TASTY DELIGHT

Tasty Delight, formerly Leslie Cafe, is the closest Hong Kong style cafe to The Fiance and I. Last Friday, we decided to drop by for a homey dinner after a week of being under the weather. First, we spent 5 minutes looking for Leslie Cafe, before realizing there had been a name change.

Atmosphere: The restaurant itself looked renovated and clean with wooden chairs and cheery yellow walls. Tables turned over quickly and we didn’t have to wait for a table. I noticed fewer families and more couples/single diners that night.

Service: Servers were efficient but I did have slight communication issues with English. Originally, I tried to order the noodle soup special with vermicelli, but those dishes were only offered before 6pm (not indicated on the menu). She recommended another noodle soup dish and I asked if I could customize to fat rice noodles, she hesitated so I asked what kind of noodle the dish came with. The description was a “fat noodle”, it turned out to be udon. If you speak Cantonese, as is the case with many smaller establishments, ordering may be easier. Other than that hiccup, our food arrived quickly and it was easy to get someone’s attention at any time.

Food: Between a snack and two mains, the food was meh, ok and not so great. For the entree, this was more a result of ordering the wrong dish than the food itself. The Fiance stuck to his usual Hainanese Chicken and I had the Spicy Beef Brisket Noodles. With his dish, the chicken was well-seasoned and had lots of flavour while the rice was ok.

I was not impressed with my bowl of noodles. To start, I wasn’t expecting udon, but the noodles were cooked well, not mushy and had a good texture. The beef was also tender and soft, good but it all well apart in the soup. The broth was overwhelmed by the flavour of dou ban jian, spicy soy bean paste. I couldn’t taste anything else, not the meat, no fat, literally just one flat flavour. This dish was not a repeat order for me.

The curry fish balls arrived last and it is a hard dish to mess up. I’m not sure if there was too much cornstarch in the sauce but the flavour and consistency was off. There was lots of spice, but very little curry flavour and a little on the slimy side.

Tasty Delight delivered on 1/3 dishes, not great but with lots of other menu items and the low price point, I’m willing to keep looking for their hidden gems.