Hidden gems

JASHAN

Amber Lodge, 23 Hollywood Road, Central jashan.com.hk Countless fine Indian restaurants are hidden away above Hollywood Road and the surrounding streets but Jashan can make a decent claim to be the best of them. The lifts you take to get into Jashan, like many counterparts, are shoddy to the point of instilling slight nervousness. But once you’re inside the restaurant, you’ll find deep sofas, burnished-red walls and friendly staff. The menu offers the usual standards done exceptionally well (plus they deliver). Order the tandoori lamb shank.

LE PHO

58 Lyndhurst Terrace, Central This Vietnamese place is unpromisingly located on the busy corner where Lyndhurst Terrace meets Hollywood Road and was covered in bamboo scaffolding on my last visit. Agreeably quirky, it offers fine and reasonably priced noodleand-broth dishes. Two of its most popular offerings are the “godfather of pho” combo and the “not-so-typical pho”. The latter is the more southern style of pho – the broth is darker and the noodles are chunkier. Whatever its provenance, it tastes mighty fine.

MAK’S NOODLE

77 Wellington Street, Central These are noodles with heritage. Founder Mak Woon Chi pitched up in Hong Kong during World War II after serving his famed wonton noodles to Chiang Kai-shek, head of the Chinese Nationalist government (before Mao’s People’s Republic of China). Starting out as an open-air street stall, Mak’s has grown to become a chain of six restaurants across Hong Kong and one in Singapore. However, it’s the Wellington Street original that has made Mak’s the byword for wonton perfection. Don’t expect five-star ambience: it’s an ordinary-looking shopfront with unforgiving benches but you’ll get resplendent wonton noodles.

THE ALCHEMIST CAFÉ BISTRO

27-29 Poplar Street, Kowloon On a fairly nondescript road near Kowloon’s Prince Edward MTR Station, it doesn’t look much from the outside but within is a colourful and lively travellerthemed bistro. Flags of many nations and shelves full of books adorn the walls. Time it right and you’ll get cracking live music, too. The food is mainly Western, which can be a mixed experience in Hong Kong. In truth, people tend to rave about the coffee and the waffles more than the mains. They don’t take reservations so sometimes there’s a queue.