Similarly to hawker centers in Singapore, food centers in Hong Kong aggregate several vendors under one roof that serve cooked food. The food is usually local, but the Queen Street Cooked Food Centre in Sheung Wan offers a variety of international cuisines.
One of the stall is called ABC Kitchen (for “a better cooking”) and lore has it that it was started by a group of employees of the famous French restaurant M at the Fringe after its closure (incidentally, there is a M on Bund in Shanghai still open started by the same owner of the other M restaurant).
The visit
I went to the Food Center for lunch and it was pretty packed.
I found a spot at a table in front of the ABC Kitchen stall and the staff took the order at the table.
For lunch a tea or coffee is included and they have a number of specials, including a soup of the day.
The full menu was also available.
I took a plate of linguine pasta with duck breast and tomato sauce. It was quite good, the duck meat was very tender.
I added a fish pie. This dish was less interesting than expected. Bits of fish were mixed with potatoes mash and other ingredients.
Finally I had a chocolate parfait that turned out to be a slice of chocolate mousse with some fruit. On the menu they also had the pavlova, that is a signature of M restaurants.
Other restaurants in the center include a Thai, an Indian, a Pizzeria cum Kebab, and a few Chinese eateries.
The check
In the end I spent 204 HKD (26 USD) for this three course meal. There was no service charge for lunch, I believe there might be a service charge on evenings. For a food center this is quite expensive, but it was fun to have this kind of Western food in this casual setting. Some of the dishes on the menu can be quite pricey and I am not sure that I would dine there for dinner.
Where in Hong Kong:
Shop CF7, Food Market, 1 Queen St, Sheung Wan.
Website: www.abckitchen.com.hk.