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The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” – G.K. Chesterton

Saturday 19 July 2014

A lovely brunch @ Café Causette, Hong Kong

I love the options we have for brunch in Hong Kong. We met up again with hubby's aunt and her husband recently for brunch, not long after they'd generously treated us to a magnificent Robuchon dinner in Macau. This brunch was mostly so that they could see the kids, which they didn't get to while we were in Macau. Scheduling to meet this lovely couple are sometimes made months in advance, due to the fact that aunt-in-law is always travelling and hardly in HK. Since it was our turn to invite them out for a meal (at our insistence, we have an agreement to take turns paying, but that doesn't stop L from trying to pay whenever it is our turn!), I wanted somewhere not-too-shabby but also child-friendly, and Café Causette at the luxurious Mandarin Oriental seemed to fit the bill nicely. The entrance to Café Causette is right next to the Mandarin Cake Shop, with window tables for solo or small-group dining in the corridor leading to the main dining room. The service was excellent but friendly, which suited the relaxed and casual atmosphere. The all-day dining from 6:30am to 11:45pm makes this a good choice for jet-lagged travellers, those with early or late meetings, or for parents with young kids who are wide-awake in the wee hours of the morning. The breakfast menu offers a nice variety ranging from the light and healthy (like fruit, bircher muesli and egg white omelette) to full breakfast sets like the continental breakfast (juice, fruit, 3 breads and coffee/tea), the Mandarin breakfast (juice, fruit, two eggs, 3 breads and coffee/tea) or the Chinese breakfast (steamed dim sum basket, congee, noodles, soya bean milk and Chinese tea). There are also in-between options like toasties, pancakes, sausage burger and a range of two-eggs dishes in the form of omelette, fried, scrambled, poached or boiled. The Children's Menu also caters well to kids' tastebuds with items like spag bol, macaroni cheese and pizza.

The Mandarin Cake Shop and to the right of it is the window corridor leading to the main dining area of Café Causette. In the Cake Shop were beautifully decorated cakes on display that changes regularly - in the center was a wedding-dress cake, and in front of it was a World Cup trophy cake (for the 2014 games) and a Rubik's Cube cake. The Mandarin Cake Shop was where we ordered the delicious turkey and trimmings from for last Christmas:

The main dining room of Café Causette:

Ham & Pineapple Pizza from the Children's Menu (HK$88) - perfect size for the 5-year-old who polished it off:

Hubby chose the Mandarin Breakfast (HK$308), and a lovely assortment of fresh cut fruit was included - dragon fruit, orange, honeydew, watermelon, rockmelon and strawberries.:

Also part of the Mandarin Breakfast was a choice of three breads from the bakery, and the boy chose two - a pain au chocolat...:

... and a doughnut (which was jam-filled and covered in sugar granules - not the healthiest!). Hubby selected a buttery soft brioche for us to share:

For his two-eggs that was included in the breakfast set, hubby went healthy and ordered an Egg White Omelette. It was so delicious that it was hard to believe it was healthy:

For my brekkie, I chose the Egg Royale (HK$148) - poached eggs and smoked salmon on English muffin with hollandaise on the side. I was glad when the hollandaise was served on the side because I'd forgotten to request it. I think that hollandaise should be served on the side by default, as I like to enjoy the eggs au naturel whereas hubby loves hollandaise all over it (we share everything we order), and this way we can both have our preferences:

Oozing egg yolk from a perfectly poached egg:

The food was good, and the prices were reasonably affordable for a 5-star hotel restaurant. Café Causette is a good family dining choice at the Mandarin Oriental.

[Prices quoted above do not include the 10% service charge.]

Café Causette
Mezzanine Level
Mandarin Oriental Hotel
5 Connaught Road Central
Central, Hong Kong
Tel. +85 2 2825 4005

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