Kau Kee Restaurant     九記牛腩  

THIS WOULD BE IT.

Kau Kee is generally known to be one of the best Chinese, local noodle shops in Hong Kong and has been widely reviewed. I am adding mine simply because this continues to be one of my favourite dining spots throughout all these years.

This is one of the restaurants I would recommend for any beef-eating visitor to Hong Kong and a quintessential Hong Kong noodle eating experience. What makes it special after all these years, is that it is one of the few such noodle "establishments" where there is only one.

Yes, you will 100% be sharing a table with others. If you come during lunch or dinner meal hours, you will 100% have to wait. If you have western hygiene standards, you will 100% be concerned with the hygiene. If you come to Kau Kee, expecting to arrive in culinary heaven on earth, you will 99% be disappointed.

However, if you were wanting to have a great bowl of Chinese beef brisket noodles, look no further, THIS IS IT.

There are plenty of beef brisket noodle shops in Hong Kong and yet Kau Kee's relatively small and simple bowl, still satisfies me everytime. Whilst many locals agree that the quality of the noodles has deterioriated slightly over the years, I have yet to have a better bowl of beef brisket noodles anywhere in Hong Kong, or anywhere else in the world!

My favourite is the beef brisket flat-white rice noodles, also known as "hor fun" in a clear beef broth. If you would like the same, suggest you get here before 4pm or else you are likely to be able to only choose from the other noodle options, which are also good.

Despite its great name and visitors pouring in everyday from all parts of Hong Kong, China and around the world, Kau Kee continues to operate as a neigbourhood restaurant for the locals. And when you have been as often and as for as many years as I have, you do get a smile from the rather terse lady who guards the doorway and takes your money on the way out. Otherwise, don't have any expectations about the service here either.

My friend introduced me here on a stormy Saturday evening. I decided to try the signature dish, Curry Beef Brisket noodles.I loved it. It was the unique combination of curry, beef brisket and noodles that was brilliant. However, the curry was a bit too strong, especially when you're finishing up. The beef brisket was tender but a bit too fatty for me. The noodles are just as you would expect from a noodle shop. My friend ordered a regular Beef Brisket noodles, which also looked appetising. I will give it a try next time.

Overall, it's definitely a place I'd visit again. The only complaints we had were the service provided and the small portions of each bowl.

This restaurant is located in one of the streets in Hong Kong full of restaurant surprises (On Lot 10, Pauls Kitchen, Kisses Cupcake etc). This restaurant has been famous for years about its beef brisket, if you haven’t tried it, I am not sure you are native HKese. So please don’t miss out to be a true HKese!

Cuisine: Chinese
Food rating: 5/10*
Service: 3/10
Ambiance: 3/10
Price: HK$33pax

* Food Rating: 6/10 is equivalent to 1 Michelin star, 8/10 to two Michelin stars, and 9/10 or 10/10 to three Michelin stars

咖喱牛筋腩伊麵 (5/10)
The curry aroma was strong and rich; the curry was thick and delicate, full of flavour. The beef brisket was fairly tender and the fat was crunchy, that is what a perfect beef brisket should be! The noodle was al dente! 33 bucks for a bowl of noodles with this kind of quality, you must be joking.

Give me a thumbs up if you like it!

No wait if you go on weekend at 4ish/5pm. Super awsome. should've saved the calories from Sing Heung Yuen to come across the street here. Or started at this place first. Lightning speed orders, soups are HOT, delicious taste, and pretty friendly guys who serve up hundreds of people a day. Love it- true HK classic. Have to try their home made hot sauce with a beer and beef brisket/tendons! You're in HK heaven!

bit pricey for such a local place, but beef briskets are expensive.

After waiting for 15min ,my father and I already get in the restaurant It was very crowded and the the hygiene condition is not good comparing to other famous restaurants. And the waiters were very rude as they thought that we customers should not order or asked them to give us service .Also the food is not very special It only reaches the normal level of good dishes

Easy to get in when you are by yourself but you are really crammed into a small table suitable for 4 at most. Think I was no. 6 on the table and there were two spare seats beside me.

Anyway, to the food. The veg cam first and it's just your typical boiled iceburg lettuce, not even a nice choi sum or gai lan, lavered in oyster sauce. They gave you the roots too which looked off and that was a bad sign to start.

Then came the beef with rice noodles. As soon as they put the dish down I thought 'wow, that soup has a lot of fatty bits in'. It wasn't very appealing in all honesty. Then when I bit into the beef, to be honest, even though everyone says it is tender, I thought it was chewy. It looked nice and as if it has been cooked for a long time but it was pretty tasteless; just cooked for a long time without much flavour to it.

The rice noodles were nice I guess and the soup average.

I wouldn't bother with this place. Maybe once it was good but it is nothing more than a name now and anyone giving this place a good rating clearly has no idea about food.

