SAKE RESTAURANT WITH NO SAKE! WHAT THE HECK!

Yes I know. This is a random ass question.

But it’s a random ass question that popped into my head when I took le father out to a new, nearby Japanese restaurant called Ichiban.

If you are wondering why we went to this restaurant, I can’t really tell you. Maybe we were getting too bored of the same restaurants.

Back on topic.

We sat down and of course first things first, we ordered sake / beer / any types of alcohol.

Instead of getting an acknowledgement from the waiter on our order, he simply stared at us blankly and said the most blasphemous words:

Sir we don’t have an alcohol license yet

The fuck, why advertise yourself as a sake restaurant when you don’t have a damn liquor license? Is this some stupid soft opening shit?

Man. You suck.

But whatever, that can’t stop us. We went out and bought our own damn beers.

But really, why do they not have their liquor license yet? Does it take that long?

Probably it does. Anything government related would be slow.

But that begs the second question:

Time to do some learning!

Per the Hong Kong Liquor License website, the fees going like this:

Restaurants (no bar on premise) -> 1990HKD for one year, 2990HKD for more than one year
Restaurants (bar on premise) -> 3940HKD for one year, 5910HKD for more than one year
Club (bar or no bar on premise) -> 1100HKD for one year, 1650HKD for more than one year

The hell? Price of alcohol license is higher in a restaurant than club? Thought the clubs would be more expensive…

Choi, enough of the alcohol, talk about the damn food already!

Alright, alright.

The Choi clan loves their sashimi. Especially Salmon Sashimi. These ones were nice and FAT, just how we like it. About 78 bucks for 10 pieces so not too bad for Hong Kong standards. Choi approves.
I got the teppanyaki chicken rice. Not bad, was a bit burnt though so yeah……
The skewers. Average to be honest. Nothing impressive.