Hong Kong Flower Lounge:

I arrived in California on November 23rd. It’s been over a month a now. Doesn’t feel like it. This is a meal I had on November 24th with my Dad and my sister Katie.

My Dad and I picked up Katie at her apartment in San Mateo to bring her home for Thanksgiving. San Mateo has been a major letdown as far as food goes. My Dad understood our predicament so he made a call to his business friend, Munson Fong, who lives in the area. Munson pointed us in the direction of Hong Kong Flower Lounge in Millbrae. Walking into Hong Kong Flower Lounge you pass fish tanks filled with massive fish, crabs, lobsters, snails, etc.  The dining room is a big, fancy, Chinese restaurant filled with families spinning the circle of dishes around their tables.

The menu was comprised of items like $94 shark fin soup and other weird seafood items I had no interest in trying. We played it extremely safe and ordered crab cheese puffs, wonton soup, house special pan fried noodle, and kung pao chicken.

The crab cheese puff  or crab rangoon, as it is also known, probably doesn’t count as real Chinese food. I understand why most restaurants treat it’s preparation similar to a Totino’s pizza roll, but at Hong Kong Flower Lounge they treat it right. Normally you get a thick tortilla like casing deep fried and you taste little besides the shell and cream cheese. This one had a thin crispy shell that gave way to cream cheese and real crab inside. I never knew the potential of this dish until I tasted it with real crab. What a treat. You must try to find a carefully handcrafted crab cheese puff and eat it.

The wonton soup was another star at Hong Kong Flower Lounge. It had the most flavorful broth that I almost could have done without the wontons. Not really though, the wontons had a hint of nutty flavor that I have come to appreciate in good wonton soup.

Our other two dishes were not remarkable. I can’t say they were particularly good or bad. The restaurant as a whole was not remarkable either. There is much better Chinese food to be had in San Francisco and for less money. You can tell when special attention is paid to preparing Chinese food because there are so many more flavors in each bite. I have to give Hong Kong Flower Lounge credit for this with some of our dishes. This usually costs a little bit more  but it’s worth it.  As far as a meal centered around picking up Katie goes it was success. We all got to try out a new place, the food was great/decent, I didn’t feel like vomiting from gross Chinese food, and Katie was happy.