Monday, March 12, 2012

Le Velo and Hatching Dinosaurs :)

Craving a light and healthy Saturday lunch, I found myself at Le Velo. I've walked past this cafe a number of times but never went in considering my go-to sandwich place (Pret) is so close by. Luckily, the sandwiches at Le Velo are pretty decent and left me feeling happily satiated :)

I went for the turkey and pesto sandwich with chunks of avocado (yum!)

I initially wanted to get a panini but as they were already out by the time we arrived at 1:30, I opted for a baguette sandwich. The bread at Le Velo is freshly baked on site and I've heard good things about it. However, my baguette itself was not what I expected. A good baguette is slightly moist and chewy on the inside, but with a nice crusty exterior. This baguette had none of the above. It was really soft, almost like a bread roll, and you can see from the picture that it was hardly crusty. Luckily, the ingredients tasted fresh and they gave ample amounts of avocado which makes any sandwich better :)

The chicken and pineapple sandwich fared much better. The foccacia bread was delicious, especially with all the herbs at the top. Some of the chicken pieces were a bit tough but the majority were nice and juicy and paired perfectly with the pineapple chunks. Far better than the quality of sandwiches at Subway! We also got a packet of ranch-flavoured Kettle chips mmm :)


I washed everything down with a steaming mug of Horlicks! Why does it always taste soo much better in restaurants than at home?!

The service was pretty minimal though I wasn't expecting too much from a small cafe like this. At first the chicken sandwich came in a baguette although we had ordered it on the foccacia and they looked decidedly reluctant to change it for us... However, I did appreciate that they give you free water and lots of magazines to browse. I'll be back for their $40 burgers!

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Some other random stuff that's been filling my belly:

I absolutely love Quaker instant oatmeal so imagine my excitement when I found Quaker Oatmeal Dinosaur Eggs!! In brown sugar no less (my favourite!)

So this is the oatmeal before hot water is added. You can see all the little dinosaur eggs all ready to be hatched :)

And once you add the hot water and start stirring, the dinosaurs hatch!! Soo cute! The dinosaurs are edible (basically just sugar) and lots of fun to eat (though I was slightly disappointed that they didn't become 4-foot T-rexes!). I guess Quaker's had to do something to get the kids interested with the likes of Lucky Charms and Alpha-Bits cereal on the market. They even have fun dinosaur jokes on each packet :) Oh how easily I succumb to child marketing.

This was a random dessert plate I got from Roll (they've now opened a shop on Stanley Street in Central). I sampled their brownie, a chestnut roll, mango roll, and a chicky macaron. The brownie was really hard. The rolls were alright but tasted like something out of Maxim's. The macaron was not good. All in all, quite passable. Apparently this new Roll also serves dinner sets which is a bit strange - pizzas and pastas and the like.

And finally, strange US gum I found in 7-11 the other day. Key lime pie and mint chocolate chip!??!?!

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Le Velo
G/F Beautiful Group Tower
74-77 Connaught Road, Central

Roll
G/F Granville Mansion
41 C-D Granville Road
Tsim Sha Tsui