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Food:
Considering this is Vancouver, and not Richmond, which is the centre of all HK style restaurants, the food was acceptable.
Service:
It took about 15 minutes to get the bill and for it to be processed. I realize that HK style restaurants typically do not have the best service, but this was below average.
Value:
The portions were a bit small, but lunch time meals include a drink and averages out to be around $8. Decent value in Vancouver.
Ambiance:
This place needs a good scrubbing!
I will be back only if I am in the area and cannot find a better option.
I ordered from here recently because I was feeling lazy. I wasn't feeling super creative and ordered beef broccoli, a chow mein, mixed veg and got a free fried dish thrown in for free; I assume because my order exceeded some amount.
The order took longer than expected to deliver, about an hour. But overall the food was pretty good. The portions were fairly large and the food was decent for delivery however I would have liked to see the dishes a little hotter. I assume the food cooled down a little with the extended delivery time.
If I am craving Chinese delivery, I would order from them again.
Order 2 dishes for $29.00 and receive a comp chicken or duck dish and a bowl of house soup. Had the brisket with daikon and the string beans with beef. The comp chicken was absolutely A-1 good enough to bring me back. Brisket was tender with lots of daikon. However the string beans while looking and tasting good had the fibrous string running the length of the bean making them very hard to chew. Every time you had a bean you needed to use your fingers and pick the string out. Very annoying. Service was disjointed. Soup came after the main dishes. Utensils came after the food was on the table. No bowls to drink the soup with. I hope this was just an off day as I do plan a return trip.
The title sums it up. The food was below average, which is unfortunate seeing how this is Vancouver, which means there are hundreds of other Chinese restaurants that I'd go to over this one. The food was mediocre, tad overpriced, disappointing overall. It really makes one wonder if those people who gave this restaurant five-stars had Chinese food more than once in their lives.
Lots of self back-patting advertisement for this restaurant. Went there a couple of times. Service was ok, but lacked class, but then the restaurant is like any other middle-of-the-road Chinese restaurant in Kingsway, the decor is old and gaudy and the place crowded and noisy. Having said that, the food is very well cooked, with panache, and the presentation and taste is like that from a higher class cuisine. Their much touted dungeness crab cooked with duck egg yolk is not a unique recipe by any means, just that there are very few places which do it for some reason. However that was well cooked and the crab was fresh also. Parking is atrocious. Place needs a face-lift, if only to make its ambience match the food.
I came here with family last week for chinese "late-night snack". I guess you can call this chinese tapas. You order a bunch of small dishes and you get a huge pot of plain congee with your meal.
The food that we ordered were delicious. The dishes are well-priced and the there was quite a bit of variety. The green beans Malaysian style as well as the green beans with black bean sauce were very good. I really enjoyed their deep-fried 'stringy' bun with condensed milk.
Eventhough there were only a few occupied tables, we received very good service. We were hungry and ordered a few dishes to start, then some more people joined us afterwards. they cleared our table and reset it like we just sat down.
I don't know about dinner time, but I would definitely return for late night snacking.
We just ate there tonight. The place is usually super busy on the weekends. You probably need to wait for a long time if you don't have reservation. We ordered the seafood combo for 10 people. Out of my expectation, they put a lot of seafood in the dishes. The crab and lobster dish was big too. I have to agree with Derkatz's comment that their crab with egg yolk is not an unique dish. Just that not many restaurants do it this way. Nonetheless they still do it well.
The restaurant was busy but the waitress still managed to change our plates and add hot tea for us though we were rushed at the end when the last course was served. However, the waitress did apologize and told us that they were really busy tonight. Dessert (red bean soup... what else can it be?) wasn't hot. The restaurant really need a face lift. Sticky floor and crowded tables aren't a pleasant place to eat.
Good food at a great price and extremely fast service, even at busy lunch time on Sunday. We came to this restaurant not knowing what to expect, and left satisfied. Great place to grab a quick, affordable and tasty meal.
Our first time at Ken's won't be our last. We've heard about Ken's before as being one of the cleanest restaurants in Vancouver so we decided to try it. The decor was old and it really needs a make over but it was clean. The fish tank didn't look cloudy and mossy, the tables were spotless and the tiny plate/platter which held the condiments at our table weren't grimy. The washrooms were very clean as well.
