Hong Kong Street Food, Rhodes

Hong Kong Street Food is a Hong Kong themed eatery in Rhodes Central shopping centre. The food and atmosphere is straight from Hong Kong from the seating that looks like an MTR station to neon signs featuring popular Hong Kong brands to the classic Hong Kong style snacks and photo worthy "Bear" drinks!

Full disclosure Dear Reader, I first across the bear drinks when I attended a first birthday party at Rhodes Central. It was my first time visiting the 1 year old shopping centre and I was so besotted by the "bear" drinks that I dragged Mr NQN back to try some more of the food at Hong Kong Street Food one afternoon.

Hong Kong Street Food looks straight from Hong Kong; there are a number of HK themed restaurants that have opened up in Sydney over the past few years and this is one of them. First there's the neon green lights, signs that are plucked straight from brand shops and no nonsense but nice waitstaff in white coats serving a cheap and cheerful menu detailing Hong Kong's unique cuisine that melds Chinese (specifically Cantonese) and Western food, a result of Hong Kong's history under British rule. Think corned beef and egg sandwiches, Horlicks and creamy seafood soups.

The menu is laid out in a few sections that require a bit of study and since we are visiting in the late afternoon there's also an afternoon tea menu available. You can get a free cup of Hong Kong milk tea or for $2 a soft drink or $3.50 one of the fancier bear drinks. All of the bear drinks are $7.50 each so it's a good way to try them. The White ice bear bathing is a milky ice bear, a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a can of Sprite so basically an ice cream float with a cute bear on top. My favourite is the Ice Bear Green tea or matcha latte with the perfect level of sweetness and creaminess. I did try the bear lemon tea and the milk tea at the birthday party and I found them both a bit too sweet whereas the bitterness of the matcha is offset by the sweetness.

The food and drink arrives quickly and the most popular item are the curry fish balls. They come 8 to a serve with skewers to pick them up which is a lot easier than picking up these slippery morsels with chopsticks. They're delicious and springy textured and the curry sauce adds so much flavour to them. Mr NQN wolfs these down.

Another favourite dish is the steamed rice rolls that are all rolled up into thin layers and then sliced into bite sized pieces with soy sauce stewed beef brisket and radish. The beef reminds me of the Taiwanese noodle soup with a slight sweetness to it and is wonderfully soft and tender.

There is also a daily meal set that runs all day and features their most popular dishes paired with a drink. One of these is the 4 treasure cart noodle which are egg noodles in a light broth with curried fish balls, beef tripe, salt and pepper pork chops and garlic chicken wings on the side. It's a substantial dish and I particularly love the salt and pepper boneless pork chops with the generous serve of noodles. The curry fish balls are sitting in the soup so you don't get the stronger curry flavour that you do when you order them by themselves where they sit in a curry sauce.

Last but not least is the Leak Milk Hua. It arrives at the table, eye-catching with its wobbly centre but it's a must order. The centre of the French toast contains milk and they sprinkle Ovaltine or Milo powder on top. Once the French toast is made they press a spoon down on the centre and pour in some milk and then cover it with Ovaltine powder. When you cut the toast the milk spills out onto the plate and "Leaks" hence the name!

The menu is so big that it necessitates another visit and this time I am having lunch with Monica. We order some drinks, some more curry fish balls and two of their mains. The first dish is from their tornado omurice section where there are half a dozen or so choices to accompany the tornado omurice. We go with their most popular with black pepper chicken steak which is a boneless, flattened chicken steak dredged in seasoned flour and then fried. It comes on a bed of black pepper sauce which is strong and delicious. The crispy, juicy chicken slices go well with the thin omelette and rice with plenty of that delectable black pepper sauce to spare.

The other item is a two parter which is half a baked yellow rice with pork chops in a tomato based sauce which has a sweetness like from a ketchup style of sauce. The other half is a creamy roux based corn sauce with cod fillets. I particularly like the tender pork chops and tomato sauce but it's nice to try two contrasting dishes so you know what to order the next time.

So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever tried Hong Kong style food? Do you like themed restaurants like this?

This meal was independently paid for.

Hong Kong Street Food

Rhodes Central, Shop 204/14 Walker St, Rhodes NSW 2138

Open 7 days 11am-9pm

Phone: 0433 836 628