Location, location, location - Lan Kwai Fong @ Kau U Fong

This post is on the hotel we stayed at in Hong Kong. I thought it was worth an individual mention because it's a real find. From our last trip to Hong Kong, we realised that most of our favourite eateries were located near Central, on Hong Kong island side. It was therefore a bit of a bother to have to keep taking the MTR from Kowloon just to eat.

So this time around, we decided to stay near Central. The hotel in question is Lan Kwai Fong @ Kau U Fong. We knew about this hotel because Lesley-Anne and I were booked here when we were invited to speak at the Hong Kong International Young Readers Festival in 2014. We found it comfortable, charming and convenient. Oh look, 3 Cs!

The hotel is located on the corner of the bottom of a steep slope that's Aberdeen Street and the little road of Kau U Fong. It's easy to miss but once you know where it is, its convenience is simply unbeatable. This is a view of Aberdeen Street. The hotel is the building in yellow. 

This is the entrance:

Back to convenience. The hotel is an easy 3-minute walk to Sheung Wan MTR station or to a tram station (10 minutes to Central MRT), so getting around is a cinch. More importantly, it's a 5-minute walk or less to some of our all-time favourites eateries. I won't talk about the food in detail since I've already done so previously. You can click on the links to see the corresponding posts.

Yat Lok and Honolulu Cafe (Stanley Street) for roast goose and egg tarts respectively.

Wah Fung (Wellington Street) for suckling pig, fried pigeon and char siew. Lesley-Anne loves the char siew here, she says it's like eating huge chunks of bak kwa. This restaurant is not on most foodies' radar which is great cos it means they don't keep raising their prices and don't have crazy queues (there's still a queue at lunch time during weekdays though, so go early). The waitresses are reasonably patient and polite, which by Hong Kong standards is A+ service.

We've also since discovered that we love The Chairman, which is literally 50 metres from the hotel. Other famous eateries within walking distance are Kau Kee beef brisket (also 50 metres away on Gough Street, read about it in the post on The Chairman), Mak's Noodle (Wellington Street), Lin Heung Tea House (right across the road from the hotel), Sang Kee Congee Shop (Burd Street), Sing Kee (Stanley Street for dai pai dong dining), and many many more.

Dai pai dong at Stanley Street

Stanley Street and Wellington Street are lined with eateries, even 24-hour cha chaan tengs, so there's an abundance of food all around. In fact, the hotel itself has a Michelin-starred restaurant called Celebrity Cuisine, so you don't even have to leave the hotel to fill hungry tummies!

The hotel itself is very inviting. Each room is furnished with traditional Chinese decor. The quilts and pillows are uber soft, very comfortable. We slept very well here. We asked for adjoining rooms so there was more space to move around.

Full range of toiletries provided, from the standard shampoo and conditioner, to razor, toothbrush, even facial cotton.

But what really tipped the scale in the hotel's favour for me were the extras:

1) Free wifi in rooms is quite the standard now but here, every room comes with a smartphone which you can use to make unlimited local and IDD calls to Singapore for FREE. It also works as a wifi hotspot so you carry that when you're out and you get free wifi on the go. How's that for service?

2) On the fourth floor of the hotel is the BreeZe lounge which turned out to be a real gem. It's an open, airy area with lots of seating.

The best part is free food for the taking! Snacks..

Apples...

Freshly brewed coffee (which wasn't very good, unfortunately) and a wide selection of teas...

And every evening, from 5-8pm, free wine!

We ended up here every day, sometimes twice a day. When we tar pao-ed desserts from various snack shops, we ate them here instead of in our rooms. In January, it's so pleasant to be able to sit in an open area and enjoy the 23-degree weather with snacks and drinks. Such a luxury 😎😎.

For these reasons, we're more than happy with our decision to stay here and I can safely say we'll continue to pick this place as our default hotel in Hong Kong, if we ever do return.