Golden Oscar Cafe – Pork Chop that deserves an award

Before someone busts my chops over what an ugly photo this is of Golden Oscar HK Cafe (map) exterior, I’ll have you know that this is a pretty darn accurate representation. It IS ugly on the outside. Even the glue from their old banner logo wasn’t cleaned off properly, and you can clearly tell the artistic direction they were taking with the sign: Bigger.
The same could be said of their baked pork chop.
It’s absolutely epic. This is the 2001 Space Odyssey of pork chops. Slathered with tomato sauce and melted cheese, two sumo sized slabs of breaded pork chop sits on top of a plate of fried rice. Though tender and full flavored, finishing all of it in one sitting is a challenge.

The chicken steak is trembling in its uptown square plate:

The place wouldn’t be called Oscar if it didn’t have some sort of Hollywood theme of course. Well, the walls are lined with classic movie posters and star portraits. Since Braveheart is the newest film I saw on the wall, I don’t think anything’s been updated for over a decade.

I had my first baked PC ever from Oscar Cafe waaay back, and its really set the bar high since. Mel agrees.

TeaHut – Cozy HK Cafe

Alexandra road probably has the highest number of HK Cafes per block in all of Vancouver. One really has to try hard to find them all. One place that probably fails to catch people’s eyes is Tea Hut cafe, located on the second floor beside the somewhat famous Zen restaurant.

The interior is small but with windows all along its west wall, there is plenty of ambient light lasting late into the night (perfect for taking pictures of the food). They seem to be run by a family staff of two, but provide a full featured menu rivaling its neighbors. Prices are on the low side, with combos that include soup and drink at less than $8. I had the steak combo, pictured below, which has pieces from just about every mammal alive. Actually its pork chop, sirloin steak, chicken steak, a strip of bacon, and a grilled hot dog wiener served au jus.  

After the meal we got a card for 10% off the next meal. Though that only translates to less than a dollar saved with their prices, its a nice gesture that many forgo.

Food: 6.8/10

Ambience: 8/10 rarely do you find a HK Cafe that’s quiet and brightly lit. I could totally imagine this place playing some parisian Accordion music….if it didn’t have a LCD screen on the wall playing Chinese movies.

map

Curry King – Have they got any Curry?

Though I love cheesy post titles, “food fit for a king” would be too much of an exaggeration for this casual HK Cafe. That is not to say that the food at Curry King (map) isn’t up to par. Its been on my mind to write about Curry King since thecafsux days.

Unlike other cafes that relinquish no info about their specialties in their names and opt for something stylish and chic, Curry King touts their competitive advantage proudly: Curry. More specifically the milder southeast Asian kind.

The interior is small, and we had doubts whether our with our party of ten would fit, as usually there is a line up at the entrance. Luckily a large booth and table in the corner was open. Funny thing is, they both had ‘reserved’ signs placed on them, but the waitress seated us in them anyway. I felt a little embarrassed that we are taking someone’s reservation, though after admitting to the waitress that we didn’t have a reservation, she simply replied that it didn’t matter. Which leads me to believe that the ‘reserved’ signs in HK Cafes are just placed on the tables so servers can turn away small parties of two in favor of larger groups when needed.

Their lunch menu is massive, and includes everything you might see at other HK Cafes, plus enough curry dishes to make up another menu altogether.

Trying to have the least nutrition possible, I ordered the BBQ pork fried instant noodles in XO sauce. Atkins is rolling in his grave.

It’d be blasphemy to not order their curry of course, and so we ordered the Thai red curry with BBQ duck. A strong combination of flavors that leaves you wanting more.

Having had a few of their other curry items on previous visits, including their yellow curry that stains the tablecloth with a neon yellow tinge not unlike a highlighter pen, I have to say, their curry can be considered King….in Burnaby anyway. They also have a second location on Cambie, which some feel is better than the Kingsway location. Having never been there I couldn’t comment.

Food: 7.5/10

Number of TVs playing the Justice Bao soap opera (pure 90’s Chinese TV gold) on the wall: 2

Silver Tower Cafe in Richmond – A poor imitator

We pay plenty of vists to HK Cafes. Sometimes too often. But we’ve only begun to scratch the surface in covering the numerous HK Cafes around Vancouver.

Today I paid a visit to Richmond’s Silver Tower Cafe on Alexandra road. A suspiciously familiar looking logo caught my eye upon entering the parking lot.

Hm… where have I seen that before? Oh yes,

I didn’t find any innovation from the food either. Their menu has all the usual HK Cafe items at a very reasonable price, and lets you mix and match to create your own combo plate.

Pick any 2 entree items for $8.50, or 3 items for $9.55, and that includes a hot/cold drink and soup.

We ordered the chicken steak and roasted duck leg, which was slightly dry and satisfactory at best as far as chicken steak goes, and the Thai style cod and eggplant.

From a pricing standpoint, Silver Tower is very competitive with its neighbor across the street, Kam Do (one of my favs, and to be reviewed soon), but falls short on food quality. I’d really only revisit S&T if its the only place on Alexandra road that had parking stalls.

I know we at ESR don’t usually write reviews of restaurants we don’t like, but hopefully we are doing the public a service by warning everyone of bad restaurants too.

Food: 4/10
Value:6/10 there’s really better food to be had for the same price
Redeeming feature: If you get to sit at a booth, its fairly private with the high seat backs and feels like you’re in a cubicle farm.

Like this, but in black

Interestingly, while googling for a logo of T&T supermarket, I came across this bit of news. T&T supermarket is/was apparently under investigation for human rights violation for forcing its foreign hired workers into working overtime by means of contract trickery and unnecessary retention of passports.

I really hope they get the punishment they deserve from court if this turns out to be true, because I don’t know if I can boycott Vancouver’s largest Asian grocer.

i café – My favorite HK Cafe

We’ve blogged several Hong Kong cafés in the past, but this one is my favorite.

Located at the intersection of Heather and West Broadway, i café doesn’t have much neighborhood competition. Burnaby and Richmond are saturated with HK Cafes, but they’re rare in central Vancouver. No worries. Even if there were other HK Cafés in the area, I’d still go to i café for my informal Chinese food cravings.

Step inside and you’ll be pleasantly surprised. I café’s interior is modern, clean, and bright: rare for a Chinese restaurant. I like how sunlight comes through the many windows and bounces off the shiny white acrylic tables. Steve Jobs would either be nodding in approval or searching for a copyright infringement lawyer. Either way, it’s nice.

Of course, i café wouldn’t be my favorite HK Café if the food wasn’t great. And it is.

I usually order one of the daily lunch specials.
Today, I got the minute steak with black pepper sauce, served on your choice of pasta or rice. Nice presentation, yummy taste, filling, and relatively affordable at $9.50. The meals come with a bowl of soup, fresh bread, and a drink (+$1 for a cold drink). Not bad.

Can you believe the above picture even qualifies as “Chinese food”?!
Whatever. Highly recommended.