I was driving past Hong Kong Kitchen & Dimsum a couple of weeks ago, when I noticed a new banner posted. Apparently, they now feature $5.99 Dim Sum during weekdays. Now, if you had mentioned $5.99 Dim Sum to me, say two years ago I would have laughed……but with prices these days…well, it’s now a relatively good price.
So, when the Missus was wanting some Chinese food recently; I talked Her into a revisit.
We arrived a bit after the 10am opening time and the place was quite empty….but it did fill up pretty quickly.
We were provided several menus, along with the dim sum laminated one, where you indicated what dishes you wanted. I quickly noticed that the dim sum item I thought was the best, the Scallop Dumplings were….I guess obviously not listed. We marked off the items we wanted to try.
We also got the Two Item Chinese BBQ ($24) as well.
And soon enough, items started arriving.
First off, the Jellyfish Salad.
This was nice and crunchy, rather refreshing, but was severely under-seasoned. After a few bites we ended up taking this home, chilling it well, than added black vinegar, chili crisp, and sesame oil which helped it a lot.
The Shrimp Cheong Fun was on the chewy side.
And the sauce seemed watered down. The shrimp was plump and tender though.
The Missus was looking forward to the chicken feet.
And you can tell by the color, right? While the texture, decently tender with crunchy cartlidgey parts, was fine, it was also quite bland.
Other than the now defunct Scallop Dumplings, the Pork and Shrimp Siu Mai were our favorite dim sum item we had on previous visits. And while it was on the chewier side, this was still the best dim sum item we had on this visit.
You could actually make out a light shrimp flavor, good porkiness as well. Pretty dense overall and the wrapper was a bit chewy, but the overall umami reigned supreme.
What was probably our least favorite item was the Shrimp Har Gow, which had also shrunk in size from we’d had before.
The wrapper was really thick and chewy and the flavor was on the fishy side as well.
We had made our way thru all the dim sum and even had to wait a bit longer for the two item barbeque plate. The woman working was very nice and apologetic, telling the Missus that we’d be getting the roast duck made “fresh”.
We tried the Char Siu first. Man, it was so hard, dry, and chewy….almost like jerky.
You can tell by the photo. It was also lacking in flavor, just a bit of sweetness, no five spice tones, weak savory flavor. Not good.
The woman working wasn’t lying when she said we’d enjoy the roast duck though. As the fat had been nicely rendered, the skin crisp, great flavors.
Nicely aromatic, decent anise and savory tones.
The meat was quite tender, full of that duck flavor. This was a nice surprise and as far as we’re concerned was worth the wait. We only regretted that we didn’t order a a half duck!
So, this was an interesting visit. The dim sum was, as a whole, meh…..but that roast duck was probably the best we’ve had in a while! So, we’ll probably return to have the regular menu and some duck. It’ll be interesting to see if having it just done fresh makes a difference if we come later in the day!
Hong Kong Kitchen & Dim Sum
5375 Kearny Villa Rd.
San Diego, CA 92123
Current Hours:
Daily 10am – 9pm