Heard about Kau Kee for a long time and decided to take a visiting friend here to try their famous beef brisket. Surprisingly there was no wait on a Saturday afternoon (around lunch time). We were whisked upstairs promptly and there were quite a number of tables and seats. We ordered the beef brisket with clear broth and curry soup to share.

Time 開飯時間: 6:40pm

What I ordered 吃什麼: Clear Broth Beef Brisket Flat Rice Noodle 上湯牛腩河粉

What I think 吃後感: Heard lots of good things about this restaurant over the years, but never got around to trying their famous beef brisket...until now. Like many famous restaurants selling ordinary dishes, the portion is considered small for the price. Fortunately, the beef brisket did not disappoint! It was so tender, juicy and full of wonderful flavor! I would totally have an encore if I wasn't trying to keep my weight down! Totally delicious!

We went there to have lunch today and was expected to be a nice and pleasant one, however it turned out to be a real bad experience with one of the 亞叔 waiter there. I think he was having a bad day and expressed his frustration to their customers (us)!!!! We ordered 2 bowls of noodles and repeated to him many times but still he mentioned we didnt order and showed really annoyed attitude toward us . We were so shocked with such kind of service we received. The noodles was good but with this service attitude, we definitely will not go back anymore. This is something I want to share with all. Thank you

I went in for lunch just after 3pm and surprisingly we didn't have to wait very long. I dined with 2 others and we were stuffed into a table with 4 other ppl. Normally that would be ok but the table was obviously meant for 4 at most 5 and not 7!!!! It was quite irritating trying to not poke the person next to me in the eye with my chopsticks. I ordered the famous beef brisket noodles and I got wat I expected. It was good but it just wasn't anything special. Not enough for me to even consider waiting in a lineup and definately not enough for me to sit in a cramped table that I was sitting in. My honest opinion, NOT WORTH THE WAIT!!!!! Restaurants like this I would generally not grade on service because of the type of atmosphere. I would only recommend this restaurant if it were not peak time and for a quick snack.

We have a high expectation as this is an award winning restaurant. But it was so disappointed as there were tons of MSG in it.

The seating was not comfortable as they squeezed 6 people in a small table.

The soup base is full of MSG and the beef are very chewy. It is not worth that price.

Never go back again for sure.

On this day I met up with my foodie friend M to try the famed beef brisket at Kau Kee. Service is very quick here so we didn’t really have to wait to be seated, we simply joined another table with random diners.

There are two sizes here, the standard where your beef comes in the same bowl as your noodle, or the large, where your beef comes in a plate, with a bowl of noodle on the side which is ordered separately. We opted for the standard size, but I had trouble deciding once again. What I really wanted was beef + tendon in their signature clear soup with wide-cut noodles, but the waiter wouldn’t budge and said I could have curry tendon only (as a dish too), so I followed M and ordered beef brisket with noodles in clear soup ($27), except she had hor-fun instead.

Our steamy bowls of noodles and beef came quickly, and I tasted the light-coloured broth first. It was definitely umami, but didn’t have a large amount of MSG that made me react with a pang of thirst like I normally would. [ps msg isn’t bad for you unless you’re allergic to it!] Anyway, we both loved our soup. Kau Kee’s thinly sliced beef brisket was really tender, and M clearly loved it. Perhaps I am used to a different cut – those squares of tender beef brisket are the way to go for me – so I thought it was only so-so. My wide-cut noodles were yum - al dente and not crazy-chewy like the regular thin wonton noodles, but so darn filling I couldn’t finish. M’s hor-fun was also really good. Soft and slippery but not over-cooked at all.

I do think this place deserves a recommendation, but I have yet to try many other supposedly ‘famous’ joints for beef brisket, such as Wah Jeh’s, or even the not-so famous, just to compare. If only they were more flexible, would’ve loved to try the beef tendons too. Ahwell…. Another time!

it was insanely hot outside-the sun was baking hot and eating at shing heung yuen will be a torturing experience. thats why we decided to opt that out and turned for kau kee which was right opposite to shing heung yuen and has always been my dad's cup of tea.

the queue for both was unexpectedly short-was it because of the baking overhead sun? i was surprised when we could just walk in without having to wait outside. we went upstairs and ordered three 'ho fun', one beef flank in broth and another in curry sauce, together with a plate of veggie and an iced milk tea which i heard was good.

the ho fun was a bit too slim (not 'wide' enough, if you get what i mean), but you will never go to kau kee just for the noodle base, right? so it was acceptable as long as the beef flank was good. and it was not disappointing for my dad ordered 'boon fay sau' which was not completely lean and chewy but with a slight touch of fat. although i still bit off the fat and ate just the meat, it was tender and well-soaked in broth. the flavour exploded in my mouth. it was a good bowl of beef flank indeed.

as for the curry it was equally good-the curry sauce was thick and not really insanely spicy. the 'gun' half-melted in my mouth and i didnt need to even chew-it just slide down along my throat. an excellent dish, although it made us all sweat like insane for it was hot, HOT, HOT.

and last for the iced milk tea-maybe i had expected too much for i heard its good. but i thought the base was not rich enough and it tasted a little diluted. it didnt go too well with the flank-cola would be a far better choice in this hot summer afternoon.

to conclude it was a good eating experience. although i could not finish the whole bowl of 'ho fun' and beef flank (still a little to oily for me) i would highly recommend this place to meatlovers who could shove down bowls of meat and rich broth one after another.

ps. who said kau kee's service was bad? the staffs were all as nice as hell. things are slowly improving i guess.

