Ho Yuen Cafe — Restaurant in Vancouver

My recent lunch at Ho Yuen Cafe was far superior to the vast majority of their competition in Vancouver. The flavours here are the most faithful and authentic to cafes I have eaten at in Hong Kong, itself, and while other reviewers have commented about Ho Yuen's price point relative to its Lower Mainland peers, I would argue that the raw ingredients used at Ho Yuen Cafe are VERY clearly superior than the vast majority of HK cafes in Vancouver; so the higher price point is actually fair and understandable. Better ingredients make for more amazing meals!

Initially, when I read Ho Yuen's online reviews after my own lunch experience there, I was actually a bit confused about why the vast majority of reviews focused so heavily on their pineapple buns/pineapple bun with salted butter while saying much less about their HK nostalgic dishes. While I agree that Ho Yuen's version of pineapple buns are among the top in Vancouver, as with any/every other place that makes Pineapple buns (including Lido in Richmond), the exceptionality is really only when they are fresh out of the oven and eaten before initial cooling. So, from my experience eating at Ho Yuen Cafe, the clear stand-outs were actually their lunch dishes/foods.

The many examples of their far-higher-than-average food quality and taste include the following: the broth in their "Luncheon meat & macaroni in tomato soup" is one of the closest to authentic HK-style borscht ("luo song tong") that I have had in Vancouver in a long time. Back in the 1980s, HK Cafe borscht in Vancouver actually tasted close to actual cafes in Hong Kong; since then, I have found that current day Vancouver HK cafe borscht is either really bland (e.g., not enough beef or not enough real tomato) or overly acidic due to the use of clearly low-grade tin(-flavoured!) tomato. Ho Yuen Cafe's version, in contrast, has super robust (i.e., strong, not weak) beefy and tomato-y flavours that are well-balanced and complex and where the soup doesn't taste like diluted canned tomato soup, which is where the flavour profile lands in the majority of Vancouver HK cafes in 2024. I'm guessing rising ingredient, real estate, and labour costs have a large part to do with Vancouver HK cafes' decline in ingredient and, therefore, food taste quality in recent decades the "Ginger sauced beef in Vermicelli soup" was warm and soothing with significant ginger taste, meaning there must have been a ton of fresh ginger in there as the flavours were really bright, which only comes from really fresh and freshly-chopped/-grated ginger; the "Braised beef brisket & white radish on rice" used real beef brisket versus its cheap imitator, beef finger meat (a not-so-subtle and significantly cheaper substitution I have been noticing in more and more Vancouver HK cafes over the last 5-8 years); the "Kaya toast with butter" is not only made with super-premium small-batch Kaya Pandan Jam from "Miss Chen Kaya", but is sandwiched between in-house fresh-baked daily "Tangzhong sandwich bread". I don't know of any other HK cafe in Vancouver who tops Ho Yuen Cafe's version of "Kaya toast" (and please don't say Shiok Singaporean which, while excellent, is NOT an HK cafe and does NOT make their own bread in-house); the "curry fish balls" is heads and tails above other Vancouver HK cafes, the latter of which tend to serve overly sweet and flat/one-toned curry sauce with no distinct layers/tones of flavour (i.e., no complexity to the curry, likely due to the use of packaged curry sauce in many other HK cafes). Even more impressive and quality-exceeding, unlike the vast majority of HK cafes around Vancouver, Ho Yuen makes their fish balls from scratch with a crisp and bouncy texture (vs soft and squishy-ish texture) and with more prominent fish flavor due to their clearly higher fish-to-starch-binder (more binder = much cheaper cost and compromised flavour).

I can't wait to return to Ho Yuen Cafe and try out their other lunch dishes! Two...

Saw lots of stories of this place on IG and FB during its soft opening week. Decided to give it a go and try. Arrived Monday at about 1130 am. Line up to go inside and we waited about 15 minutes before we were able to get inside.

The restaurant isn't a large space and they have about 8-9 tables inside. Most of the tables are 2s or 4s, so a large group may not be the best here. The décor inside has a painted mural of HK and there are some pictures of their HK store on the other wall. A TV on the corner was playing TVB News , and in the background they were playing some old 90s canto-pop songs.

Perhaps this was soft opening and they were not familiar with the setup yet or they could be understaffed busy with take out orders, after seated down, we waited for a while and still no one come to us. I ended up going to the front and grabbing our own menus (after witnessing another table doing the same).

