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| - I finally returned for another dose of Hakka at HUB....this time I decided to push the Hakka boundary "lets see what they can do" so I ordered the Chili Chicken lunch special.
As usual, I had my choice of spring roll or daily soup, I opted for the Sweet & Sour soup. Again
I found the soup mediocre at best, it was not bad but absolutely nothing stood out. Regardless, the Chilli Chicken was were I wanted to focus my attention as this is a Hakka mainstay and where all Hakka restaurants hang their hat.
So how was it?....hmm, I will start off by saying the food was fresh, no cartilage (again almost expected when eating Hakka), served with white rice, I asked for substitution even though it says no subs, was told they can make an exception since it was quiet but it would set me back another $3 dollars for noodle, little to rich for my taste (guess that's another way to discourage exceptions).
Got my plate and dug in, it looked great. Despite all the good, I was disappointed, not from the taste but from the obvious attempt to be overly safe, I found there was little to no heat, even though there were green chili's on the plate! There were no chilies on the table that I could add to the plate and as a result, it was bland and tasteless.
Overall, HUB is a great place to start your Hakka journey and go from there, I still stand by the 4 stars and would recommend HUB to those noobs looking to venture into good Hakka food, but, it looks like I will have to venture back to Scarborough if I want to get something a little more authentic. My only recommendation to the restaurant would be to ask what heat level customers would prefer, perhaps that would help to crank up the flavors wherever possible, oh a substitutions help too ;)
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