Yin Ji Chang Fen 银记肠粉 — Restaurant in Houston

i wish i took better pictures but i will next time. for now i just want to post an honest review ASAP to BOOST this unfair rating… but honestly your loss if you let people silly enough to go during opening week with high expectations convince you to miss out on delicious food. we went on friday around 1:15 pm. there was a line outside with about 3-4 parties in front of us. bare in mind there was only one host working at the time we arrived. we were still seated and had our order taken within 15 minutes of getting in line. first plates came out at 1:34pm (chicken wings & fried breadsticks). both were incredibly fresh and so crispy. as someone who is almost never satisfied with fried chicken at restaurants because it’s over priced and almost always tastes better at home, i was 100% content. it’s hard to tell from the pictures some people have posted, but the chicken has a subtle glaze which really pulls it together, you don’t even need the sauce it comes with. for the main meal we ordered the brisket rice roll and beef/shrimp rice roll. this wasn’t an issue for me, but just know the brisket rice roll is topped with the meat, it’s not a filling. great flavor. the beef/shrimp was better in my opinion. the combination of meat and veggies is much more satisfying and that soy sauce marinade was addicting. the congee was a generous portion for the cost, enough to share, and filled the void after not having it in a long time. i do wish it had a bit more ginger flavor and depth in general but it was still a comforting yummy dish that i’d be happy to enjoy any day. lastly the drinks. hong kong milk tea.. if you’re a tea lover like me, this one is for you!! it has a strong tea taste and even after taste. if you’re looking for a diluted, super sweet, milky or creamy drink or something comparable to brown sugar milk tea, this is NOT that (go to ding tea next door lol). we also got the sparkling blackcurrant lemonade and as someone who doesn’t like sparkling drinks… this was literally so delicious i almost wanted to trade my milk tea for it. it’s not overwhelming or heavy on carbonation, just a very subtle fizz and perfectly sweet. my only complaint is i so desperately wish they had the HK milk tea coffee available in a cold option

I was very excited to try Yin Ji Chang Fen due to all the hype and rave reviews from it's other locations around the world. As someone who grew up eating chang fen and consider it a favorite comfort food, the food here was only average. It's really hard for me to only rate the food as 3 stars because I'm really excited about the existence of a chang fen restaurant here in Houston. At the same time, I found the food a bit bland and lacking depth.

Let's start with the curry trio, which includes squid, fish ball, and pork rinds. The squid was perfectly tender with a nice bite. Same with the fish balls. While the color of the sauce gives the impression of a yummy curry flavor, it was a bit deceiving as it did not get into the fish balls or the squid.

The star of the show came next; a beef and shrimp chang fen and a fried dough stick chang fen. The best part of these was the rice noodle sheets. They were thin and transparent showing you exactly what's inside. These are much thinner than the average rice roll at your favorite dim sum restaurants because it's meant to highlight the ingredients inside. The rice roll here act as a carrier to sop up the special soy sauce while letting the star ingredients shine. While the beef and shrimp were cooked well, they were again lacking flavor. They also fell out more than I'd like. The lettuce in my opinion also takes away from the texture of the rice roll. The fried dough stick rice roll was good, but still not the exact thing I'm looking for. The soy sauce was decent but again just missing some oomph.

The laiwan porridge had a lot of different ingredients such as fish, beef, sliced egg omelet, peanuts, lettuce, fried dough cubes, and pork rinds. Everything was cooked really well but overall tasted bland. Porridge that accompany chang fen typically has a light flavor but depth at the same time. The porridge base is the soul of the dish but it was really lacking for me.

Perhaps the hype was just too much or I'm just way too picky. Maybe I'm a harsh critic because I grew up eating this type of food in Hong Kong and Southern China and it's a very special comfort food to me. I tried to temper my expectations coming in, but even when not compared to rice rolls I've had in the past, the food was still lacking flavor.

I will commend the service team who worked tirelessly to seat patrons who waited in line for the opening rush. They were courteous, delightful, and delivered super fast service.

Overall I really hope this place can stake out a niche within the Chinese restaurants in the area as it is very unique. While the food did not quite meet my expectations, I would still come back for more since rice rolls and porridge are still near and dear to me. Give this place a try and decide...

I’d give this place a 3.5/5 stars! I came in on a Saturday night around 7 PM and there were plenty of seats open so thankfully there wasn’t a wait. I ordered: HK Style Milk Tea Shrimp with Chives Rice Rolls Charsiu BBQ Pork Rice Rolls Golden Fried Chicken Wings

The service was standard and the food came out within 10-15 minutes. The HK style milk tea was decent! I could properly taste the tea and it wasn’t overly sweet (some people may prefer their milk tea’s very sweet but I prefer it this way so I was pleasantly surprised). The Rice rolls were both delicious! The charsiu was seasoned well and the shrimp was okay! The rice rolls were sturdy enough where it woudn’t fall apart when trying to pick it up but they were also soft enough where it was able to be split when breaking it apart to share. I will say though, the price is pretty steep compared to the cheung fun you get at a dim sum restaurant. Not to mention, their shrimps are much larger and the rice rolls there have a more satisfying texture. I’m not saying this place’s cheung fun is bad by any means but I would personally get rice rolls at an actual dim sum restaurant.

As for the chicken wings, they were the most juicy, crispy wings I’ve had in a while! This spot really nailed the crunch factor and I was blown away by how juicy every bite was. The only thing I wish was different was the flavor. Although the sweet chili sauce helped, the wings itself were lacking in flavor.

Overall, not a bad spot and I hope to try their congee because everyone has been raving about it in...