Breakfast Series - The Cupping Room

The Cupping Room

I used to be a breakfast fanatic. Back in my home town of Brisbane, the climate allowed for a huge breakfast culture.  There were so many amazing breakfasts, that it was hard to keep up.

When I moved to HK, I was a little dismayed to discover that there's not even close to the same dedication to the first meal of the day - well, at least the Western version!  After checking out a number of cafes and restaurants, I eventually gave up seeking out breakfasts, I just couldn't take the heartbreak of another sub par serve of scrambled eggs.

My search is over!

The best discoveries are those that are unexpected and discovering that the Cupping Room did the best Western breakfast in HK happened pretty much by accident.  

The are a couple of Cupping Room outlets across Hong Kong and they are quite well regarded as producing a great cup of coffee.  I'd been into the Central CR a few times for coffee, but had never 'clicked' that there was an upstairs section that served food.  One morning, curiosity got the better of me, so I wandered upstairs and grabbed a seat.

The space was quite small, which is not unusual in Hong Kong, quite bare with a number of seats-for-two and a large share table.  I was given a menu that was labelled 'Breakfast of Champions' and listed out eight different options for breakfast, with a bunch of sides available for a little extra.  The thing that jumped out at me most was the similarities between the Cupping Room menu and many restaurants back in Brisbane.  For the first time, my hopes rose that I'd stumbled across something great.

Keeping it simple, I ordered the scrambled eggs on toast, along with a side of mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and mushroom.  I didn't have to wait long before my breakfast was delivered and from first appearances, I thought I was in for a treat!

My scrambled eggs looked light and fluffy, in fact they were perfectly cooked and almost glistened on the thick cut toast.  There were flakes of seasalt on top of the eggs, which gave me a hint that the seasoning was going to be juuuusssst right!  As I started to devour my eggs, I noticed with glee that the toast had been lathered with butter, which when combined with the wonderfully cooked eggs provided a taste explosion in my mouth!  I'd forgotten how great a simple plate of food could taste.

Moving from the scrambled eggs, I started to munch on my sides, which were a little bit of a 'mixed bag'.  The cherry tomatoes were great, little balls of flavour and the bacon - well, bacon is always great, but the serving size was a little stingy!  What was a bit of a let down was the massive grilled mushroom, which had no seasoning at all and as a consequence was totally bland.  Guys, a little bit of salt and pepper on a mushroom brings out the magic!

Along side my breakfast, I also ordered a latte, which looked the goods and was pretty much as good as coffee gets.  I loved the large cup that the coffee was served in, which was a welcome bonus (many cafes in HK serve the coffee in tiny cups!).  There was a rich earthy flavour to the coffee, a robustness that gave me that 'morning jolt' that gets you through the day.  

Mushroom aside, I really enjoyed my Cupping Room breakfast.  For me, it was the best I'd had in Honkers and was the first breakfast that really met my expectations of what a breakfast is all about.  

In fact, the scrambled eggs were definitely the best I've had in Asia.

Finding out that the Cupping Room served decent breakfast really opened up a new food-stream for me.  So much so that since my first visit I've been back an insane amount of times!  Weird as it seems, I'm trying to make up for a year of crappy breakfasts.

Happy days!

@FoodMeUpScotty

The Cupping Room Coffee is consistently good

Poached eggs on a follow up visit - just as yummy