appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

liveArticle

appConfig

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sectionsV2

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

json

David Sutton

La Taste
1/F 34-38 Stanley Street
Central
Tel 2815 8863
 Grub: Vietnamese, with an emphasis on fresh ingredients.
 Vibe: The decor is light and pleasant. As in most Vietnamese restaurants, the colour green is  much in evidence. The best time to go is just after the lunchtime rush, when most people have gone back to work.
 Who to bring: This could be a good place for a quiet afternoon chill-out with a few friends.  
 What's hot: Once in a while, it's nice to go into a Vietnamese restaurant and not order pho noodles. The dish is so popular that it is easy to forget that the cuisine actually offers a wide range of other dishes.
 It would also  be nice to avoid the familiar cold spring rolls, but they proved harder to ignore. As well as pork, the rolls are   available filled with prawn, soft-shell  crab and grilled beef. There is also an interesting fillet of sole option.
Also worth looking out for are the grilled prawns with pomelo salad. The pomelo is tossed with  lettuce, cucumber, mint and sesame seeds and topped with grilled shallots and cashew nuts. This is served with two large, grilled tiger prawns. The prawns were perhaps a little overcooked, but the salad was  tangy and refreshing.
The only dessert on the menu is black glutinous rice, which can be ordered with or without mango. It goes wonderfully well with a Vietnamese-style coffee with condensed milk. The coffee drips through a stainless steel filter onto condensed milk in the cup beneath.
 What's not: A common dish at Hong Kong Vietnamese restaurants is beef cubes with red rice. The rice is  nothing more than  fried rice with  tomatoes or tomato paste added  for colour. The beef  is sometimes referred to as shaking beef, bo luc lac. The 'luc lac' describes the rapid tossing or shaking of the beef cubes in the wok as  their outsides are seared. This dish can only be as good as the quality of the beef, and in this case the cubes were a bit on the rubbery side.
La Taste gets very busy during the week at lunchtime.
Cost: Pho and salads are between HK$40 and HK$50. Most of the snacks are  HK$20-$48; crab and prawn dishes are HK$68. Main dishes are  HK$48-$98, dessert is HK$20 and drinks  HK$20-HK$30.



La Taste