Taste of Hong Kong Revisited

Recently, “FOY” Kenneth contacted me regarding a recommendation for a sit down Cantonese style dinner. Of course, our “usual” immediately came to mind. But that got me wondering how some of other Cantonese style restaurants along Convoy were doing. And then, having returned from one of our road trips with JJ, was wanting some Chinese food. Yes, can’t you hear it? It’s Opportunity knocking.

We thought we’d check out Taste of Hong Kong since we hadn’t visited in quite a while. Since our last visit, the owners of ToHK had taken over China Max, though I don’t think for the better. And I understand the chef has left as well…so I thought it would be “interesting”.

Now this parking lot, like many along the Convoy corridor can be a total mess during busy hours…and lets not get into the lack of street parking. On this day, the lot was empty. Leave it to our dining during an “off hour”.

As always, the folks working here were “all business”. One thing I quickly noticed is that the prices seemed lower than that of our last visit to Noble Chef. Oh, and one more condition for the visit. The Missus told me I couldn’t order my favorite dish from here; the Salted Egg Yolk Chicken Wings, sigh…..

They were hanging up some roast duck when we were seated, so of course we needed to get some.

We started with the Marinated Pork Intestines ($19.99). Which looked good when it arrived.

The sauce had a nice balance of soy-sweet-sour. As for the intestines; well, it was super chewy….like s-u-p-e-r chewy. In the end, it was better to give those dentures a break, swallow it, and hope for the best.

Of course we had to order a Salt Fish dish for the Missus. She went with the Salted Fish, Chicken, and Eggplant ($21.99). Now the last time had this dish, it was lacking in salted fish, not this time though.

Decent amount of salted fish, very savory, but not overly salty. The eggplant was cooked perfectly, molten and buttery in texture. Good amount of chicken as well. I think this is the Missus’s current local version of the dish.

Instead of going with some salt and pepper pork chops or chicken wings; we went with the HK Style Fried Prawns with Chili and Garlic ($26.99).

Nice and crunchy, the you could make out the sweetness of the shrimp, even with the salty-peppery garlic seasoning. The shrimp was a bit tougher then I prefer, but I enjoyed the flavors.

And of course we had a half Roast Duck ($23), last time we ate at Noble Chef it was $28 for a half roast duck, so we were interested to see how this would turn out. Well, it turned out to be pretty positive.

While not as strong in the five spice department, the skin was light and crisp; the fat had been wonderfully rendered, and the meat tender. As an added bonus; all that fat and juice from the duck……guess who was making duck fried rice with that? The size of the duck was on the larger side as well. Decent savory-salty-sweet balance as well.

So, it looks like we’ll need to return to get those Salted Egg Yolk Chicken Wings, right? And try out some other dishes. But before that; I think we’ll need to give Eastern Dynasty a revisit. Sometimes, it’s good to get out of your routine and try some different items. I need to thank “FOY” Kenneth for doing that for us!

Taste of Hong Kong
4428 Convoy St.
San Diego, CA 92111
Current Hours:
Sun – Thurs 11am – 230pm, 430pm – 9pm
Fri – Sat 11am – 230pm, 430pm – 930pm