Shugetsu (Quarry Bay) — Restaurant in Hong Kong Island

I have no idea how this place still remains in business.

Lunch. Signature Tsukemen with Pork Belly, Crab Meat Salad.

Tsukemen is all about the broth. It should be strong and thick enough to cling to the noodles as you dip them into the broth. The version here is extremely watery and salty (without any umami from properly prepared broth). Worse, it is covered in a thick layer of sour spring onion oil. So when you dip your noodles, only the oil sticks. Terrible.

For paying an extra $30 over the regular noodles, you get three thin slices of over-fried greasy belly. That means if you didn’t get the pork belly version, you would be paying $110 for bare noodles, watery oily broth, and an egg.

The crab meat salad? It took them 30 minutes to tell me that the shop is out of cucumber and hence they would cancel my order. Since it’s an electronic ordering system, why didn’t they label it as out of stock? There’s a big warning message saying orders are final when submitted, but I guess that only applies to customers.

I also ordered a $18 seaweed add-on. It was surely tossed in salt.

The service is beyond brusque. It is worse than the food. I felt myself longing for the friendly conversation from Australian Dairy Company, a famous local cha chaan teng with better attitudes.

For starters, I entered the shop shortly after noon, and for the first 30 minutes there were only two staff. A young lady taking care of everything and an older lady whose job was to stand and stare at the young lady.

The young lady communicated with customers with grunts. Those she chose to acknowledge, at least. An English-speaking man who sat next to me requested for a QR code so he could order. The young lady straight up ignored him for five minutes until the man left of his own accord. In Japan, there are shops which decline to serve foreigners - was something like this happening here?

When my noodles were ready, the food was put on the counter in between me and the guy next to me. Apparently we had ordered the same thing. We tried to figure out who was being served and had to attract the lady’s attention to sort it out.

There’s a poster along the back wall teaching you how to eat Tsukemen. At the last step, you can request hot chicken broth to be added to your dipping sauce so you can drink it like a soup. I requested the chicken broth. The young lady put a full thermos kettle on the counter and muttered “你自己倒” (pour it yourself).

Okay, expected.

I pour it. I try drinking. My mouth is full of...

Really good Tsukemen. Here a few tips: Try the spicy soup... it is so yummy and really special. It is not a sharp kind of spicy but more like a fuller taste spicy. If you have not tried Tsukemen yet, consider the light soup base because the original flavor one is quite heavy if you are not used to it. Cold noodles are a bit more "al dente" and separate noodle taste a bit more from the soup base taste, very interesting experience and super yummy! The pork slices are so yummy. Make sure to add those to...

Amazing ramen! I got a fixed menu dish which meant there were gyoza on the side for a few more dollars. It was Friday night and they also had a deal on Sappora lager - 2 for 1 (40 dollars for 2 bottles works out at about 2GBP). Which meant it was probably the cheapest beer in Hong Kong that night/year. I can't recommend this restaurant enough: as with most of the Michelin listed restaurants in Hong Kong it is a foodies delight. Go...