Wineshark HK Restaurant Review - Wong Ming Kee 黃明記粥粉麵

This noodle eatery is located in Kowloon City, famous for its homemade squid ball and pork ball. After seeing the TV programme introducing how the owner works tirelessly on this restaurant we came tonight to try it out.

The restaurant is the typical traditional noodle eatery, not exactly a well-kept place looking at the floor and how everything is managed. While we are not exactly using the standards for a high-end restaurant to compare, it was still a bit disappointing on that aspect.

We ordered the signature Pork and Squid Ball Noodle ($34). The taste is fairly good, with the soup rich and there are also some minced pork added, but it is a bit too oily. Both types of meat balls are decent, with nice texture and flavors, but I could probably name a few places I think offers better squid and meat balls to be honest.

We also tried the Squid Tentacles ($49), recommended by the staff. The tentacles are very crunchy indeed, having a good bite without any rubbery texture. There are plenty of bean sprout added too. For me this one is worth to try out more than the iconic squid balls.

The Blanched Vegetable is fair, with the veggie quite young and tender, cooked perfectly so that it retains the crunchy texture without getting too soft. But somehow the chef forgot to follow our request to not adding the oil to the dish, and we did not bother to ask for a replacement. It was a bit of a let-down however.

We also ordered the Deep-Fried Fish Ball with Marinated Clams ($70). The presentation is very good, with the fish ball golden brown in colour, freshly made and steaming hot. Unfortunately it took a long while to come, and only did after we followed up, apparently the kitchen had missed our order. A bit over-seasoned, it is salty enough without dipping the clam sauce. And again they are too oily also.

The service was decent, with the staff offering recommendations and proactively helping us to move to a booth seat when one became available. The bill was $177 which was very reasonable too. There are quite a number of things to improve, but those are relatively minor and should be easily addressed. I hope they would pay more attention and bring the restaurant to an even higher quality level.