mislead by the lack of a visible signboard (at least at night).

 

The interiors impressed us from the very minute. Nothing really fancy. Simple, clean and spacious. What I liked most was their live kitchen. It’s right there. You can see them toss the noodles and just cannot help salivating. Thai and Chinese cuisine have always been my favourites and Hong Kong Hustle has a good menu for both. I must mention that their buffet is very interesting – a soup, 3 starters, a live counter (where you can pick your noodles, vegetables and sauce from a vast spread and the chef will toss it for you and make you ‘your noodles’) , main course and desserts. However, we decided to go ahead and pick what we wanted from the menu instead.

 

I chose not to have any soup this time around. The boys had a Tom Yum soup which was salty and we sent it back. They quickly fixed it. I went ahead with one Thai starter and one Chinese. I picked a crispy spinach starter that was tossed with Indonesian herbs and a Chilli American Corn. The spinach was awesome. Light, crispy and mild in flavor, it surely is on a must-have at this place. The American corn was usual. Nothing special, but yes, good.

 

Kiran and Sunny chose to have a Thai fish dish that was wrapped in a banana leaf and steamed. They also had some prawns. The prawn I believe was delicious. Yes, the banana leaf packaging looked good and seemed impressive. The dish looked really promising when it was brought to the table. Well, it was not great but I must say you can always give it a shot.

 

For main course, we chose to have Spiced Garlic Rice, Veg Balls in Manchurian Sauce and Lamb in Pepper Sauce. I won’t say any of it was brilliant. None though were bad. We didn’t have any space in the tummy to try the desserts though we saw a couple interesting ones on the menu.

 

My opinion, try the place. It’s won’t let you down as it is a little different from the usual run of the mill Chinese joints. Since it’s not very crowded you can surely have a good private meal. It also has the buffet so you can always play it safe with the menu. They have a decent stir fried menu for the ones who love to experiment. Courteous staff and accessibility will only make your eat-out session more pleasant. They also have valet parking (but no parking spaces for bikes. This pissed me off). The best part, it’s not very expensive. A meal for 3 with a soup, starters and main course cost us around Rs. 2000.

 

If you ever go there do try the spinach. I can’t recollect the name. But look for it in the Thai section and you will never miss it. It’s surely worth a try.