Aberdeen Street - No Service Charge = No Service?

Rating: ❤

A slew of restaurants are now instituting a no service charge policy, which is great and all, but does that mean that they can now get away with minimal or no service at all? Attracted by their "drunch" and their outside patio, I went to Aberdeen Street for brunch over the weekend. What is drunch? It means drink and brunch! Located on Aberdeen Street, we trekked a flight of stairs to reach the restaurant and saw a sign outside advertising their drunch with no service charge. 

The restaurant had an indoor seating and outdoor seating as well. The indoor ambiance was like a casual and hip cafe while the outdoor seating looked like a tiki-style patio. Since the weather was pretty nice and warm on the day we were here, we chose to sit on the outside. 

The drunch menu basically contained breakfast food like bagels, omelets, and eggs benedict. They also had 2 hour free flow of champagne as well! What caught my eye were the names of the dishes, which were really funny like The Walk of Shame and Just A Disaster. Initially I wanted to try their bagels since it can be hard to find a good bagel place in HK sometimes, but the waitress came back to tell me that they had run out of bagels after I had already placed my order. Darn! I decided to get the lemongrass pancakes instead while J got one of their omelets. 

All drunch came with coffee and choice of orange or grapefruit juice. We chose one of each and they were both freshly squeezed as I can still see the pulp floating on the surface. Sweet and refreshing, both juices were great to go with our food. 

After our juices came, it all went downhill from there as we had to wait for more than half an hour for our food to come. I was starving and famished by then! It was then that I noticed they seemed short-staffed as they only had 2 people serving the entire restaurant - both inside and outside! I felt like the service on the outside was especially slow since the staff only came outside when they were delivering something. We basically had to wait by chance if we wanted any service at all. Even when we did get their attention, they kept forgetting our orders! J wanted his coffee before the food came out but after waiting for a while, I had to walk down to the restaurant inside to ask the staff manning the bar to get the coffee.

Just A Disaster ($128) - consisted of an omelet with ham, cheese, mushroom, and tomatoes with a side of sauteed potatoes, sausage, bacon, and salad. The portions were not bad but the omelet was way overcooked! The egg was old and tough to eat when it was supposed to be light, fluffy and slightly runny. The sides were just average as well. We had to ask the staff to bring us ketchup twice and by the time we were almost done with the dish, the ketchup still had not arrived. When the staff finally did bring the ketchup, she brought it to the table next to us. Yep it was a disaster alright. 

Smooth Breakfast ($68) - consisted of lemongrass pancake and yogurt. I was quite intrigued by the lemongrass pancake because it was the first time I've heard of such combination. The pancakes were just average as they were slightly crispy on the outside but not fluffy enough on the inside. I could taste and see bits of lemongrass in the pancakes, but it didn't really enhance the taste of the pancakes at all. I guess the question I had was why lemongrass then? They were also brought out with no syrup at all. I had to walk down to the restaurant inside again to get the syrup since I didn't want to risk waiting till my pancakes got cold.

The yogurt provided was just plain yogurt which was clumpy and runny while it could have been more sour.

I chose to have my coffee at the end. My coffee was brought out with no cream but luckily J never used his cream so I just grabbed his leftover. The coffee was just okay as it was not really aromatic and strong.  

Verdict - the food here was just mediocre as the omelet was pretty disappointing. It wasn't anything that you couldn't get anywhere else. If eggs are supposed to be a showcase for their brunch and they can't even get that right, I wouldn't be interested in trying their other food at all. The service was just bad and slow. Maybe it was because we were sitting on the outside but it still didn't explain the fact that they just kept forgetting what we had asked for. It was too bad because the ambiance was pretty casual and actually great for chilling with friends. I guess it can be the place for you if you have a lot of time to kill and don't mind waiting.

Aberdeen Street
41-49 Aberdeen Street, Central
2546 5833

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