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• tallore soups

swung by there for lunch today, after an unfulfilled first visit a few weekends ago, when the bar table, which seats three, was full. at around 2.15 pm, there were two staff members in the store, but only one was serving; the other seemed busy with paperwork. it was quite a wait as there were two ladies before me with takeaway orders. it's no fault of the staff serving, of course, who was extremely friendly, but i do hope more staff are usually deployed during lunch hour. i opted for a soup+salad set, which cost hkd83. from memory, there were two, if not three, vegetarian soups. there was a choice of ten salads, of which seven were marked vegetarian. out of the veggie options, one was labelled "pesto and gorgonzola pasta salad" and another, "artichoke, spinach and mushroom salad", was sprinkled with some kind of powder. i assumed it was cheese, but didn't ask. you get to choose three salads to pack into the box. the pea+carrot soup was rich, thick and delicious. my experience with the salads was mixed though. the first (rocket/kale/corn with lemon dressing) was zingy and refreshing, although the corn hinted suspiciously of boxed sweet corn (again, i didn't ask and could well be mistaken). my other two choices (thai broccoli quinoa salad and thyme oven-roasted vegetable salad) were disappointingly blah. while the veggies were fresh and al dente, the thai salad was especially dry and bland, so much so that it felt as if no dressing had been added - a case of uneven tossing perhaps? i had to mix the quinoa/broccoli with the lemon dressing of the first salad in order for it to be a bit more palatable. i was the only dine-in customer at that time and still found it very noisy - what with blaring irish music coupled with a whirring blender a few feet away! if you'd like another option for salads, a few stores away is passion cafe at the corner of amoy street and johnston road. it's a meatery but has a range of tasty vegetarian salads. and if you'd like a 100% vegetarian soup+salad bar, fresca in central's the place to go.