Check In Taipei 臺北棧 (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★★☆

I have been keeping a close eye on the soft opening date of modern Taiwanese bistro, Check In Taipei (臺北棧) at Harbour City for months. The progress has been relatively slow but I got some good news three weeks ago that they were finally ready for prime time!

The last time I visited Check In Taipei's flagship on Hollywood Road dated back to my birthday dinner with V in 2014. That seemed like a long long time ago.

I saw trouble the moment I arrived at Harbour City in front of the new restaurant. Huge lineup! The wait would last around an hour before we finally got ourselves a table. That's not much fun. As soon as we got seated, the first order of business would be to get something to quench our thirst.

Signature beef noodles (招牌牛肉麵) – We just had Taiwanese beef noodles at Tristar Kitchen (三星台菜食堂) last week so it would be a good measuring stick.

It turned out to be a one-horse race. Wasn't even close. The beef bone broth here was so umami rich and flavorful. In fact, once I got my first sip, I already had the urge to finish the entire bowl. The sliced noodles (刀削麵) were equally nice and perfectly chewy the way it's supposed to be, not surprisingly, working well with the beef, tofu and cordyceps (蟲草花).

Soft-shell crab mapo tofu noodles (軟殼蟹麻婆豆腐撈麵) – Soft-shell crab and mapo tofu weren't exactly as good a match as we first thought. 

Little nugget loves to eat spicy these days but he found the mapo tofu a little too spicy for his palate.

Salted egg taro ball (鹹蛋黃芋泥球) – Some snacks to go with our noodles and first up, the salted egg taro balls. These were beautifully decorated with taro dust and yellow taro cream on top.

There was a layer of delicate mashed taro underneath the crispy batter but what made this so damn good was the centre of salted egg and yellow taro custard. A crossover of savory and sweet flavors. Absolutely delish! Mom and little guy just couldn't stop eating them.

Sweet potato fries (話梅地瓜薯條) – The sweet potato fries wasn't the story here. The dip made with chili and flavored with salty plums was. Trust me, this was very addictive.

Taro-misu (芋泥提拉米蘇) – Look at the size of our taro flavored tiramisu! I have to admit, this wasn't our first choice for dessert. Their signature pineapple puff egg tart (鳳梨酥蛋撻) was but they were unfortunately all sold out.

I had a couple of wracks at it and it was really nice. The multi-layered dessert came with the usual ingredients one would expect from a proper tiramisu including mascarpone cream, marsala and ladyfingers but the chefs have substituted the cocoa powder with taro powder (thus the purple color) and there was a layer of creamy taro purée on top of the ladyfingers to give this an extra kick (of taro flavors). Impressive!

Mom and little one couldn't get enough of the taro balls so we decided to order another round of these to stop their crave.

These weren't as tasty as the ones from the first round (both the crust and mashed taro were a little on the hard side) but they served the purpose of stopping someone's craving.

I thought Check In Taipei's fusion dishes have taken a huge step forward since my last encounter in 2014 (too bad they don't have the drinks to back up the food menu). It was so good that we've already booked our second visit in a few weeks' time.

Food Rating: 6.5/10

Price: $$$

Address: Shop 2204-6, 2/F, Harbour City, Gateway Arcade, 5 Canton Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Tsim Sha Tsui

Tel: +852 3595-0995

Opening Hours: 12:00pm - 9:00pm daily