TaoYuan Village 桃園眷村 (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★☆☆☆

A few months ago, I read about TaoYuan Village (桃園眷村), a Shanghai based breakfast restaurant (Well, it's more like a canteen than restaurant) opening their first shop in Hong Kong when I was having my hair cut. As one of the fastest growing restaurant chains in China, they already have more than 30 locations nationwide despite a brief three-year history. That's pretty amazing. According to the report, even some of the local celebrities such as Eason Chan, were spotted checking out the place when he was vacationing in Shanghai. I thought if Eason enjoyed it so much (according to the same report), it's definitely worth a visit.



They offer a very small menu focusing on just four signature items - soy milk (豆漿), shao bing (燒餅), you tiao (油條) and sticking rice roll (粢飯).



Like at most Shanghainese restaurants, there's a choice between sweet and savory soy milk here. This sweet one comes with a serious Taiwanese twist combining an old-fashioned soy milk with pearls and black sugar. Pretty interesting idea but I thought it was very bland even with the black sugar.



Village You Tiao (眷村油條) - A little more chewy than our Cantonese style donut and a bit less flaky. 



Minced pork and marinated egg rice roll (肉燥滷蛋飯糰) - More Taiwanese twist. I really like the idea but the execution was far from perfect.

I remember with the traditional sticky rice roll, the fillings of you tiao (油條) and pork floss (肉鬆) are more evenly spread out so with each bite, you got a nice balanced portion of sticky rice, you tiao and pork floss. But we didn't get the same balance here. There were a couple of bites where I only got the sticky rice and no minced pork or egg. 



Kung-fu spicy chicken Shao Bing (功夫雞腿燒餅) - Very similar to McDonald's McChicken except the fact that they replaced the buns with their shao bing (something like a flatbread). This was just OK. Probably should have gone for their corn and egg flavor instead.



Food Rating: 4/10
Price: $$
Address: Shop 01, 4/F, 8 Langham Place, 8 Argyle Street, Mong Kok, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Mong Kok
Tel: +852 3583-5992