Hong Fa Restaurant

Hong Fa Restaurant

462 Prince Street, Sydney

     This month UAG spent an evening at Hong Fa Restaurant - February is such a tough month what with the cost of all of our monthly bills going up and up, we decided to have a cheaper outing. This decision attracted our largest number of members yet!  There were ten of us for dinner on Friday night. And how was our cheap night?  Were we disappointed in our decision to go downtown instead of uptown?
      Not at all! Although none of us spent more than twenty dollars, and that's with dessert and a tip, we each had a wonderful meal. The atmosphere was relaxing, the service was not terrible, and the food, well, the food was delicious. The servings were so generous that several of us had a lovely lunch the following day.

Here are the two appetizers that were ordered:

Fried Wontons

Hong Fa makes the best deep fried wontons - there is just no argument on this.  And look at the gravy boat of cherry sauce!
Yes, those are paper place mats and yes, the gravy boat does not match the dishes, but that's okay.  In fact, that theme of Not Matching carried through the entire evening and we loved it.

It was extremely difficult to eat just one of these.

Wonton Egg Drop Soup

This is the Wonton Egg Drop Mixed Soup and despite that awful title, I'm told it was delicious.

The wontons were not doughy, the egg drops were "classic", and the soup was hot.

Overall, this bowl of soup received rave reviews.

I might even try this one on my next visit.


And now, let's look at some of the meals that the UAG members ordered:

Singapore Noodles

Most of us ordered numbered dishes, but two people ordered specific dishes that they had had at Hong Fa before and enjoyed.

This is the Singapore Noodles, ordered with instructions to be "light on the oil." Well, we all loved the look of this dish and are going to also try this on our next visit.

Just look at it!

Cantonese Chow Mein

This is the other "un-numbered" dish that was ordered, and again, just look at those vegetables.

You can see that this member ordered the chow mein along with two egg rolls and that was enough for a supper and a lunch the next day.

Let's talk about the egg rolls - they are crispy, dark, and very tasty. Actually, I think their egg rolls are getting better all the time.



Here are photos of the Numbered Dishes - some of the members made substitutions, so your meal may not look exactly like these
photos.  But the staff were wonderful about all of our various orders and did manage to keep them straight.  Who knew so many people would rather ribs than chicken balls? As well, do you know that you can order pineapple sauce instead of sweet and sour sauce? One member did exactly that and said it was delicious.

No. 7

This is my meal and my heavens, but it was lovely. You are looking at an egg roll, chicken fried rice, sweet and sour chicken balls and soo gai.

I love soo gai - I had forgotten how much I love it until that first bite when I realized that I should always, always order a Number 7.

Guess what I had for lunch today?  Yup, leftovers.

No. 8

This is a Number 8 and you will recognize some of the same food items.  But you will also see crispy fried chicken wings and beef and broccoli.

And yes, the people who ordered the chicken wings said that they were cooked just right.

Isn't that an amazing item to put on a plate of chinese food? Ooh, you can dunk the wings in the sweet and sour sauce...


Let's just stop for a minute and talk about the broccoli.  What you say?  Yes, unbelievably, every person who had broccoli on their plate stopped mid-mouthful to tell us all just how good it was. You wouldn't think broccoli could be that good, but it was.  It was tasty and well cooked; in fact, one of the members at the table professes to be a "broccoli connoisseur" and he said it was "supberb." High praise indeed!

No. 12 without Chicken Balls

Several people ordered the Daily Special, which was a No. 12.  But instead of the chicken balls, most ordered extra ribs.

Frankly, I didn't understand, as I really enjoyed my serving of chicken balls. The coating wasn't too thick and the chicken pieces were large and white meat.

But those who ordered the ribs really enjoyed their meals, even without the chicken balls.


As you can also see, all of us also had chicken fried rice with our meals.  The rice wasn't salty at all and you didn't have to add soya sauce.  Hong Fa's fried rice also does not have leeks in it, which was welcomed by one of the members.  Me, I love leeks but I didn't even notice they were missing!

There were only two desserts left by the time we were ready to order:

Red Velvet Cheesecake

The person who ordered this said it was very good.  You can see that she starts from the bottom up and saves the cheesecake for last.

Now, we all know that at these prices that the Hong Fa chef probably did not make either of the desserts from scratch.

And that's okay.

Chocolate Mousse

And here's my dessert!

Yes, I realize that none of the dishes match and that this little treat probably arrived at the restaurant in a frozen container, but do you know what?  It was great.

And what about the tea service?

Well, as you can see it is a basic service, but there was no spillage and the teapot held a good three cups of tea. The tea was hot - it was not excellent, but we weren't expecting more so we weren't disappointed.

One of the members ordered coffee and she said much the same thing.  It took a lot of milk to get it to the point of being drinkable, but she was given lots of milk, so it worked out.






We all ended our meal by opening our fortune cookies and reading them out loud with the phrase "in bed" added to the end.  My heavens, but it was hilarious! It really does give a person hope that something quite special is waiting in the offing. In bed.

Hong Fa has been open for about fifteen years and it has always been a busy spot, whether you are stopping in for take-out or sitting down for a meal.  And we know why! There aren't too many restaurants (see our blog) where you can get a good meal at a good price and leave with a good helping of leftovers. We really enjoyed our evening out, welcoming a new friend and a friend whom we hadn't seen in awhile and wishing one friend all the best as she heads out to the Oil Patch.

Here's hoping all of their fortunes come true. In bed.