Chef Hung Taiwanese Beef Noodle

Restaurant: Chef Hung Taiwanese Beef Noodle

Cuisine: Taiwanese/Noodle Shop

Last visited: January 30, 2010
Area: Richmond, BC

Unit 2800-4151 Hazelbridge Way (In Aberdeen Mall)
Range: $10-20

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 2

Service: 3

Ambiance: 3

Overall: 2

Additional comments:

• Specializes in Taiwanese beef noodle and soup bowls
• Taiwanese/Chinese (China) chefs/cooks
• Fresh, made upon order
• Homemade, everything made from scratch
• Handmade noodles, dough etc.
• Prepared in small batches
• Large selection of drinks (bubble tea, brewed tea etc.)
• Selection of desserts (shaved ice, Frappe Bliss)
• Large selection of tradition Taiwanese snacks
• Very long line ups at peak hours
• Open/display kitchen
• Lots of seating, quick service
• Popular to locals/Chinese
• Lunch and dinner
• Offers snacks and bubble tea
• Private room available
• Open 7 days

**Recommendation: Noodle topped with ground pork sauce, Pan fried ground pork cake

Chef Hung is getting slammed left, right and centre.

Yes, it’s a bit overpriced, but they do give you a lot of meat. Yes, it’s not worth the long line up, but it might be worth checking out if there is no line-up and if you’re still curious. Yes, it’s overrated, but do I regret trying it? No, because I still had to see what the hype was about; and when there’s a 30+ min. line-up for over a month now…they must be doing something good right?!…errr maybe not…nonetheless I tried everything I wanted to try to make sure I wouldn’t have to line-up again to give it another chance.

For me it was a cross of Taiwanese and Shanghainese food, and in this case I could get better of each cuisine elsewhere. The broth just wasn’t as flavourful or rich to match the authenticity of Taiwanese or Shanghai cuisine. They’re charging a couple dollars more than Japanese Ramen Noodle places and a lot more than Wonton Noodle places and the food is surprisingly bland. The portions are really deceiving because it’s a big bowl with not a lot of noodle, yet a significant amount of meat. The noodles are deceiving too because although they don’t give you much, but they really expand and fill you up fast. You have a choice of either flat noodle, thin noodle or vermicelli and most people seem to be getting the flat noodle.

I do appreciate how everything is homemade and fresh, but the flavour just wasn’t there. It is a relatively quick eat – after all the line-up doesn’t die down during dinner. They’re not rude about it and there’s a lot of staff so the food comes fast and they don't hesitate to ask when you need your bill.

On the table:

Champion beef shank with noodle in soup 2.5/6

• Champion beef shank with noodle in soup $10.95 – Flat noodle
• For $10.95 I should be getting either a big portion, or really amazing noodles and soup. I got neither. This is their hot ticket item and it was only ok. That’s kind of embarrassing.
• If I only order this I’d be really disappointed because this itself isn’t worth the wait. The bowl is big, but not the portion too.
• The broth was very basic and light and almost watered down in taste. It wasn’t very flavourful and the beef taste wasn’t as potent as it looks for sure.
• The noodles were great though. They’re cooked in small batches just until al dente. This is a tricky word – al dente is actually more “undercooked” than one may think. So these noodles come across as undercooked but they’re not. They’re chewy, hand made and it absorbed the flavour (as little as it had to offer) of the soup well.
• They do give you a lot of meat though. The beef shank is quite tender, could be tenderer, and the fat is almost interwoven in layers.
• They also have 2 slices of seared beef which is individually hand seared with a torch. This part was good as well.

**Noodle topped with ground pork sauce 3/5

• Noodle topped with ground pork sauce $6.95 – Flat noodle
• Beef is their specialty, yet this pork noodle bowl was better! I still like it better at other authentic Taiwanese places though – like Lao Shan Dong in Burnaby, or even Zephyr in the Sky in Richmond.
• This noodle bowl is only supposed to come with a little soup, just enough to wet the noodles and then some. The soup again is a bit bland although it looks rich. It’s sweeter, saltier, thicker and richer than the soup in the beef bowls.
• They give you a lot of ground pork which is quite tender and lean. It’s actually quite chunky and not minced like other authentic Taiwanese places would serve it. It’s pretty good though, very marinated, but not saucy and it could have been saucier. I think there were bits of tofu in it, but it wasn’t apparent.
• I do like the al dente chewy and slightly hard noodles. Although I think the thin noodle would have matched the dish better since the meat was ground.

Marinated Beef Crispy Pancake 2/6

• Marinated beef wrapped in crispy pancake $5.95
• This dish is much better at Shanghainese restaurants.
• It was a homemade crispy pancake/crepe rolled with marinated beef slices, green onions, cucumbers, and Hoisin sauce.
• It looks better than it tastes. The pancake part was good and crispy and there was lots of filling, but the dominant taste was raw green onions.
• I could barely taste the meat, and it was very crunchy but there was too much onion and they needed more cucumber. It was slightly spicy from the onion overload.
• Overall it was a bit dry although not oily, but I needed more Hoisin sauce for sweetness and more flavour in general.

Fried Chives Pancake 1.5/6

• Fried chives pancake (2 pcs) $3.95
• This was stuffed with vermicelli, chives, and scrambled eggs.
• The pancake was a very thin crepe and not crispy but soft. It was quite floury and left a powdery layer on my lips.
• The filling was a bit oily and bland with a slight white pepper taste. If anything else it tasted like sautéed onions, with just the natural flavour of the onions and nothing else.

**Pan-Fried Ground Pork Cake 4/6

• Pan fried ground pork cake (2 pcs) $3.50
• I think this is the best thing I ordered and it was worth it. If anything I would come back for these if there was no line-up and it was convenient.
• They dough is homemade and it’s very crispy and thin almost like dumpling skin but more doughy.
• It was the most savoury, but not necessarily flavourful and I wonder if it would be more flavourful than the beef cake. After all the pork noodles were more flavourful than the beef was.
• The pork was really juicy and when you cut into it the juice even leaks out. It reminded me of those Pan-fried Shanghai Pork Buns.
• They’re very crunchy too because they mix the pork with green beans.
• They’re made completely in house and you can watch them doing it. They’re very oily though, but I would order them again.

Pan Fried Sliced Radish Cake 1/6

• Pan-fried sliced radish cake (2 pcs) $3.50
• Ok, no. I like the sliced radish in pastry they serve for Shanghai dim sum better than this.
• I really like radish too, but this was just really bland and fishy tasting. It was fishy tasting because they put some dried shrimp in it as well as Chinese mushrooms although it was way too little and you couldn’t taste them.
• It was packed with filling and really juicy and crunchy, but the dominant flavour was just fishy.
• This was also very oily and I preferred the pork version hands down.
  

Dessert

Mango Shaved Ice 4/6

• $3.50
• This dessert is from Frappe Bliss - a franchise, so they just bought the machine that makes it.
• There is an actual store front for Frappe Bliss in the Aberdeen food court upstairs and it’s better there because you get more variety for toppings. Toppings here are limited and +$1 each.
• This dessert is still amazing and it’s a pretty decent bowl for the price.