Lime! K-Town, HK

Our friend Joanne took an enormous chance and opened her new 'hole-in-the-wall' restaurant "Lime" just off Smithfield Street in Kennedy Town ...

Lime.
14 Hau Wo Street,
Kennedy Town

She said initially "it may be off the beaten-track but it's 'still on the island' with all that that entails" and, since she's never run a restaurant before, she thought a small place in Kennedy Town would be a nice easy way to get herself established as a chef.

It was also a matter of timing! Kennedy Town is finally on the map. HK has even started referring to it affectionately as K-Town, and we are currently extending the MTR (our underground railway) out past Sheung Wan to include K-Town and since Hong Kongers seldom go beyond the MTR route, Joanne was "future planning" as it's called, wanting her place to be well underway by the time the planned MTR station, a two minutes walk away, is completed in 2014.

And others are thinking along the same lines: luxury complexes "The Merton" and "Manhattan" have opened around the corner, within visual range of "Lime", along the K-Town waterfront. I know lots of people who are buying these twice-the-size, half-the-price apartments because they cost only a fraction of what you'd pay 'along the line', and K-Town will be 'along the line' in only four years, thus they're all living in luxury while "future planning" to eventually make a financial killing.

Well, Joanne too decided to get in early, before everyone realises what's going down out there and while prices are still cheap, so kudos to her, but it was still an enormous risk, opening a place like this "beyond the frontier" in deepest, darkest Sino-World. She thought it would simply be a matter of building up a small client-base of regulars and thus keeping going until K-Town joins HK-proper and Lime could then EXPLODE!

But it's all started happening for her already, after only a month too, thanks to the most brilliant review in 'HK Magazine':

The page in HK Magazine!
See how Joanne's place is first up!

Anyway, I got her to sign it for me ...


... and if you double-click on the photograph, you'll be able to see for yourself all the nice things the foodie-reviewer said about Joanne's cooking; "the best Thai food away from Thailand", things of that ilk.

And it is wonderful food too. Joanne can really cook. Her green curry! Mmmmm! And she does this shaved duck breast salad thing that's so yum too! Wish I knew the names of these dishes, but I don't and, since I'm not a foodie-reviewer, I don't care! It yummy and that's enough for me.

Anyway, we went there again last night with German Michael, to meet up with our old friends Other German Michael and his lovely wife Louise, who are back in HK on holiday after five years working in Vienna and Munich. We thought it would be quiet because our previous visits to Lime were (photo above is of a previous visit), but instead ... oh, wow! Joanne has only five tables and every single one was full, and there were people waiting. An assembly-line indeed, and it was only a Wednesday night, too.

So, thanks to truly great food, it's already become huge! Andy, Joanne's charming radio-announcer husband, took time off work to help her set the place up, and, well, he hasn't been able to get back to his own job because he hasn't had a spare moment, what with the droves coming in to eat. And, yes, a lot are coming from The Merton and Manhattan, but others are taking the long trek out on the 5X bus from downtown HK since everyone's now saying it's their destination of choice for when they're hanging out for Thai.

It all makes me think about the time, back in the 70s, when our old friend Robert Miller opened the first pizza joint in Fiji. Fiji had no tradition of eating pizza - had never even heard of it - so Robert's place started out as simply this tiny 'hole in the wall' with just a pizza oven, a counter and two tables, stuck in 'cheaper property area' away from the action of downtown Suva, and within three months he had to buy the place next door, knock out a wall and extend into there, and then 8 months after that, to buy the place on the other side, and then a year later, buy the place above and install stairs, then another place and another place, until ... well, his manager ran off and opened his own fusion Curry-Pizza restaurant right in the heart of Suva and that cost Robert a large chunk of his client-base. But still, there was enough pizza-action in Suva for both places to do extremely well, and both are still running today.

I can see this also happening for Joanne. She really does a great meal and I can see us "doing Thai" a lot in the future, even with that long trek out on Bus 5, Bus 5B or the express Bus 5X.

Oh, and going by taxi costs HK$45.00 from downtown HK, if you'd prefer doing it that way.

But if you too decide the bus is better value, to reach Lime, stay on the bus until you're ready to scream with boredom, and then start to keep an eye out for Smithfield Road:

Smithfield Road.
You can recognise it
from the MacDonald's sign.

It's about two or three stops from the end of the line, and usually you know when you reach it because it's usually the first stop where people actually get off.

Then, once you're on Smithfield, walk down towards the waterfront until you see this pink shop:

It's called Bling Bling!

That's on the corner of Hau Ho Street.

Then you turn into this street, and Lime is halfway along. Easy?

Lime! Great food! Great owner! Great chef! Only minor inconvenience!