Café Kool - Kowloon Shangri-la

Café Kool is one of Kowloon Shangri-la’s restaurants and I inadvertently had a buffet lunch there today, having been invited by a colleague and not one to turn down a free lunch, I happily grabbed a plate.

Café Kool, established after the success of Café Too at the Island Shangri-la, is based on a similar concept of open kitchen with different chefs at each station. The selection was very widespread with 4 manned stations, the salad station (you select the veggies, they toss the salad with your choice of dressing), the noodle station (much more varied than Café One, with a wide choice of noodles and toppings), a congee station (again with a variety of toppings to be cooked with your congee of choice), and a pasta station (your choice of ingredients, pasta and sauce). The dessert presentation was to die for with a whole glass wall full of cakes as you walk in, then all the tempting desserts laid out for your choosing. There was also a raw seafood selection with oysters (I didn’t try after a fellow buffet buff’s dodgy food poisoning recently), prawns and all sorts of sea creatures.

I started with a bit of everything, some sashimi (impressive freshness), a bit of aloo gobi (can’t resist), some of the exotic salads (middle eastern lamb salad, seared tuna Mediterranean salad, roasted fennel salad), it was all delicious. My colleague had some nice rice cakes with curry, some of the prawn salad and a tossed salad before proceeding to the Japanese section with sushi, sashimi and cold soba noodles. I continued with a bowl of thin yellow noodles with clear soup, fish balls (surprisingly delicious!) and vegetables.

Then, the dessert. To begin with, they also had a chocolate fountain (+1), and a freezer drawer with little cups of…Haagen Daaz ice cream (+1). Then mountains of fruit (dragon fruit, strawberries, pineapple, etc.), a beautiful French apple tart, thin as a whisper and not too sweet, green tea tiramisu, crème brulee, molten chocolate cake, meringue on fruit salad. It was all tiny portions (+1 for being considerate – I want a bite of each, not a slice of each) and very varied, imaginative and beautifully presented. Definitely worth a try. I’m not sure about price as my colleague paid, so value for money is undetermined at this point.

Lovely, lovely lunch and a nice set up for comparison for…..Cafe Too!

Food presentation: 9/10
Food selection: 8/10
Food quality: 8/10
Setting: 8/10
Service: 8/10