HK Lounge Bistro is the highly anticipated follow-up to Hong Kong Lounge II. For those reading who are unaware, the original Hong Kong Lounge II burned down in a fire, and the owners had been looking at opening up a new version when the pandemic hit, prolonging it even further. While the original Hong Kong Lounge is still open, it is now owned by different people, so while the names are confusing, the restaurants are definitely separate entities. Hong Kong Lounge Bistro is the finally re-opened version, with new menu items, and it’s also incredibly close to my house, so stopping in for a visit was pretty easy, as it’s something we did one night on our way home after trying some wine bars around town.
At lunch time, the menu is very dim sum forward with a great list of dishes, some your standard dim sum fare, but with the addition of new and unusual house dishes. There are also a few rice and noodle dishes on the lunch time menu for your enjoyment. In the evening, they switch to a dinner menu, which has a smaller dim sum selection, but also contains a more extensive main course selection, including things like Peking duck and kung pao chicken. At the time of writing, they do not have a wine list, but you can bring your own bottles of wine for a $20 corkage fee to enjoy with your meal.
Since I had heard so much about the dim sum, I knew we were going to need to order some of it, but we also decided to try out one of the entrees: Rib Cap Mongolian Beef with a side of fried rice. Dim sum wise, everything was absolutely stunning. I had one of the best pork buns of my life (and I get them almost everywhere), and it was even more flavorful than the ones I’ve tried to make at home. The scallion pancake was also fantastic, and it was a great vehicle to try out their homemade chili sauce, which I basically wanted to bathe in. We also ordered some crispy pot stickers which were top notch, and finally, the crab soup dumplings which were on special. They were a stellar example of what can be done with soup dumplings.
But, the fantastic food didn’t stop with just the dim sum, the entree we ordered was so delicious and moreish, and they made a great fried rice. They also go the extra mile to serve it for you in a small bowl which was so reminiscent of the restaurants I ate at in London’s Chinatown. Finally, I decided we needed to end the meal with the black sesame balls. I’m usually all about the fried sesame balls, and even though these were not fried, they may have been even better than the ones I’m used to. The food was so fantastic, I knew we were going to have to go back for lunch to be able to experience the full dim sum menu, but it turns out, they don’t do bookings for lunch on the weekends because they are just so busy. (As the wine bar down the street told us as we bought wine before dinner, which, by the way, is a great option if you need to pick some up yourself.)
They did, however, have bookings available for Memorial Day, so I thought it might be the best opportunity to get in for lunch without having to queue up and possibly be disappointed. As it turns out, they are so popular, it’s pretty difficult for them to even deal with getting their reservations seated on time on holidays, so I can only imagine weekends. We still had to wait close to 30 minutes for our table, but we did get to pass by many people who had been waiting there longer than us due to our forethought. So we quickly sat down and got them to open some of the wine we brought, and decided on some plates to order.
Obviously, I needed some of those amazing pork buns again, and the scallion pancakes felt like they were a must. Sadly, the pancake was a bit doughier at lunch, but the buns were still top notch. We decided on duck and chive dumplings and pork and shrimp siu mai. Both were brilliant, and it was one of the first times the pork and the shrimp were both extremely prominent flavors in that style of dumpling. We also went for the rolled noodles in XO sauce, which turned out to be very big, but incredibly tasty. They had salt and pepper soft shell crab on the menu, and it was some of the best soft shell crab I’ve eaten. Finally, I wanted to try the pork puffs, which I thought would be barbecue pork in puff pastry, but turned out to be deep fried pork in glutinous rice pastry. But it was so tasty I didn’t care if it wasn’t what I expected. I also wanted to finish with egg custard tarts, and they did not disappoint.
Both lunch and dinner were phenomenal, and the service is pretty top notch as well. I do have to say that while the lunch selection of dim sum has more options, the wait time was a bit of a turn off for the flavor of the food. Since some of the dim sum options are available for dinner, I’m certain that I’ll be back, but probably just for dinner, unless I have friends that really want to go. If you don’t mind waiting, however, lunch is also a treat. If you’ve been hesitant to go since they’ve reopened, don’t be because you are missing out on some high quality Chinese food.
Score: 5/5
Recommendation: Pork buns! Plus anything that allows you to eat copious amounts of that amazing house made chili sauce
HK Lounge Bistro
1136 Folsom Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
