In 2012, I was fortunate enough to visit the world-renowned food capital of Hong Kong, a sprawling city where at restaurant after restaurant the Cantonese cuisine was exquisite and the table service was uniformly exceptional.
I still remember the well-dressed wait staff at the Hyatt Regency Sha Tin running at full sprint to my table to be of assistance the very moment I looked up from my food. To this day I hold that evening to be the gold standard of restaurant service I have ever experienced.
Hong Kong Cafe has been open in Madison since 1991 at the corner of Mills and Regent streets. The Leung family has made it a long-running staple for Cantonese food in Madison. This staying power is a feat in itself. I’d never visited until this week, but I hoped it would live up to its name.
Terry Leung points to some of the awards his family’s Chinese restaurant has won at Hong Kong Cafe in Madison. Leung and his family have owned Hong Kong Cafe since it opened in 1991, and they won their first award within the first year of business.
When I walked into the simple, pleasantly furnished establishment for the first time on a rainy Madison fall weeknight and perused the very extensive menu, one of the proprietors, Terry Leung, assured me that the food stayed true to its Hong Kong roots. We exchanged some cheery banter about Hong Kong as he entered my takeout order.
Ample portions, family style
I spent some time online before my visit scanning for vegetarian options, of which there are plenty, and studied the long menu again when I arrived. I settled on a sampler of four classic items to satisfy my hunger.
Like many Chinese restaurants, the portions are ample enough to be shareable and accommodate family-style dining, where everyone in a group can sample everything. In my case, flying solo meant the prospect of leftovers that would take the thinking out of dinner for two more nights. Typical of nearly all Cantonese cooking, dishes do not feature dairy, for those keeping score at home.
Clockwise from upper right corner are General Tao’s tofu, garlic eggplant, a vegetable egg roll, white rice, egg drop soup and vegetable Singapore mei fun at Hong Kong Cafe in Madison. Each dish can be made mild, medium or spicy.
Leung took my order: vegetable egg rolls ($3) for an appetizer, plus vegetable Singapore mei fun noodles ($20), garlic eggplant ($18), and General Tao tofu ($18) for the mains. The food was prepared quickly and was still piping hot when I dug in immediately following my short ride home. (Every now and again I enjoy takeout food using my own utensils at my own dining table.)
The egg roll was crispy and very tasty. It wasn’t at all greasy like far too many egg rolls I’ve had. The vegetable filling was fresh and flavorful, featuring finely chopped cabbage and carrots. This was a great start to my Hong Kong Cafe sampler.
Though the grease was pitch-perfect on the appetizer, the same could not be said for the garlic eggplant. This dish had potential, with a shiny black sauce featuring pleasant notes of garlic, sweetness and umami, but the whole thing was drowning in far too much oil (I drained some off). Yet cubes of blistered purple eggplant were quite pretty, combining a favorite color and vegetable into one stir-fried experience.
Garlic eggplant is a vegetarian dish with a sweet and savory sauce at Hong Kong Cafe.
The welcome crispiness of the egg roll also did not translate to the General Tao tofu. This Chinese American classic, at its best, features chicken or tofu that is crispy on the outside and warm and meaty on the inside. In this case the tofu lacked the crunch I would have liked, though the brown Canton sauce was sweet, sour and tangy.
The unquestioned star of the meal was the vegetable Singapore mei fun, made of whisper thin rice noodles wok-tossed with curry powder and veggies. The noodles were cooked just right, and the amount of fresh spice was balanced. It’s far too easy to overdo curry powder (this coming from an Indian American) or overcook mei fun, and thankfully Hong Kong Cafe did neither.
Vegetable Singapore mei fun is a rice noodle dish with a curry flavored sauce at Hong Kong Cafe.
As Leung and I discussed, this is the style of noodles one would encounter in Hong Kong and not Singapore itself, as the mei fun served here is actually a version of a Singapore recipe adopted by Hong Kongers — it’s a delectable derivative of a derivative. Do not miss your chance to taste the Singapore mei fun here with a choice of vegetables, meat or seafood. I was excited to have leftover mei fun in my fridge.
It’s rare and impressive to find any restaurants in this city that have operated through the ups and downs of the business for 32 years and counting. The Chinese scene is particularly competitive in any city, and Madison is no exception.
Vegetarians, vegans, pescatarians and meat-eaters alike should try Hong Kong Cafe’s comprehensive family style menu, matched in accessibility by extended hours and generous portions.