cafe TOO — Restaurant in Hong Kong Island

My ratings are based on my experience of the Lunch buffet menu on a Saturday:

Food Quality: ✩✩✩✩ Food Selection: ✩✩✩✩✩ Cleanliness: ✩✩✩✩✩ Service: ✩✩✩✩✩ Location: ✩✩✩✩ Price: ✩✩✩

We were initially supposed to be dining elsewhere on the day, but when we went to that restaurant to eat, we found it was a Café, rather than a restaurant as advertised. Luckily, we could book a table at Cafe TOO within five minutes— the first indicator of good service.

There was a good variety of food options, including for pescatarians, and vegetarians. The food was all high quality— my only issue was with the bread pudding. I have always found the problem with bread puddings at Hong Kong buffets is that they have very little bread and are too eggy and soggy. Sadly, this was the case here. Apart from the problem with the bread puddings, and a few of the desserts, the rest of the food I ate was very enjoyable, and I strongly recommend the Lentil Curry. It was delicious!

At the table, two of us took part in the free-flow regular drinks package (juices and soft drinks) as it costs $98 for free-flow drinks, rather than $58 a glass. The other two took part in the free-flow wine package, which included Prosecco, house white and red wine, costing $268, rather than more than $400 per bottle, so the deal was definitely good!

The service was brilliant, despite it being a buffet, as the cooks were very polite, and the waiters were exceptionally efficient at cleaning away plates and topping up our free-flow drinks.

There were no issues with cleanliness— all the napkins, cutlery and buffet areas were very clean, and the toilets were very nice (and very clean!).

In terms of price, although it is more expensive at HK$498 per person from Monday to Friday and HK$558 per person on Saturdays, it is relatively good value due to the good service, high-quality food and large variety of options— Japanese, Chinese, Western, Italian, Indian, Thai, and more. Moreover, all children under 12 years of age will receive a 50% discount on the adult buffet price. Aside from this, HSBC Credit Card holders receive an additional 15% off, and you can earn Shangri-La Circle points which can be used to redeem free stays or convert to Asia Miles for 1=1.

In terms of location, it is above Pacific Place, next to Hong Kong Park. There is no issue with the location, but I will not rank as five stars as my favourite location would be near the sea, or by a harbour, and we were not seated right by the window.

I would love to come back here and stay at the hotel for a night and experience the full...

Might just be THE BEST BUFFET in town.

MAKE RESERVATIONS WELL IN ADVANCE (5-6 days before) if you want to enjoy the AWESOME buffet at "Cafe TOO" - OTHERWISE ENJOY BEING ON WAITING LIST 😜

On two separate occasions in the past, I called 2-3 days in advance and still ended up on waiting list....and never made it to the confirmed list. That's how good this place is 👍🏻👍🏻

The staff are always nice and they call me a day before to confirm/remind about the reservation. I usually ask them to allot me a table near the window and they always try to make it happen, even though it's fully booked.

I absolutely LOVE THE PORK BELLY there (although I've been told that it is even better at some LOCAL/SMALL RESTAURANTS which I'm sure it is). Nevertheless, the one at Cafe TOO always makes me HAPPY AND SATISFIED!! But the menu keeps changing so it may not be there every time.

The SUSHI and the COLD SEAFOOD are always so fresh that it feels like they just brought the stuff straight from the boats!! 😍👍🏻 I NEVER MISS these 2 items when I go to Cafe TOO.

Next in line for me was the DIM SUM and SPARE PORK RIBS which never disappoint me at this place (more variety would be welcome though).

Just to the left of the dim sum/spare rib station are the main dishes, which are always different from the ones during my previous visit so it's nice that they keep refreshing the menu of that section- some of the items I tried this time were FRIED RICE WITH SHRIMP and BEEF👍🏻, BRAISED PORK MEATBALL👍🏻, FISH SLICES IN BROTH and RED CHILLIES (this one very good!) 😍👍🏻and a SLICE OF ROAST BEEF WITH BABY TATERS.

Also liked the PAN FRIED SALMON, the RAVIOLI and ABSOLUTELY LOVED THE GRILLED LAMB RACK (this one is a MUST HAVE item)⭐️⭐️

There is also the JAPANESE FRIED DUMPLING station towards the other end of the hall and IT IS WORTH WALKING THAT FAR 😜

Next to the Japanese dumpling station is a small INDIAN STATION which may not stand up to the specialized Indian restaurants in Tsim Sha Tsui and elsewhere.... But it's certainly worth trying and it WILL NOT DISAPPOINT.

One might think that after eating all this GRUB,it's impossible to have any room for dessert, BUT I PROVED THAT THEORY WRONG :excited:and dug into some dessert too ! :cry: They have a large selection of dessert items.... SADLY I COULD NOT TRY THEM ALL AS I WAS MORE THAN FULL😩😩

As usual, there will be a whole new set of items the next time I go there.......

Review on Xmas lunch buffet: The variety of food was ok but quality was very much average. Catered to their Chinese customers with heavy emphasis on Chinese food. The roast beef was dry. No freshly cut fruit (probably served up whatever was left over from breakfast). Desserts were good. Salad bar was truly mediocre. The highlight was probably the double boiled soup. Service was marred by a very rude waitress (older lady wearing glasses in charge of payment of the bill). Was not happy that I preferred to use my voucher instead of utilising a 15% discount. Obviously she wanted to sell the use of the discount first so I would come back another time to use the voucher. When she came back a second time (after revising the bill so I could use the voucher), she was black faced and when I asked her several times if the full price was $598, she just stood there silent and refused to answer me! What type of attitude is that?! If you are looking to improve your service, you need to look at staff like this woman. Terrible attitude! Just want to point out, everyone else who served us were great, except for this woman who finalised our bill. Not only did she accidentally bring our bill to the table next door, she then blamed it on the swapping of tables for the mixup (not true!!). There was no swapping at any point in time. She just didn't bother to check properly before presenting our bill to the table next door. How did I know? We heard her address them as Mr Xxxx and they had no idea who it was. I had to interject and inform them it was actually us. There are other better options in hk within this...