Honolulu Café – Famous HK Egg Tarts sold out in 2hours but …

10th May 2016, YES! Today’s the day of Honolulu Café’s official opening at Orchard Centrepoint. Honolulu Café, aka 茶餐厅 (HK-styled café), is well-known in Hong Kong for its egg tarts with flaky pastry. Rumour has it that their egg tarts recipe has about 70 years of history, with all other egg tarts evolving from them.

Founded in 1940s, Honolulu Café began its establishment from selling traditional coffee, tea and baked goods. Over the past 20 years, its menu has evolved to include items that are commonly found at the modern 茶餐厅 nowadays. If you’re curious as to why the name, “Honolulu”, it simply dates back to the time when Hong Kong was a British colony hence, the company wanted a Western name. With six outlets in Hong Kong, three in Beijing, one in Shanghai and their latest on our sunny island, Honolulu is unstoppable and is targeting Taiwan next.

Our food experience began from their highly recommended Honolulu Egg Tart ($1.70 each) which we found was a little overhyped. The dough of these egg tarts are frozen overnight and folded into 192 layers to achieve a crispy and flaky shell. We liked the strong buttery fragrance of the pastry but the custard was not creamy enough. Note that all egg tarts at Honolulu Café are freshly baked daily, while stocks last! It was sold out around 12.15pm today!

The next crowd-favourite item is a very popular Hong Kong snack, Honolulu Pineapple Bun with Butter ($2 each). Cantonese would know it as “Bo Lo Bao”, which is crunchy on the outside yet soft on the inside and served with a generously sinful slab of melting butter in-between. The Bo Lo Bao here is crunchy but a tad too dry. Unfortunately, the “wow” factor was missing.

Besides baked goods, their menu boasts other items such as toasts, sandwiches, instant noodles, main courses and curry specials. We had the Luncheon Meat sandwich ($3 each) which we found very ordinary. Their Instant Noodle with Ham and Egg ($6.50) is another safe dish that can never go wrong. The soup is comforting and best for raining day.

The highlight for us was their Baked Pork Chop in Tomato Sauce with Rice ($7.80). Of course, if you prefer noodles, you have the choice of switching the rice to spaghetti. We love the great combination of sweetness and tangy-ness. The pork chop was tender and well-marinated. However, it might get a little too “gelat” so we recommend you share this dish among two persons.

Last but not least, how can any 茶餐厅 experience not include trying their Milk Tea ($3 hot/$3.20 cold)?! How do you like your milk tea? We prefer ours to be sweet, with an overpowering condense milk aftertaste but the milk tea here was a huge disappointment. To be honest, we aren’t certain whether it tasted bitter or sourish. The Yuan Yang ($3.30 hot/$3.50 cold) fared much better. It was quite thick and fragrant, just the way we like it.

We would say it’s decent and wallet friendly menu but perhaps, they are still working on improving the standards of their food and drinks. If you’re interested in experiencing what an authentic 茶餐厅 feels like but can’t find the time to get away to Hong Kong (176-178 Hennessy Rd, Wan Chai), this is a place you might consider checking out.