28 February, 2011
Eat & Drink

Galettes galore at La Creperie

28 February, 2011

You could so easily miss this charming restaurant as you’re whizzing along Queen’s Road East. It’s on the first floor of a serviced apartment building with a simple sign on the ground floor directing you upstairs.

Merry yellows and blues welcome you into the nautically themed space (don’t wear stripes, you might play chameleon a bit too well), a nice context to the Breton menu on offer.

La Creperie specializes in buckwheat pancakes or galettes from Brittany, light, thin, and large. However, seafood laden salads or soups, mussels and oysters are available as well to round off the menu.

We start with a crevettes (shrimp) salad instead of skipping to the sweet crepes (as you’ll be tempted to do when you see the list). Quite basic, but the dressing is mild and tasty, and the crevettes, slightly spiced but otherwise unremarkable.

The list of crepes is extensive, alors, Yann our server (and it seemed, manager and/or owner), shares recommendations. We order several savoury crepes, which all arrive within 15 minutes, albeit at a staggered pace. La Vannetaise, stuffed with emmentel cheese, bacon, and leeks, is delicious and filling, but the bacon is very generously loaded on and much to the relief of my protesting arteries, couldn’t be finished.  La Rennaise is filled with a savoury pork sausage, emmentel, and Dijon mustard.  My guests polished off their various other spinach, blue cheese, raclette, onion, bacon, sausage, and potato filled creations happily enough, though I hear the Roquefort filled crepe doth overdo the Roquefort part.

There are a couple of vegetarian options amongst the savoury crepes, the best of which is a delectable goats cheese and caramelized walnut filled affair which I ate on a previous visit, and the staff is happy to oblige with  requests (‘no mushrooms please’ as an example).

The sweet crepes take up a tempting few pages at the back of the menu. If you’re all buckwheated out – quite possible given how rich most of the savoury crepes are — you could just get some ice-cream or homemade cake instead. The options range from traditional crepes suzettes, a simple butter and sugar version, to different iterations with caramel, chocolate, varied stewed or baked fruit, liqueurs, and fruit creams. I nabbed bites of several crepes, and am happy to report they were all excellent. How can you possibly go wrong with baked bananas, stewed apples, salted caramel butter or chocolate, mixed and matched in any way? Several of the crepes come topped with a scoop of ice-cream, which seems to be homemade. The caramel and coffee flavours were exceptionally delicious but the chocolate was a bit too chunky to enjoy.

To drink: a range of coffees, teas, a few wines, and, on the staff’s recommendation, an artisanal cider. The cider was served to us in little coffee cups, as it is done in Brittany per the ever helpful Yann. It turned out to be an inferior apple juice with a bit of fizz, but manages to leave the quaint experience none the worse for wear.

In sum, the atmosphere is nautical, the crepes flavourful, and the staff, friendly.  We like the cut of your jib, La Creperie.

Notes for readers: The restaurant is nearly always full, so do call ahead.  Jars of salted caramel butter and boxes of homemade cake are available for takeaway. The crepes are priced between $65 and $85 each, and a set lunch is available. La Creperie has a branch in Shanghai.

La Crêperie Hong Kong 1/F, Kui Chi Mansion, 100-102 Queen’s Road East, Wan Chai
2529 9280 https://www.facebook.com/pages/La-Cr%C3%AAperie-Hong-Kong/279933787210

By Sai Pradhan

Sai Pradhan runs a communications focused headhunting firm, Trufflepig Search (link to www.trufflepigsearch.com), placing PR, marketing, advertising, and social media/digital candidates. Born and raised in Mumbai, Sai went to universities in Washington DC, London, and Edinburgh. She worked in New York City at PR agencies for some years, and then moved to Los Angeles where she wrote restaurant reviews and travel articles for an online newspaper, The Examiner, besides working as a PR and headhunting consultant. She moved to Hong Kong in August 2010 from Los Angeles, soon after which she discovered Sassy Hong Kong. Food is one of her main gateways into feeling at home anywhere, so she is looking forward to continuing to explore Hong Kong one restaurant at a time! Email her at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @SaiSays
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