We ordered 6 dishes. We had the beef and lettuce fried rice, the spicy ginger beef, grilled orange chicken, deep fried spicy squid, malaysian style green beens, and beef & broccoli crispy chow mein. The dishes all came warm and well seasoned. They were not terribly salty. The green beans were cooked, had great flavour and were still nice and crisp. The grilled orange chicken became my parent's favourite as it was not deep fried and slathered in sauce. The skin was still crisp and the meat itself was seasoned and did not rely mainly on the orange sauce drizzled on top. The ginger beef was nice and tender and not too hard like what happens to battered strips of beef when over cooked, not was it gummy was well. The chow mein was also good. The fried rice was seasoned well and not greasy. the spicy squid was very good too. The inly thing was that I didn;t find it spicy enough.
The service was great. The waitress always came to our table with a smile and she refilled our teas and got us waters, cleared the empty dishes and actually came back to ask if everything was alright when we had all or food delivered to our table.
Bottom line we were impressed by everything and are looking forward to dining at Ken's again and trying out their other menu items.
Food: ordered from the combo menu. had 3 dishes for $35 which includes rice, soup, 1/2 free range chicken, and dessert. we had the seafood w/ tofu, porkchop w/ orange sauce, and gailan w/ beef. gailan was ok...some pcs tasted a little bitter. i liked the porkchop dish... most of the pcs were not that fatty. not that much seafood in the tofu dish...was like the sauce for fookien fried rice ontop of tofu and broccoli. soup had better ingredients than most restaurants. the dessert was the lotus seed sweet soup which is way better than the usual red bean soup. all in all, we were satisfied w/ the food.
Service: we thought it took a bit longer than expected for food to come out since it wasnt that busy, but when the food came, everything did come at once. it was a wed nite afterall so maybe the kitchen wasnt fully staffed. i dont know if he was the owner/mgr, but he came by frequently to pour tea, ask us if we had enough to eat, introduced each dish that came, scooped our soup for us... much better service than most chinese restaurants.
Ambiance: cafe type setting. it's tidy and simple. somewhere to go for a casual meal.
Overall: i would go back to try some other items on menu. they have cafe food which i would like to give a try.
This place is one of the best kept secrets for Chinese food in Vancouver. Good food value and very tasty dishes. If you go there in a group, there are combo dinners that can't be beat. One thing I've found is that the food is more consistent during the evening shift after 6pm. The three or four times I've gone during the day, I found it to be hit and miss. Once I had to send something back and learned that the day chef was in training. The experienced chefs seem to be on the evening shifts.
The menu is almost too huge and has a section with an odd variety of things I think are designed for western palates. Most of the more authentic Chinese dishes are very good and I usually order (and recommend) the following: wonton soup, hot & sour soup, beef chow fun, sweet & sour pork, gai-lan, spicy dry squid, seafood chow-mein, beef & broccoli chow-mein, clams in black bean sauce. I've found these dishes to be consistently good. Oh yes, the dry spicy crab is delicious, even though Ken's is famous for his golden crab special.
Decor is casual and basic, no frills and that's fine with me. The staff is friendly and business-like; they do their best during busy times running around with steaming plates of delicious food. Great food that I could eat daily and best bang for your buck for casual Chinese dining.
I've been to Ken's for about 2 years now and it's consistently good. Their malaysian style items aren't too bad. My favorite is their late night tapas (dah lang) with congee, served after 9pm. Over the two years, a couple of times, the food wasn't at their best, perhaps it was the chef's night off. All in all it's always good, very good value too.
then this place does the job. Richmond is known for their countless HK style cuisine and when I crave for a chinese food I usually have to go to Richmond to get it. I discovered Ken's months ago thanks to a friend and I must say it does an adequate job especially since it's right in my back yard. Is it the best HK style restaurant that I've been to? the answer is no but it comes to a close 4th. The staff are usually friendly and the blue tooth ear piece wearing owner seems to always be in a good mood. The prices are great as you can usually get a decent sized dish and a drink for under 8 dollars. This place won't win any awards but will always be a part of my rotation of places to go when i need something quick
Been here many times (10+) and more often for take out/ delivery.
Food is almost always good/ great. I'm usually happy with the service so I'm surprised to see some negative comments here. It's one of the friendlier HK/ Chinese restaurants I've been too and I don't speak Chinese. Ambiance is OK - more like a place to eat rather than a place to spend the evening.
I'll be back both for eat-in and take out.
A frequenter of this HK cafe place for sometime. Decided to get my pork chop fix for lunch a couple days ago.
