Perhaps one of the “biggest news” ahead of Lunar New Year for the neighbourhood of Happy Valley is a new cha chaan teng (茶餐廳) has opened for business after several months of preparations.

That’s the “Milk Cafe” (牛奶冰室), which already has a branch in the nearby Causeway Bay. Its Happy Valley branch is the latest addition to the chain restaurant, owned by Taste of Asia, a local fast food group that also operates other businesses like Korean BBQ and hot pot restaurants all over Hong Kong.

To impress the (demanding?) neighbourhood of Happy Valley is definitely not an easy mission. We have too many foodies here, not to mention Happy Valley is the home for the most historic Cheung Hing Coffee Shop (祥興咖啡室), a favourite among many celebrities and tycoons in Hong Kong. So what’s special about the new Milk Cafe?

I have been there for three times so far, once for breakfast and twice for some takeaways. First, you need to know Milk Cafe is actually a combination of bakery and dine-in (well, currently you cannot do dinner dine-in due to existing Covid rules) restaurant. It has an open shelf where you can grab all kinds of breads and cakes and the most famous one here is the Pineapple Bun (菠蘿包). I actually quite like its Swiss Roll (瑞士卷). Don’t go there too late. Many breads and cakes are often sold out before dinner time.

Breakfast wise, it’s pretty standard. Milk Cafe has a breakfast menu that’s available before 11:30am everyday and it has everything that you can probably find in any other local restaurants. Noodle lovers will be happy to find many choices of noodles (instant noodles, rice noodles, etc) to go with assorted vegetables, satay beef, and spicy pork cubes. They all come with a butter toast and fried egg. This feels so Hong Kong — like ”One country, two systems”, and our local noodle breakfast has been always “One breakfast, two styles” — in both Chinese (noodle) and Western (toast) styles.

The restaurant also has a rich menu of dinner food, well, fast food in Chinese style. My favourite so far is its set dinner Satay Beef with Vermicelli Noodles in a pot (沙爹粉絲肥牛煲), coming with rice and a drink free of choice (and charge). It has other family-style pots for set dinner, like tofu, fish, and lamb. This is not your Michelin-star restaurant but it is not too bad for some local comfort food especially when you are in a hurry to grab something.

Restaurant staff are pretty nice here. Don’t know if this is related to a previous incident in its Causeway Bay branch where some of its staff got complaints from local diners. Perhaps the restaurant learned the lesson. Or perhaps we have a more demanding reputation for Happy Valley. Anyway, for me it’s nice to have another cha chaan teng just around the corner.

The restaurant remains open during Lunar New Year holiday but it will charge an additional 10% service fee per table/meal. Fair enough.