John L.
Yelp
The owners of this restaurant used to own Eat First restaurant in DC. Just like Eat First, the food here is Cantonese with Hong Kong Style dishes as its specialty. They have dim sum also. Eat First had an overall rating of 3 stars on Yelp before it was closed in 2019. This restaurant has the same rating. I don't think that's a good sign for their future. Cantonese food can be found at every Americanized Chinese restaurant. Dishes like fried rice, roast pork, spring rolls, lo mein, chow mein, and sweet & sour pork. Not my favorite choice of dishes. My wife and I wanted to get together with our friends at a place of their choice. My friends suggested this restaurant because they're Cantonese and prefer Cantonese restaurants.
We tried 4 dishes that are typically good at Cantonese restaurants. We got the Wonton Soup Hong Kong Style, Dumpling & Noodle Soup Hong Kong Style, Shrimp with Walnuts, and Kingdom Pork Chop. The Wonton Soup Hong Kong Style had 10 wontons in a mild chicken broth with chopped green onions. The wontons had a typical thick dough wrap. Disappointing because we prefer thin wrappers. The filling was ground pork, salt, sugar, and cornstarch. Nothing special here. The broth was too mild and not flavorful. Overall, a mild soup that is good when you need something that won't upset your stomach. 雲吞 is the Chinese character for wonton. It's pronounced "wonton" in Cantonese. So, you're speaking Cantonese when you order this soup:)
The Dumpling & Noodle Soup Hong Kong Style had the same broth as the wonton soup. It had rice vermicelli noodles, dumplings, and chopped green onions. The noodles were typical which means plain tasting. The dumplings had a thick dough wrap which was disappointing. The filling was ground pork, tiny bits of shrimp, salt, sugar, and cornstarch. A small improvement in taste over the wontons. This soup was similar in flavor to the wonton soup except for the plain rice noodles.
The Shrimp with Walnuts had battered shrimp, broccoli, and walnuts topped with sesame seeds. Usually, it's called Honey Walnut Shrimp. The walnuts were crunchy and coated with sugar syrup. The broccoli was blanched and bland tasting. The shrimp were not butterflied. That's laziness. The batter was a bit thick. It had a white cream sauce. It tasted like chicken broth with cornstarch and sugar. The mayonnaise and milk flavors were missing. It was slightly sweet and salty. It was okay, but we've had better elsewhere. Overall, this dish was decent but could be improved. The spiciness can be adjusted from none to very spicy. It came with white rice.
The Kingdom Pork Chop came with white rice. It was battered pieces of pork chop in a sweet oyster sauce. The pork chops were crispy, tender, and savory. This was by far the best dish!! Adding a little hoisin sauce to the dish would have made it perfect.
The dining room and restrooms were old and dated. They were relatively clean looking. The service was minimal. They take your order, serve your food, and never check on you unless you wave them over. Our dumpling soup was forgotten about until we asked. None of the servers spoke English well. They speak to each other in Cantonese. The service didn't bother me or my wife because we've been to plenty of these types of restaurants. The food gets an average rating of a little over 3 stars. This is a first visit, so I usually round up. We may come back to try their dim sum.