Simplylife Bakery Café

Simplylife is my favorite place to dine for Western food in Hong Kong. Not only is it convenient since it was located right next to my university, but it is also delicious!
Lunch, afternoon tea, desserts, or dinner? I have tried it all! Expect long queues for dinner and lunch, so I suggest to either have a really early or late meal to bypass the lines.
My favorite time to go was for afternoon tea. It was the best deal because for about 100hkd you can get a meal and a nice cappuccino/​latte. They have pretty juicy burgers and sandwiches that filled my stomach. I’m not a big eater, so this was the perfect size meal for me.
Lunch and dinner are a bit pricier, as to be expected, but portions are huge so you’ll get full. I suggest the chicken breast and the pizza because its delicious!
The desserts are amazing! For my birthday, my friends ordered a cake and an array of pastries from here. Their desserts are all very light and not too sweet. I love how they combine an assortment of fruits and make it match on the desserts. I would recommend trying the tarts because they’re quite unique and delicious.

Simply life is simply crap
Overpriced, weak coffee, subpar food and incompetent management.

So my visits to HK usually lasts over a month, and while HK foods is delicious and fun, I do miss American food.
I really didn’t know what to expect when my aunt told me we were having tea time at simply life inside a mall. Egg tart? Milk tea?
When I got there, my party was already seated, so I just went inside. As I got near the table, I passed by a glass case full of delicious beautiful dessert (I’ll be back for this, I thought)
We set down, and I took a look at the menu…“BACON CHEESE BURGER? HELL YEAH!!!“
And that was exactly what I ordered, how American of me right? Yeah, yeah, I know.
I didn’t expect much though, I just wanted my cravings to go away.
IT WAS SO DELICIOUS.
I must say, the ingredients and quality is really up to par here, even though it’s located inside a mall.
My other family members got different things, but I was just busy with my burger. The patty was not dry, the cheese was prefectly melted cheddar, and I think the bacon might have been applewood? I don’t know, but it was thick cut.
And it came with fries and the drink of the day (orange black iced tea).
I don’t know much about the price, I didn’t pay. But I would definitely come back!

Great food, though expect long queues for dinner.

Fun fact: when I met up with a friend and told her that we could go to Simply Life, she thought it was a furniture store.
I don’t blame her though, it really does sound like a modern lifestyle store! But that aside, Simply Life is actually a café that serves western food. It’s got a couple of branches including at Festival Walk, Queensway and Tai Koo Shing — in my experience, it’s the one at Festival Walk that’s always the most crowded. I have had both lunch and afternoon tea here a few times, and what I love is that they have a lot of choices to choose from. They have anything from a hearty English breakfast to a mushroom beef burger to pasta in cream sauce! The lunch and afternoon tea set menus are very similar, so needless to say the afternoon tea sets are incredibly filling.
All sets at Simply Life come with their daily iced tea, which is usually summery stuff like peach tea or passionfruit tea. I find their teas refreshing, but for example, I don’t find the peach tea very peachy nor the passionfruit tea very, well, passionfruit-​y. The set menus don’t change very often, and one of my favorite mains here is the spring chicken. It’s very tender and nicely flavored with herbs, and not too salty. The burgers here are pretty good too — if I’m here for tea and it’s on the menu, I’ll usually get it. They have different kinds and they all come with a side order of either regular or spicy fries. Once, I ordered the regular fries but was given the spicy instead. I didn’t want to return it so I just had it, and it wasn’t very spicy — but that may be because I swept most of the powdered seasoning off. My mother adores the big breakfast here — it’s got a little bit of bacon, eggs, toast and the like and everything tastes very fresh.
Every time I walk into Simply Life, I pass by all the pastries and the cakes and they look simply delightful. They’ve got tons of danishes and tarts, and I’ve been meaning to try one for a while now!
Simply Life loses a star for its ²⁴⁄₇ ridiculously long queue. My mother likens it to a line for an amusement park ride. There’s no avoiding the queue, but come by on weekdays — and early too, if you’re here for lunch — and there will be less of a wait!