Samsen (Central) — Restaurant in Hong Kong

What a lovely night at Samsen! The service from Paulo, Adam, and the kind ladies was incredible — they truly made us feel at home. It was totally worth the wait.

Let's talk about the food:

For the mains, my friend and I ordered the pad Thai noodles with tiger prawn and the stir-fried spicy Wagyu beef with flat noodles. Both had the wok hei we were looking for and sent us right back to Thailand. While I do love the pad Thai, the Wagyu flat noodles were definitely a standout. The rattan peppers (we guessed from their appearance) really elevated the complexity of flavors. There was a generous amount of beef slices, so high quality that they melted in your mouth. The texture of the flat noodles was addictive. A must-try if you haven't had them before.

As for the desserts, we got our all-time favorite Thai red tea ice cream and young coconut ice cream. Rich, creamy, and refreshing, it has everything you could ask for in a post-meal delight. I loved chewing on the young coconut slices. We also tried the pandan and coconut dumplings this time, which exceeded expectations. The dumplings were tong yeun packed with sweet pandan and coconut strips, bathed in a warm bowl of coconut milk. The outside was soft and glutinous while the inside remained chewy. A wonderful play of textures.

We went crazy on the drinks as well. The Thai milk tea is a classic — never a miss. Both the Lychee & Coconut Gimlet and the Salted Coconut & Espresso Martini shocked us with the coconut foam on top — so smooth and velvety. Our favorite has to be the “Sap-pa-rot” Margarita. The spice and acidity were refreshing and complemented the meal well.

Overall, I highly recommend Samsen if you are looking for a chill place with delicious food (and a good playlist). I know I will be back...

Arrive when it was their last order and the staff told us they close in 30mins and ask if we are ok with that. We didn’t mind since we just want to quickly fill our tummies and head home. The food arrived very fast. And as for the taste, we all agreed that the crab meat fried rice was the best. And we had some misunderstanding with manager for the dish wagyu because he said we can change noodles to rice so we thought it’s fried rice using Jasmine rice but it came out as plain white rice. Well…. the title did say wok fried rice / noodles😅😅😅. So if just plain rice I think it’s overpriced for $30 a bowl. Food it good but not very amazing and yes the dishes is way off overpriced. My friend joked saying it’s the most expensive pad thai he ever had😆😆😆. And as for the shrimp baked glass noodles, I wouldn’t recommend it , it’s not because it’s not good but it’s way overpriced! The dish only have 3-4 super small pork slice, glass noodles and 3 prawns on top and they charge you 200HKD plus 10% service charges. I do understand, because of the location it have to mark higher the price but it way over. We were the last table so all the chairs was up, we were getting ready to leave since we didn’t want the staff to finish late because of us. Usually if we eat outside, staff will quickly collect the dishes away so they can clear the table. But here the male waiter was very nice, instead of rushing us to leave, he still pour water for us even though we didn’t ask. Usually I would rate it 3 star restaurant but because of the service that the waiter provided, i gave it an extra ⭐️😗. But would I go back again? Yes if the price is more affordable if not then...

The food generally tastes decent, but the crab fried rice is disappointingly ordinary. In fact, I'm confident I could whip up something similar in my own kitchen.

The ice cream has a pleasant flavor, yet the corn served alongside it was clearly spoiled. My friend, unaware of its condition, consumed it all and unfortunately ended up suffering from food poisoning.

As for the service, the restaurant is often packed with diners, while the number of staff remains insufficient. Despite a mandatory 10% service charge, you can hardly expect attentive or timely service. To make matters worse, waiters resort to various subtle tactics to hurry customers along. They constantly pester you about ordering additional drinks and unceremoniously whisk away drink bottles that still have some liquid left in them.

During our visit, when we requested to be seated at an available two - person table instead of the bar counter, the receptionist claimed that the table was already reserved and paid for. This was an obvious falsehood, considering the restaurant has never had a reservation system in place. What's more, the receptionist insisted that since we had already taken our seats, we couldn't move to another table: we were standing still.

Although the prices here aren't exorbitant, the overall dining experience...