Food: rated one of the best baked pork chop, probably the other one is cafe glocester. Just right portions with 4 pieces of savory pork chops, tomato sauce on a bed of baked fried rice with cheezy on top. Describing it makes me want to have another one now! Their milk tea used to be bland but these days are really tasty and would recommend it.
Value: Value is very good here anytime but the best is to be had during 2:30 to 5:30 their happy hour time where my meal and a milk tea was under $6.
Verdict: My visits will be very frequent to this joint. 9.5 out of 10
Hello there,
This is my post mother's day dinner for my mom since work schedule difficulties got in the way. My sis suggested this Hong Kong style cafe...hell...why not...if I remember correctly..this restaurant use to be a Korean BBQ place and its right across from Dai Tung Chinese Restaurant. Good thing we made reservation cause it was packed.
We ended up setting for the combo menu (which was at the back of the main menu). The order was 4 dishes of our choice and included soup, half of a free range chicken, rice, and dessert. The choices were beef , onion and ginger hot pot, sweet and sour pork chops, assorted vegetables with tofu and chili/garlic/spicy salt squid. The bad news?? Somewhat minor...free range chicken was pretty good but I'm not too sure if the skin had food colouring added on as a eye enhancer....don't remember chicken skin was so yellowish. Also, the pork chops...the sour overpowered the sweet..the balance was a bit off in the sauce. The good news..the portions were very descent, the squid dish was awesome and my mom gave it a thumbs up for returning the next time...maybe father's day????
The food is great, ranging from HK western style afternoon tea to late night Da Lang style food. You might find a HK cafe in Richmond to rival its price, but certainly not the quality. Cold and hot drinks are the same price in the combos !!
One of the fewer places with its own parking lot on Kingsway.
Still, the place is busy during weekend and dinner, so reservation is recommended.
Great chinese food. I've been here a few times, and would definitely go again. They used to give out fortune cookies, but I think they stopped. It's in a sketchy area, so make sure you're not there alone. My girlfriend dreads going because of the area. But, she does dig the food. I love the drinks, though. Definitely try the Red bean drink with ice cream. That is my favorite.
-Kenny
I'm not sure what it is with this place, but every time I go or order take out / delivery, the food quality ranges from solid to poor to downright inedible.
First off, service is typical HK cafe style, bare minimum. Not really expecting much else, but they do tend to be a lot more curt, even rude, if you don't speak Chinese to them.
Food ranges from good to very poor. I think it depends on the chefs they have that day, because I've ordered the same noodle dish three times in the span of a week and a half and gotten three very different versions. The first one tasted great, spicy with nice bits of beef on it. The second one had barely any meat in it and was not spicy at all, and the portion was a lot smaller than the previous time. The third time they skimped on the meat even more and the noodles tasted extremely stale. I had to throw out most of it because of this. I've also had similar experiences with their pork chop (cooked to a hard crisp once) and their fried rice (1/3 of the rice was clumped up with no flavoring mixed into it).
Food is at best mediocre, and service is bare minimum, it's still probably one of the better Chinese restaurants in the area, but that's not saying much.
My friends and I unfortunately tried this place for dinner tonight. We had a VERY nasty waitress. When a friend was placing his order and asked "pardon?", the waitress, much to our surprise, yelled at him -- "Do YOU WANT (insert number and food name here)?!?!" while violently stabbing the menu with her index finger. This was for the first order too so the rest of us carefully placed our orders as if we were dealing with the Soup Nazi.
One of my friends got spaghetti instead of the rice that he asked for. But that's not all for bad service.
Two of my friends ordered set combo's that came with buns. The waitress wasn't done being a (nasty comment here) yet. She didn't want to single out my friend and of course, being in the holiday spirit, decided to share some vitriol with me as well. When she came by to deliver two petite, plain buns, she pointed at who they were for, then pointed at me and scornfully said "you, NO!!!". Calm down, lady, I'm not gonna fight over some cheap, tiny buns. And any decent restaurant would have gave everyone else a bun, out of good will, since they're so cheap.
She left a bad vibe for the rest of the evening.
We all agreed the food was very average. Nothing unedible but nothing good by any standard. We definitely won't be coming back after the experience with the nasty waitress. At the end of our meal, the waitress had the audacity to pretentiously ask simply, "GOOD?". We left a 10% tip which, in hindsight, was too generous.
If I wanted average chinese food, I'd go to Honolulu Cafe instead. At least the servers there are patient and friendly.
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