This is the first week during it's soft opening so a lot of items on the menu were not available. There was no signage to indicate otherwise and it wasn't until ordering did the waitress advised us that they did not have it. **They did not have any tea leaves (apparently waiting shipment from HK so they had no options for Milk Tea, Lemon Tea for drinks. We had to order HK Style Coffee instead. To change to cold drinks was an extra $2, which I felt was a little overpriced. We attempted to order the Tomato Soup noodles and Pork Chop / Chicken Fillet, but was told they had sold out of the Tomato soup from earlier and they didn't have pork chops or chicken fillets today. We could only choose between the BBQ Pork or Satay Beef for noodles or the BBQ Pork rice only. We opt for the BBQ Pork noodle combo and the Satay Beef with instant noodles and substituted toast for the Pineapple Bun with Salted Butter instead for both ($2.50 extra each)

The BBQ Pork in noodles looked skimpy, only 4 thin slices of BBQ pork, didn’t really taste anything spectacular, and the soup was bland. Just very mediocre for this option. You can probably skip this option and we should have opt for the BBQ Pork on rice with Sunny Side Up Egg, but it was pricey at $19.50. The satay beef was probably the saving grace of the meal. Satay beef sauce is very tasty and reminded me exactly of how a HK style cafe should taste like. I appreciated that when you order the instant noodles, there was no up charge and they do provide you with the sesame oil packet for the soup.

Another highlight of the meal was the Pineapple Bun. It was fresh and it was warm when served. (Ordering a pineapple bun on its own is $2. Ordering a pineapple bun with butter is $4 on the menu, but when you upgrade it as part of the combos, the up charge for the pineapple bun is $1.80, and the up charge for the pineapple bun with butter is only $2.50, so it was a no-brainer to upgrade to the pineapple bun with butter for 70 cents more!) The pineapple bun was good because it was fresh, but honestly I don’t know if it was any different from any other bakery like Maxims or St.Germain… maybe the texture was a little more fluffy…?

Would have really wanted to try the milk tea, but didn’t have a chance today. In summary, both the satay beef and the pineapple bun is worth a try… so if you had to go and try it, I would likely suggest the Pineapple Bun with Satay Beef (listed at $7.50 on the menu) and you will get to enjoy both. Menu had a lot of other iconic HK Cafe things like Baked Tomato Sauce Pork Chop Rice, Swiss sauce chicken wings, Braised beef brisket on Rice, or fried wings with Salted egg flavour, but none of those thing were available to try during soft opening, so will need to go back to...

Hong Kong hype?

This place is located in the industrial area of Marpole (why tho? To concentrate on the office boys and girls within the surrounding commercial buildings? And also that’s why closes at 4pm and Sundays are closed?!?). There are parkings available in the plaza parking lot but was confusing so parked on the streets instead.

The interior is newly renovated; the decor and furnishings were pretty basic and straightforward. I would say I felt like I was in one of those typical western cafe for a small bite and coffee before I head up to the office more than in a Hong Kong cafe vibe.

The menu was very limited (soft opening), but here were the food I ordered;

Homemade BBQ pork on rice with sunny side egg and vegetable. Okay guess they jumped on the bandwagon when the movie “God of Cookery” came out and offered their version of the “sorrowful rice”? Unfortunately, not available because no rice. What?!? A Chinese restaurant ran out of rice at 2pm? Most Asian households have enough rice to last for months… what happened? Plus it literally takes 15-25mins to cook a small batch of rice? Egg tarts. They were decent with the butter crust, but I would say similiar ones at Saint Germaine are slightly better. 1 original and 1 with butter pineapple buns. Light crisp outside and warm and fluffy inside, nice! I like the one with butter as always, the fused taste of the light sweetness of the bun and saltiness of the butter.. so good! Chocolate pineapple bun with chocolate filling. It was okay, but was messy to eat. Satay beef instant noodle soup meal set (comes with toast, scrambled eggs, drink). The soup wasn’t hot enough, the beef could be more tender,too much corn starch added for the satay gravy and sauce was too sweet. Very classic style HK cafe instant noodle soup that’s why the simple details make a huge difference. Correct me if I am wrong, the scrambled eggs are from premixed bulk? Personally Would prefer scrambled eggs not too runny to avoid possible food poisoning. Luncheon meat with macaroni in tomato soup meal set (comes with toast, scrambled eggs, drink). Once again not hot and same thing about the scrambled eggs. Otherwise it’s okay and does have room for improvement.

Overall, the pineapple buns were good but the rest of the food does need some improvement and adjustment. It’s somewhat of a gamble in serving some of the classic items cause they look too plain and not the most appealing food to eat even though that’s their classic appearance. Especially the new generation of diners eat with their eyes and ears more? Perhaps it’s ideal to evolve some of the dishes appearance a bit to ensure the longevity of a Hong Kong cafe nowadays.

The service was okay, I can see the boss lady trying her best trying to get to every customer when the servers were lacking.

This is just my dining experience here this time around, I might give them a try again when they are actually opened.

P.S. I am not a fan of businesses in general doing the “soft opening” hack. Most of the time it’s more damaging to a new business than good. Open is open, if not ready to open then don’t, none of this silly “soft opening” stuffs because you are very vulnerable to crippling your business even before it’s actually ready to open. Yes I know why businesses do it because when viagra can’t bring back a dead business, I am the one...