*Scratches Head*
The last time I visited was early 2009? - during then, I brought along my dad for testing dinner, after a few years of absence. Although the soup-base was great and herbally-brothy, on the top, sat a pile of annoying & off-putting floating fat bits, the noodles were mushy. But what made me highly frustrated was the nastily-tough and stringy Beef Briskets. It actually left my teeth gum felt 'sour' for at least 2-3 hours afterwards. I REALLY HATE THAT FEELING, IF YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I MEAN!! It was so tough, I can't remember having eaten worst quality meat in my life. Curious to test them again despite my hesitation, this time I also order the exact same dish for the sake of comparison!

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牛腩伊麵 -
1) The floating bits of fats have never left, has it? As it had been like for all these years. Very unappealing.
2) The Beef Brisket/Plate/Flank this time, consists of 2 types of cuts and were much softer than the last time but that doesn't mean its tender enough! In reality, it was still slightly stringy and borderline acceptable, even lacking beefy taste for some unknown reason. My latest experience at 華姐青湯腩 or just about every brisket specialty shop usually has better texture.
3) The Beef Broth this time was surprisingly disappointing. I have never remembered such a weak soup from here before, it was less intense than the above mentioned 華姐青湯腩 - not only that, but it was lacking the all important, signature spiced & medicinal herbal taste! Very disappointing.
4) On a positive note: my E-Fu noodles this time around was cooked perfectly, still retaining some elasticity and noodles taste! Droool... Luckily they ran out of Hor Fun... which is said to work best.

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CONCLUSION: The noodles and briskets became slightly better this time, but the soup went side-ways! In my honest opinion, a shop like 九記牛腩 can easily become recommended for 1 Star by the HK Michelin Guide - if it would only improve and take extra steps to ensure batch consistencies. (Not that it might want to.) As it is, I find it hard to comprehend showing to local friends, let alone recommending it to tourists. If they won't bother improving - then someone ought to open a shop that will and not embarrass the HK Food scene, as this shop is in every Guide book. Anyone want to participate!? :

Steps That Can be Taken:
1) Filter & skim out the floating fat bits, which is piss-easy if they even cared or have a colanderll!
2) Ensure the soup is always saturated with beefiness and retains that unique medicinal influence specialty, unlike the weak soup I received in this batch.
3) Ensure beef quality is consistently of the right bitey but acceptable texture - something I doubt they can ever achieve going by past experience.
4) Cook the noodles right each and everytime, such as this time around!.
5) Service here is rude, the mean faced waiter yells at everyone to go 'sit, sit and sit' numerous times like a regular stutterer, as if to prove he's superior to the customer by commanding you around. That's despite us paying for his effing wages.... He surely would have caught me staring back bluntly at him, for even trying that stupid patronising trick of his on me.
6) I think they lowered their soft-drinks prices.

Unfortunately for this 2nd recent trip, whilst the meat quality was better, it still left a lot to be desired. 華姐青湯腩 is a better alternative for now. A Low to Mid '3', as it truly deserves. At least its better than the '1' I had to give it last time!

Ask anybody who has the best beef brisket in HK and you will invariably be pointed to Kau Kee in Central. It is, by far the most famous beef noodle shop in the territory, and if you decide to venture out there, be prepared. For one, you will most likely be facing a long wait to sit at one of their stools, elbow to elbow with the other customers. Secondly, the staff are quite curt. Don't take your time making an order if you don't want them to glare at you impatiently. They know Kau Kee is famous, and they don't have to treat you nicely. You don't like it? There's a line of others who will take their crappy attitude. They aren't exactly "Brisket Nazis", but don't expect a smile either

Most importantly, the food... it certainly is good, but I've had better. On my last two visits, I found their broth to be quite salty and a bit greasy (actually that is on purpose. If you want your soup greaseless, you have to order it specifically that way. I am not kidding).

The range of choices on their menu is limited, and if you want beef tendon, the only way you can get it is with the Curry Brisket. But why would you order Curry Brisket which would only overpower any beef flavor in the dish? No, you came here specifically to taste their famous brisket noodles in soup... not a generic curry powder

Lastly, make sure you know their hours of operation. They close from 7:15 to 8:30 every evening and are closed all day on Sundays. I guess they don't need your business...

For my money, I prefer Kwan Kee in Tai Po (http://www.openrice.com/english/restaurant/sr2.htm?shopid=13125), by far a better brisket and better eating experience...