Firebird Cafe

Hey Everyone,

This is the first post from the Chinese Bites VIP Program, as we were invited to try out Firebird Cafe alongside our good friend Eating with Kirby!

Jess and I had never been to Firebird before, but we've definitely dined at several other restaurants in the Continental Shopping Centre. Firebird is located almost next to Pearl Castle. 

The interior decor looked pretty modern as you can see in the pictures above. They had cool features here and there, making for an overall decent interior.

Jess and I both ordered from the Custom Sizzling Grill menu which is $13.95 for two items. 

For starters, I had Cream Soup:

This was a pretty good cream soup in my opinion! It had a very creamy and buttery taste, which I absolutely loved! As I went further into the soup, the flavour did build up stronger, but not to a point that it was not tolerable. I almost always go with cream soup, and this place does it right!

Cream soup was also the majority choice of the table!

This was Kirby's Vegetables with Fish Soup:

The drinks we ordered were quite interesting. I had ordered an Aloe Vera Green Tea $2 (with combo), which was the same drink Meta Knight ordered, but as you can see from the pictures below, they somehow differ in color by quite a bit!

The 4th drink on the right is Jess' Honey Milk Tea $2 (with combo), which is her go to drink. She did not like her drink and found it to be quite flavourless. You're better off ordering a different type of drink here, but not bubble tea. 

My drink was not bad in terms of flavour, however the jelly at the bottom appeared and tasted like the lychee jelly that comes at the bottom of those lychee jelly cups. This was strange as aloe vera green tea usually comes with aloe jelly at the bottom. The overall drink was still ok, but I just found this to be very weird and unexpected. 

For mains, I picked the Filet Mignon ($3.95 upgrade) and Grilled Chicken (Half) ($3.95 upgrade) with Fries and Mushroom Sauce:

You have to pay extra for both of these items, and I would say the filet mignon is not worth the upgrade, as it tasted exactly like the minute steaks you get from other HK cafe restaurants. I'm not sure if it would differ from their regular steak here, but I did not have an example to compare this to. My medium rare was cooked ok, as you can see from the picture above, but it did dry up very quickly upon cooling down. The chicken was ok in the beginning, but as I ate more of it, I found some parts of the chicken to be pinkish, which made it seem to be a bit undercooked. I did not end up finishing the chicken because of that. It was a shame, as the flavour of the chicken was actually pretty decent. Their fries were pretty good though, as they were the ideal cut size for me and they were crispy on the outside. The mushroom sauce was ok, pretty comparable to the other HK cafes. I didn't touch the veggies much, so I can't comment on them. One thing to note, the sizzling plate cooled down very quickly, which meant the food cooled down much faster than expected, which doesn't bode well for food bloggers as we take quite some time taking pictures in the beginning =p !

Jess had the Chicken Wings, Chicken Steak, and Filet Mignon with Rice and Mushroom Sauce:

I had some of her food, and the chicken wings were pretty good! They were cooked through well so there was no pinkness. Her chicken steak was not bad, as it was better than my half chicken. The rice was nicely plated in the upside down bowl shape with some green bits, possibly basil on top. 

Meta Knight had the mix grill as well and chose the Grilled Salmon, Chicken Steak, and Two Eggs, with Mashed Potatoes:

Kirby had the Rice Bowl Combo:

You can read about her food on her blog post for this restaurant. 

We also had the Deep Fried Buns served with condensed milk:

When we ordered this dish, it was supposed to be an appetizer, but it seemed the servers had forgotten about it and had to be reminded about it after we had already finished our mains. When we got it, it was quite surprising as it was very different from the usual deep fried buns that we've had. The shape was different, as it wasn't smooth like the usual ones, and the color wasn't as dark as the usual ones either. They also added chocolate sauce to it, and I like chocolate, so this worked actually, but the bun itself was just very weird in appearance. The taste seemed a bit different as well. Overall it was an ok dish, but I wouldn't recommend ordering this dish here. 

The service here was average for this type of restaurant. Aside from the issue mentioned above, nothing else to really mention about service. It was decent compared to other HK cafes like this.

Overall this restaurant was an ok experience for another HK cafe option. The food for the most part was quite average as nothing really stood out here to be a must order item. The items that require extra to upgrade to were not worth the upgrade, and you're better off ordering from the regular items. Their drinks did not appear to be consistent as we ordered the same drinks, but received two different colors of drinks. The appetizer that turned into a dessert was different than the usual ones you get from other restaurants that serve it, but not necessarily in a good way. This restaurant seems to be more known for their noodle soups, but I don't really like that type of dish, so I did not try it, but it might be worth a try if you're a fan of noodle soups. 

Thanks for reading every, and thank you to Chinese Bites and Firebird Cafe for the invitation to try the food! Munch on!

- Phil