852 Hong Kong Cafe — Restaurant in Kaskitayo

Located near the South Edmonton Common area, this modern-style restaurant offers a HUGE menu with a variety of Chinese and global dishes. However, depending on when you visit they can be out of many menu items when you try to order. I have been here on two separate occasions, and in terms of service, I definitely think it could have been better. I found that they really liked to upsell random expensive dishes when you ask what tastes great or what is popular. Also, considering there are no pictures or detailed dish descriptors it would have been nice for them to tell you what is being dropped off at the table.

We ordered a plethora of items so I feel like I have a good sense of the menu and what they have to offer. I tried the Spring rolls, Sweet and Sour Pork, Spare Ribs with Garlic & Chilis, BBQ Pork, Special Fried Rice, Fried Rice with Black Truffle & Minced Beef, Curry Beef Brisket, Broccoli & Garlic, Crispy Prawn Balls, and BBQ/Peking Duck. One thing I love about this place is that the portions are huge, and are totally meant for sharing.

To highlight some of my absolute favourite dishes and dishes I totally recommend are: Spare Ribs with Garlic & Chilis, Curry Beef Brisket, and Roasted/Peaking Duck (the sauce on the side is amazing). The fact that they even offer peaking duck alone is a reason for you to check this place out. Some dishes I was not a fan of were: Fried Rice with Black Truffle & Minced Beef, BBQ Pork (it was dry) Sweet and Sour Pork, and the Crispy Prawn Balls. I specifically would not recommend the Sweet and Sour Pork and the Crispy Prawn Balls as they were rather expensive and not anything special. Sure they were nicely plated, but it had an extremely poor protein to fried dough ratio lol.

Overall though, this is a good place to bring a group friends and family for a large and tasty Chinese meal, especially when seated at the lazy susan tables! With careful consideration of your desired menu items, you are bound to leave with full and...

The food is good and very flavourful. We ordered the Christmas special meal.

I gave the cafe an okay score because the holiday Christmas meal was tasty and each dish had an unique flavor. To start the meal was fish maw soup. The soup was good. Next dish is roasted duck was good with crispy skin and sauce to dip.

Roast pork belly was good with crispy skin and beautifully presented compare to Chinatown BBQ house where they cut the roast pork haphazardly. Though some pieces were burnt and give that bitter taste.

The lobster with fresh noodles. It was good and the cream sauce is not goopy. The noodles was fresh and has a good bite to it. Deep fried pork was good. The batter was crispy and fresh. Fish fins was not bad. Basically you just suck on the skin and collagen.

Next dish was deep fried wantons. The wantons was crispy and that wedge of orange help brightens and cuts the grease from the wantons.

The last dish is sui choi (cabbage) that looks like soup (?). The broth was good with the soft cabbage. It is not greasy.

This meal does not come with noodles nor rice. Most of the dishes would go well with a bowl of white rice.

Dessert is mango pudding. As I have been to 852 Hong Kong Cafe numerous times, the pudding is good.

However I cannot give it any higher score as the portion in the dish was really small for $250 (Christmas meal had 6 dishes but we ordered 2 more dishes). You are better off buying the set menu for x amount of people like 6 or 8 wo choi (6 or 8 people set menu). Set menus comes with rice. After the meal, I still feel hungry after the meal.

The score reflects on the Christmas meal. If it was the set menu or other dishes on the menu then I would give the restaurant a higher score and increase...

Do not order from this restaurant! We decided to try a new spot, directly ordering from them, and couldn’t have had a more distasteful and frustrating experience. We ordered the meal for two, choosing the honey garlic chicken, Szechuan beef, and beef with broccoli. What a mistake! They sent us pork ribs, not chicken and the beef tasted atrocious. It was as if you were biting into fat every bite; it didn’t taste like beef at all. Their Szechuan beef and beef with broccoli were the exact same thing, just a different sauce on it (not at all what you’d expect).

I called the restaurant after trying one bite. This made everything worse. The lady argued with me on the phone, saying she can’t refund my order due to COVID. I don’t understand how that excuse was valid in any way - if it were any restaurant, they would ensure the customer is happy. Not being able to pick our food up due to COVID is a joke, what would you do with it anyway? Resell it?

The lady stated that she did mess up on the chicken and offered to send it to us right away. She continued arguing with me when I told her that the food was not good and we were completely unhappy with it. She yelled at us, stating that all her customers are happy and have smiles when they eat there. This, evidently, was not the case with us, nor with a lot of the recent reviews. At the end of our 10 minute conversation, she told us that she can’t do anything and “too bad for you if you don’t like it.”

I do NOT recommend this place at all. Horrible customer service and the food was not good in any way, shape or form. This is the worst experience I’ve had with...