International eats @ Café On M (InterContinental Grand Stanford), Hong Kong

Brunch - that awkward in-between time during which most western restaurants in Hong Kong are not open for business (except those inside hotel buildings). There are a few places on HK Island side where majority of the expats in HK live (eg Jaspas and Brunch Club), but there is a sore lack of places to eat a western-style breakfast on this side of the harbour except for hotel restaurants and cafés. There are plenty of local choices for breakfast/brunch - numerous cha chaan teng eateries, daytime dai pai dong and of course yum cha - but our 3-year-old's multiple food allergies means that he can't eat almost anything that comes out of a Chinese kitchen. So once again, we found ourselves brunching at a hotel café when we were stuck in the area in between appointments.

As viewed from our table, on the mezzanine level of the hotel, which I assume is what the "M" stands for in the café's name:

Café On M offers all-day dining inside the InterContinental Grand Standford, which is great for those seeking a meal outside of normal meal hours. We came to this same hotel couple of months ago for my birthday at another restaurant. Service was good, considering that the staff were busy cleaning up after the breakfast buffet and setting up for the lunch buffet. The a-la-carte menu had a good variety of dishes, and we could choose to have sandwiches, pizza and pasta or south-east Asian dishes like laksa and char kuey teow. Our food took almost 30 minutes to arrive after ordering, which was understandable because we'd placed our order just before the café opened the lunch buffet.

Our table was situated just outside of the buffet dining area, which was perfect because we didn't want the buffet. The cake display is on the left, not yet filled at the time the picture was taken:

The food was good quality, as to be expected from a restaurant inside a 5-star hotel. The buffet spread looked good, and quite reasonably priced compared to other hotel restaurants. Next time, perhaps.

Fried Oyster Pancake, with leek and egg (served with sweet chili sauce and fish sauce). This was pretty tasty, but quite greasy. Hubby thought it was too salty, which is unusual because usually I have a lower flavour tolerance than hubby:

Char Kuey Teow, with generous amounts of prawns and lap cheong (Chinese sausage). This was a pretty good version of hubby's favourite Malaysian dish, but it lacked the charry wok hei flavour:

Rare Charred Pepper Steak Sandwich, with grainy mustard mayonnaise and tomato pesto and served with salad and rosemary fries. The toddler could not get enough of the fries:

The rare steak sandwiched inside toasted crusty bread. How could something so simple be so delicious?

Hubby could not resist ordering one of the cakes - Mango Chocolate Pastry. It looked good, and tasted pretty nice, but it was hard not to make a mess with the flaky pastry:

We enjoyed lunch, and the meal worked out to be cheaper than at another nearby hotel.

Café On M
M Level
InterContinental Grand Stanford Hong Kong
70 Mody Road
Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon
Tel. +85 2 2731 2860