[Restaurant Review] 5 Hype Restaurants in Hong Kong
One of my main goals in Hong Kong was to try as many well-known restaurants as possible in a short span of 4 days. Here are my ultimate thoughts on 5 different restaurants.
1. Cheung Hing Kee Pan Fried Buns (Michelin Star)
If there was one place that I would like to remember Hong Kong by, it would be this glorious restaurant. There's something so enticing about squeezing out hot meat juice from giant buns, then popping the entire bun into your mouth. I devoured a good 9 of these addicting buns and left satisfied as shit. Cheung Hing Kee is one of the most deserving Michelin restaurants that I have tried.
I tried all three flavors: Pork, Shrimp, and Pork with Truffle. I would definitely recommend the original pork bun. For a fancier flair, try out the truffle pork bun. I thought the shrimp lacked the flavor and fat that the pork provided.
Overall: 4.5/5
Food: 5/5
Service: 4/5 (service here is minimal, but the workers were friendly)
2. Tim Ho Wan Dim Sum (Michelin Star)
Of course, we had to hit up the world famous Tim Ho Wan for dim sum. To our lack of knowledge, we were unaware of the many locations of Tim Ho Wan and ended up at a small chain in Hong Kong Station. It wasn't the best location to test the flavors, I'm sure, but we still had a good time. The food was as good as dim sum could get.
We asked the server for the most popular dishes and ended up ordering the Baked Buns with BBQ Pork, Turnip Cakes, Beancurd Skin Roll with Shrimp, Prawn Dumplings, and Rice with Chicken, Sausage, and Mushroom. My favorite dish was the Turnip Cake and Rice with Chicken, etc.
I left quite satisfied with the meal, but not mind blown as I would have hoped. The one thing I wish were better was the tea, which tasted kind of like tap water. At the end the lady told us to leave because we were sitting for too long XD.
Overall: 4/5
Food: 4/5
Service: 3.5/5
3. Mammi Pancake Egg Waffle (Michelin Star)
Mammi Pancake definitely deserves that Michelin Star. Not expecting much from a waffle, I was quite surprised by the taste. We went to the location near Ladies Market which was a great pit stop after exhaustively reducing the prices of our fake Falljraven bags. The waffle was so satisfyingly warm and the dough was pillowy, which served as a good contrast to the cold ice cream. The flavored sodas were great too; they reminded me of ades in Korea (my favorite).
Overall: 4/5
Food: 5/5
Service: 3/5
4. Kau Kee Beef Brisket Noodle
Sadly, the first thing I remember about this place is how rude the staff was to us. The moment we walked in, a friend asked a lady for English menus. She dismissed us immediately (and quite condescendingly) by pointing at the other server as if to say, "go bother him instead". The other guy sucked as well. Every time we would even begin to ask a question he would turn around and start talking to another staff member or give out orders. After a stressful ~15 minutes, we got to ask what the difference was between the beef brisket and the SPECIAL beef brisket (even though we had way more questions). He replies with, "well one is special and one is not!"
Needless to say, I was baffled. We finally got our food and although the beef was flavorful, it was not the most tender beef that I had ever had.
The cult item here is the curry noodle with tendon but I resorted to the oyster sauce noodles because I'm not the greatest fan of tendon. I enjoyed the dish overall, but the oyster sauce was a little too overpowering and the overall experience was just shitty lol.
Overall: 2.5/5
Food: 3.5/5
Service: 1/5
5. Yum Cha Dim Sum
I visited Yum Cha mainly because of the beautiful photos by @Taramilktea of their ADORABLE character buns. We tried the BBQ piggy, hot custard molten, and peanut papa buns, as well as spicy 1,000 years duck egg and porcini and black truffle dumplings. Although everything was presented beautifully, the dishes were quite expensive and were very standard in flavor.
I wouldn't come here for normal dim sum, since I'm sure there are better-tasting and more affordable places, but if you are a sucker for cute-themed foods, you should definitely give it a try!
Overall: 3/5
Food: 3/5
Service: 3/5
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