Hong Kong Dim Sum — Restaurant in Melbourne

Hong Hong Kong Dim Sum, Glen Waverley Review update 12/2/2025

Instead of settling for mundane cereal or oat porridge for breakfast, I decided to surprise my wife with an extraordinary, once-a-year morning feast.

This eatery is more of a café than a restaurant. It serves Dim Sum Yum Cha until late afternoon and Cantonese meals for dinner.

I believed the Dim Sum business had changed hands, and I hoped the standard would be maintained, if not elevated. Unfortunately, the quality of a number of varieties we savoured was disappointing.

The most important component of Zha Liang (炸两), or fried dough stick wrapped in a rice noodle sheet, is the sheet itself; it has to be very thin, a feat only a skilled chef can achieve. The item is steamed and then served with a liberal amount of oil and soy sauce. It was disappointing that the quality did not live up to expectations.

For a good steamed bun, success depends on the texture of the white dough — soft and often fluffy. The Lao Sa Bao (流沙包), or Custard Bun, served to us was far from that.

The Fung Zhao (鳳爪), or Soy Chicken Feet, requires meticulous deep frying the marinated feet until the skin attains tantalising"puffiness" and then steaming them until soft. Again, this was not done properly.

Other items were only passable, but not superb. Overall, this was not a satisfying experience. I drop the ranking from 4 stars to 3. Review Update 25/1/2024

It has been a while we have come to enjoy Dim Sum breakfast here.

The Chinese Donut in Rice Roll needs improvement, as it is not smooth enough.

The Bean Sheet Prawn Roll and Sui GAO are filled with prawns, are good to pass my taste test. What a life! if you are used to the typical Hong Kong / Southeast Asians lifestyle like many, who enjoy having Dim Sums for breakfast or early brunch, this is the place.

The quality is comparable, if not better than many Dim Sums restaurants in Melbourne and those far flunk countries. It has a good variety of Dim Sums and Cantonese porridge.

Unlike many Chinese eating places, this relatively small premise is not noisy.

Glen Waverley has high Mainland Chinese population, and the Cantonese style Dim Sums may not suit their palate. However, I can honestly recommend this cafe / restaurant to people, either come on their own or with some buddies, wanting to "waste" their morning away, eating Dim Sums over cups of hot Chinese tea, and in the meantime catching up with the morning news.

For dine-in customers, the Dim Sums are served hot. There is a bank of fridges storing various baus / buns, dumplings, for those who buy them as take away.

The cafe / restaurant is leased to another business operator who sells normal dinner dishes instead...

Update: Back again but this time to try their Lamb/Goat Stew which is apparently a staple dish in Hong Kong during their winter season.

The stew tasted very similar to the Vietnamese lamb/goat stew but the latter have it with rice/ noodles whilst in Hong Kong, they commonly have it with congee and Chinese donuts.

The stewed meat was tender and the stew itself was packed with bean curd skin and water chestnuts. It also comes with a plate of spinach and fermented bean curd dipping sauce. Overall, a tasty combo.

Also ordered steamed oysters with XO Sauce and also with a Ginger Scallion topping. They were both very good and had generous toppings.

Previous Visit: Agree with everyone- at lunch time, the service is very abrupt and they do come across very rude.

Do not think that they care too much about their ratings as it appears that they have a loyal following and are always full and very busy with in house dining and heaps of take aways for their frozen products.

In the evenings however, we’ve always experienced much better service and with a smile but not before saying “cash only” as they hand you the menu and before you even sit down.

Ordered Combination Crispy Fried Noodles and Seafood Rice Noodles with Egg Gravy. Ordered this many times before and each time was delicious. Today it lacked the “wok char” notes but still had the same gravies and the usual quality toppings.

Self serve water and cutlery. Take away container - 50 cents - although on a couple of occasions, they did not charge. Basic, no...

I gave 2 stars to food since it at least not raw!

I’ve never had such a disappointing dining experience in my life. The last time I felt this speechless was… I honestly can’t even remember.

I ordered the Satay Beef Vermicelli Pot, and when it arrived, it already looked unappetizing. I gave it a try, and it had absolutely no flavor—just bland and lifeless. The beef? It tasted overwhelmingly of baking soda. In disbelief, I stirred it up, thinking maybe the flavor was hiding somewhere, but nope. Still tasteless.

Trying to salvage the meal, I asked for some salt so I could season it myself. I started eating again but suddenly spat out something weird—a long threadlike strand (as shown in the photo). At this point, I was completely horrified.

I called the staff (maybe the owner?) over again, calmly showing her the issue. Her first reaction? “Oh, this is part of the vermicelli.” Me, confused: “??? Are you saying this is edible?” She, unfazed: “No, it’s the thread used to tie the vermicelli together.” At this point, I was visibly annoyed: “So, are you saying this is okay to serve in the dish?” Her: “Uh, no, that’s not what I meant…” I just stared at her, waiting. She finally said: “I’ll cancel the dish for you.”

I left feeling completely let down—not just by the food but by the attitude. If even the staff treats something like this as normal, it’s hard to believe there’s any quality control happening here.

Never...