Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Olala Noodles (一碗麵) - ♕♕♕♕


Also recommended by the 2010 Michelin Guide, this Hong Kong slash Shanghainese noodles shop is designed to serve the niche market or its Japanese customers rushing in for their Tan Tan Noodles during lunch hours. Here, they sell on average the most expensive noodles in Hong Kong except say at Sevva.  The best noodle bowls cost a mind boggling $150 each, whereas the more affordable ones start from $80, still not cheap by local standards…   Relative to other HK noodle joints or even MIST Ramen, this sounds nothing short of ridiculous, but come to think of it why can most Italian Pasta Dishes be charged at $200-300 easily but not our Hong Kong noodle bowls?  There is even one shop out there called Da Domenico which charges $528 for a single plate of Linguine con Gamberi…

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Barley Tea -
for cutting down the grease..

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Menu of its Noodles Dishes..

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香葱三蝦麵 -
The $150 price tag comes from the 3 types of prawns used to cook this. French Crevette Rose or Sweet Prawns are pulverised before being boiled as the sweet broth, which is slightly different from what magazines have published. Smaller prawns and Dried prawns are fried with Scallion to give it that extra flavour and aroma.  The Soup base to me was very sweet, but too diluted in concentration. Staff explained that this wasn’t the case before a few years back, but Olala boss changed the recipe slightly.  I wouldn’t mind if it had less water and is more concentrated as a broth ~ 7.5/10

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Prawns and Dried Prawns were not overly tasty, perhaps they could use better fresh peeled prawns @ $150.  The French Pink Prawns/Sweet Shrimps aren’t visible nor edible, they’ve already become part of the broth.

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Noodles are chewy, hand made here.. Good stuff

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溏心鹵水蛋 -
Half Cooked Eggs cooked in Master Stock,
a bit refrigerated cold, but ok tasty ~ 7/10

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Chili Sauce is aromatic and great ~
9/10

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紅燒牛肉麵 -
Also at $150 per bowl, the positive bit about this noodles is that the beef broth is thick and well flavoured, cooked in a Shanghainese/Taiwanese type of way.  The downfall being that the braised Beef Rib pieces were slightly hard and stringy, rather than tough.  Needs an improvement in cooking formulae ~  7/10

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Noodles this time slightly undercooked..

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Crème Brulee -
I ordered Crème Caramel but they had none left, so they brought me a Crème Brulee from their sister restaurant, on the house.  A lovely gesture.  Sugar needed more blow torch effort as it still remained mostly granulated. Eggy, but no Vanilla Taste at all ~ 6/10

 

Price: $170 Per Person
Dinner Score:  ★★★★☆☆
*Very Expensive, and unfortunately, still carries much room for improvement here and there. The Prawns broth would taste much deeper in flavours if it was more Concentrated, like its older recipe.  Beef pieces could be more fork tender than tense and hard.

Opening Hours:
Mon – Sun:   11:30am~ 22:30
Address: 灣仔聖佛蘭士街33號地下
(Shop 33, St. Francis Street, Wan Chai)

Phone:  2294 0426

2 comments:

  1. 真係貴咗好多,牛肉麵當年無過百.
    但嗰次見佢在餐飲博覽會...佢啲蝦真係好靚.
    不知玫瑰蝦同葡萄蝦是否近親.
    BTW,有冇興趣買啲すだち牛打邊爐或BBQ.
    我問緊代理.
    tabero

    ReplyDelete
  2. すだち牛 is how much ar?

    Yes this shop was told to me by worker, to have crept up in its pricing. But apparently, the past recipe in the Beef noodles was better? :O

    Weird!

    ReplyDelete

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