HK Cafe is a Cantonese style Dim Sum restaurant. Dim Sum means dessert in Cantonese and Dim Sum includes a huge variety of different small plate dishes and are served with tea most of the time. HK Cafe is not different and it is exactly what Cantonese Dim Sum is. The Chinese name of this restaurant is actually called "Red Cafe". I am not quite sure why the English name is chosen to be HK Cafe. The restaurant also opens quite early during the day at 9:30AM to let customer to enjoy morning Dim Sum. This restaurant is located at the new China town location by 82nd Street at Southeast Portland, which is actually quite far from what I live. It actually took 45 minutes to drive to the restaurant.
When we got to the restaurant, it was about 1PM. We were shocked by the number of people waiting in line for their table. When we got our wait list number, there were 50 numbers ahead of us! This was crazy! Since we drove for nearly an hour to come here to try this restaurant, we decided to wait. We went to the Dollar Tree next door to buy some essential items first and went back to the restaurant to wait for the call of our number. When we went back to the restaurant, we were surprised on how fast the wait list is moving. This was probably because many people just left when they saw a huge wait list. About 5 minutes later, our number was called. So the total wait time was only about 20 minutes, which is not bad.
We were led to our table and the server brought us a pot of tea and glasses with water. We were surprised that the server did not ask what tea we would like to have. I am guessing that they only server 1 type of tea? I usually prefer to have Jasmine tea, but it is not a big deal. When the Dim Sum karts came by, we quickly ordered the usual iconic dishes including Chicken Sticky Rice, Siu Mai, Shrimp Dumpling, Egg Tart, and Pineapple Bun.
The Chicken Sticky Rice came with 2 pieces per dish. The sticky rice is wrapped in lotus leaf and steamed. I must say this dish at HK Cafe really kept up to the par and is really good. The sticky rice was soft and the meat inside the sticky was juicy. When I opened up the lotus leaf that wrapped around the sticky rice, I could smell a faint lotus leaf smell. The only thing that I did not like is that there is egg and small shrimp in sticky rice. I am not a big fan of having egg and small shrimp inside sticky rice. This is only my personal preference however, other people probably prefer this more.
The next dish is Shrimp Dumpling. This dish is a must order dish whenever you go to a Dim Sum restaurant. It is a dumpling with shrimp as its filling. The filling only has shrimp and nothing else. The dumpling wrap is clear enough that you can see the filling inside the dumpling. HK Cafe's Shrimp Dumpling is just amazing. I put the whole shrimp dumpling in my mouth to finish it in one bite. I could taste the sweetness of the shrimp and the shrimp was not dry at all!
Then here comes Siu Mai. Just like Shrimp Dumpling, this is also a must order dish at a Dim Sum restaurant. The Siu Mai dish at HK Cafe does not have an appealing look. I did not think it would taste good. I was wrong when I had a bite at it. This Siu Mai was as amazing as the shrimp dumpling. The Siu Mai was so juicy and also has sweetness in it. HK Cafe has not disappoint so far!
Now here comes the dessert dish. The first dessert dish we got is Egg Tart. This is one of the iconic dessert dish at a Dim Sum place. It has egg being baked at the center of the tart with crispy crust on the side. This dish was very well done at HK Cafe. When we got the egg tart, it was still warm! It is the best to have the egg tart while it is still warm!
The last dish we got is Pineapple Bun. Now, this bun is not made out of pineapple even though it is called Pineapple Bun. It is called Pineapple Bun because the top of the bun looks like pineapple texture. This was the best Dim Sum dish at HK Cafe to me. This Pineapple Bun has custard filling inside the bun! When we got the Pineapple Bun, it was still warm! The top of the bun was crispy and warm. When I had a bite, the warm custard filling was dripping out. This was an amazing experience! This is a must try dish at HK Cafe and I could see that every table has ordered this dish!
Overall, HK Cafe is an amazing Cantonese Dim Sum restaurant. I can only wish that it is closer to where I live!
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