Ho Hung Kee    何洪記  

3-1-2013 (Thur)

I went to 何洪記 for dinner with my colleague, Maggie. It was pretty crowded when we came and luckily service was pretty quick for us. although the wonton was filled with shrimp, it didn't quite capture the fresh taste I was hoping for. The shrimp was pretty bland; but, the noddle was quite good, had a create texture, and it was not soggy. unreasonable prices for the small proportions of food --- nearly twice the cost, half the size, and taste was below average.

Maybe I am overrrating but I love this place everytime I come here since it is 老字號 of woton noodle in HK.

A very authentic GuangDong restaurant - from the ambiance to the taste of the food!

Ordered deep-fried won-ton and 'Geng To' spicy pork atop noodles.

The won-ton were all perfectly cooked - golden brown. And not greasy. They had a powerful shrimp-like taste to balance out the land-meat taste (almost like a mix between har gaw and siu mai). And they were small - one bite 'poppers'. The dipping sauce seemed a bit sweat and sticky/thick (ie more like VH or some store-bought sauce --> not an authentic in-house made sauce ) and that was a pity because it would not be disadvantageous for this restaurant to go that little bit further to have a really good dipping sauce to compliment the really good won-ton. As it was, the sauce detracted from the taste of the won-ton.

The Spicy pork dish was actually quite nice. The competing tastes of spiciness and sweetness actually did justice -- as long as the meat and sauces were well mixed with the noodles and veggies. The veggies (yu-choi?) were very well cooked and even the stalk (normally made too tough by some restaurants) was palatable and had a light buttery flavor. The dish was accompanied with soup which was too salty for me.

The Chinese menu was far more extensive than the 'visitor' menu (the one with Chinese, Japanese and English), but without the pictures. I ordered from the Chinese menu.

I wanted wonton noodle soup, so my friend works around here and said she likes this place. It’s a typical wonton noodle soup place, small, fast and brisk service.
The food:
- Cha siu wonton noodle soup: I got this, the soup broth was pretty decent, not too salty and reasonably flavorful. I liked the wontons they were plump and fresh with decent filling. The cha siu was decent, but not amazing. Overall, good but I’ve had better in HK
- Beef chow fun: this was very good, I almost never order this dish b/c I’m not a huge fan of it. But, this was very good here. It had that good work flavor, wasn’t overly oily, the beef was very tender. Hit it with some chili sauce and you’re good to go

Overall, it was good, I’ve had better in HK, but it was definitely still good.

Even though this shop and 'Jeng Dau' are both operated by the same Ho's family, I have a feeling this shop has not changed for the past 'god knows how many' years because the son wanted to keep it as per the dad's food in that epoch.

The wontons here are very average, compared to both Jeng Dau and Chee Kei. The prawns are a bit not too crunchy, obviously due to lack of adherence to temperature control during the wrapping stage.

The soup base in the wonton noodle is not bad, but not as sophisticated as the one in Jeng Dau.

The 'Sui Gwau's' here have too much bamboo shoot taste, to the point it was disgusting. The Happy Valley Jeng Dau meanwhile serves the best and freshest Sui Gwaus in Hong Kong.

The so-called, highly recommended Stir Fried Dry Beef noodle is mediocre at best. Beef slightly marinated and soft, but noodles had no taste of the wok. Only good thing about is, they used top quality bean shoots and soy sauce and pork lard. But not very tasty at all to be honest.

Jeng Dau in Happy Valley is much better than here - although the other Jeng Dau's in IFC and TST are nowhere near as good as the one in Happy Valley for some reason.

Ho Hung Kee meanwhile should stay in the past - never going there again. Chee Kei is a much better choice relatively speaking, the wontons and noodles over there are better, although the soup base in Chee Kei is not as sophisticated as Jeng Dau, but still better than Ho Hung Kee.