Welcome to yet another review of Richmond’s rich resource in HK style cafes. Today, we present to you Alleluia. It is located on Westminster Hwy., a bit east of No. 3 Rd. The parking situation was alright when we were there (about 7:30 PM) but I know without uncertainty that during lunch times it is a hair-pulling event. Here’s the view from the outside.
No, that’s not my dad. It’s just a fellow Chinese guy waiting for his family to catch up to him. Upon entering the restaurant, Alleluia seemed clean and organized. There was plenty of business but got a seat fairly quickly.
These were the “Chef’s Recommendations”. Now, these were all lobster related dishes. Noticeably, the prices are higher than the 7-10 dollar budget meals of HK style cafes. With Wendy’s lavish lifestyle, it was a no-brainer for her to choose from the CR Menu.
Wendy and I had soups that came complimentary to our meals. I got the Chinese-style soup and she got Cream of Corn and imitation Crab.
The bastion of all HK Cafes is the Milk Tea. Now, not all places make it equally awesome, but Alleluia does a very good job. The Milk Tea was very creamy and went down smooth.
Also, different from most other HK-style cafes, they offer free refills!
My dish, the 3-dish rice combo with Mushroom Sauce was just pretty darn good. I chose the Ox-Tongue, Chicken and Fish Filet. The Ox-tongue stood out big time as it was very tender and juicy. For those of you screaming, “NO! DON’T EAT THE TONGUE! EEEWW!” I assure you, it is a fantastic choice. The sauce was a bit weak (and salty), that’s why I stole some of Wendy’s garlic sauce to make up for it!
It’s the Chef’s Recommendation! Lobster with Rib-eye steak (medium, or as you say in a HK Cafe, “50% done”). We expected the lobster to consist more of the baked cheese than the lobster meat itself. We were both dead wrong! To our delight, the lobster had plenty of big pieces for us to devour. The rib eye steak was also good, typical baking-soda-tenderized but we had no problem cleaning the plate up. The garlic sauce was thumbs up! WAY UP! Wendy chose spaghetti instead of rice as you can it hidden behind the lobster.
The dessert was completely boring. A scoop of vanilla ice cream as the ending to my meal combo. Wendy tried to make the picture more appealing with their well-designed business card.
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Alleluia seems to vary in their quality….I know I’ve been there at like 1am and their curry lamb/beef brisket just blew me out of the water…but another time at 1230am it was horrible…salty and I kept tasting it for the rest of the (late)night.
Is it one refill only or more? I remember a server telling me that it’s only one.
BTW, nice dig haha, lavish lifestyle. 😉
Oh wow did you eat there tonight, I was just there at around the same time like 7:45. If you were there tonight, did you find the service particularly slow. It took until I was over halfway done my meal for them to bring the drinks and that’s only because I had to remind them for it since i saw it sitting on the drink table for like 10 minutes completely unattended to…
Also didn’t think that their milk tea is particularly good, a lot of friends have complained about it being too creamy!
IIRC the servers say that its only one drink refill too.
We were actually there 2 nights ago. Service seemed fine, our drinks came out accordingly. However, I do agree that some aspects are quite slow, such as when asking for refills. When I asked for refill for the sauce, it took 20mins with reminders. One other time when we asked for drink refill, that took even longer, probably another 20-25minutes. Mind you, both times we made the mistake of asking the same young guy. We’ve learnt our lesson.
Haha I think we enjoy their milk tea BECAUSE it’s so creamy!!
lobster is cheap right now, my mom bought live lobsters from chinatown for $5 each
Alleluia is okay.
The free refills are the standout feature for me.
Alleluia’s set meals are so darn cheap compared to the other places. Food is generally good too. But most of the time I go very late or early in the morning (1AM) just like Kevin.
Went last night round 8 pm. Order deep fried pork, but got pan fried pork. Told the waitress, she didn’t say sorry about her mistake, she argued about it, then took the pan fried pork back and serve to other customer. Very poor service. And very bad food safety.
The milk tea tasted like shit. I have never been to any Asian restaurant which made the milk tea as gross as this restaurant. The waitress was impolite and I would not recommend this restaurant to anyone.