Hing Lung Cafe

Came here to try their new "reopening" after shutting down for several years.
I was very disappointed, the braised beef was cold and tough, the chicken wings was over fried and greasy.
The Singapore rice noodles and green beans with XO sauce were decent. Overall, I will not be back. Too bad, the original chef has left the room.

Ugh, it pains me to have to write this. I've been to their other locations over the years and have always loved their HK style food. They said there were many imitators but this was the one related to the original restaurant from Chinatown.

We were excited to try this location. We arrived on a weekend night just before 6 pm expecting to wait for a table and found the place fairly empty. The place did fill up 30 to 45 minutes later.

We ordered some tried and true dishes - beef brisket with rice rolls, egg yolk fried pumpkin with shrimp and green beans with olives and pork. The beef brisket came lukewarm and was just ladled from some warming pot into the clay dish. The serving bowl wasn't even warm. I've had this dish many times and the dish comes bubbling hot with the rice noodles seared . Also the portion served here was half of what I see at the location in San Bruno. Our dish only had about 4 or 5 chunks of beef.

The pumpkin and shrimp dish was expertly fried but lacked seasoning. It was bland. The plus was that it wasn't greasy at all.

The green bean dish was way too salty and I found the vegetable overcooked.

As you can imagine, we were really disappointed in the quality of the dishes. They also use MSG in their cooking.

The service was good and the restaurant was clean and spacious. We found parking out front but there's a big parking lot behind the restaurant.

The San Bruno location may not be the "real" Hing Lung but the food there is much, much better. The menu is very similar with many of the exact same items.

Food tastes terrible, every dish had a burnt taste... as if the wok's never been washed. The salted egg yolk fish with pumpkin was so stinky, like fish has gone bad. The string beans which you can't really go wrong, had his smoke burnt taste. Even the noodles, tasted burnt. There was even a persistent bathroom smell throughout, really worry about cleanliness.

Reminds me of the meals we'd have as a family in Chinatown! This is the second location to the sf one and it's just as tasty.

Come when they open because they fill up quick. Everything we ate was delicious. Get the chow mein, liver porridge, Chinese donut, and salt pepper spare ribs. Their duck is also good.

Prices are decent. Would come back for another family lunch :)

I honestly rarely ordered anything other than their preserved eggs and pork congee with extra pork liver from them cuz the combo is just so good, the pork liver is always so tender and fresh with great flavor and texture, I can never get enough. And the preserved eggs and pork congee provided a perfect base that's full of umami. The only problem is it's a little weirdly sweet, but ignorable.
And this time I tried couple of new items. First I added chicken in my congee, and the ingredients I ordered were so much that they gave me two tall bowls of congee. The chicken is skin on and bone in, which is exactly how I want it to be. I'll definitely start getting the chicken congee from now on.
The roasted duck was surprisingly good too, not that I doubted, it's just I thought they are only specialize in congee. I like how the sauce has chili pieces in it, giving it a kick.
The real surprise and highlight of the meal was actually the bbq pork fried rice that comes free with 40$ purchases on UberEats. It's literally the bbq pork fried rice with the most bbq pork pieces I've ever seen from any Chinese restaurants I've been to in the city. It's cooked perfectly too, dry in a good way, not sticky or dry. I just wish there would be more veggies like carrots or peas for the nutrients.
I really like the stuffed eggplant with fish paste too, they were huge pieces and the main flavor was provided by the douchi and garlic in the sauce. I like mixing the sauce from this with the fried rice.
I don't really like the fried donuts, it's sweet, crispy, and hard, very oily and greasy. I thought it would be more like Youtiao. I would not order this again. Taking one star off just for this.

Great prices and comfort food. Order the crispy fish! Detailed breakdown below:

**Price & portion, 5/5** Absolutely huge plates, perfect for family-style where you can try more things. Most things under $15!

**Taste of the food, 4.5/5**

- Dried scallop and egg white fried rice, 5/5: It looks very unassuming but is super flavorful and oh so savory. Will hit the spot for sure.

- Beef chow fun, 4/5: The beef was really tender. The noodles were a tad bland, but nothing that a little chili oil can't fix.

- Crispy fish, 99999/5: WOW this was perfect!! Flakey and tender fish in a super crispy and flavorful batter -- soooo good, I could eat these like chicken nuggets.

- Salted egg yolk pumpkin and chicken wings, 3.5/5: The chicken wings were really good and the salted egg yolk flavor definitely came through. Just was less of a fan of the pumpkin because it was the of dense and dry. But the crunch was soooo satisfying!

My coworkers and I came here for lunch and was lucky enough to get parking. The menu looks bigger than the location at San Bruno, or at least it felt that way. I got the scrambled eggs with chicken over the wide noodles (ho fun). One of my coworkers got the noodles with beef and the other got a jook. The jook came out in a claypot with it still boiling similar to the one in San Bruno. It was good and didn't require extra pepper or salt. The Ho fun with beef was ok. The beef wasn't as tender and the pieces are really big. I wished it was smaller. There wasn't much "wok hei" in it if you are looking for that. The scrambled egg ho fun was a mistake, There wasn't much egg and the chicken wasn't has tender as well. There was more noodles then protein. The egg was beautiful though. I think the next time I come back i'll try something else

Do NOT order salt & pepper pork chop! Worst I've ever tasted! Contained a lot of fat and meat wasn't fresh. Color was pale and meat was thin as well. Took one bite and had to toss the rest unfortunately. Also ordered kung pao chicken and that was good.

Just landed in San Francisco and wanted to find a place for a quick bite to eat for lunch. Hing lung Cafe was perfect not a long wait and got a seat. We ordered a couple of dishes and it was very tasty and fast. The place was a medium size restaurant with tables. The staff is pretty and the service was good. Would definitely come back here again next time.

Got the pork and preserved egg porridge and fried bread to go for my post-dentist visit mom. I only had a little taste of it but it was very good and there was a lot of preserved egg in it which is a big plus in my book. I are thé ends of the fried bread which would be too tough and it was delicious.

Unfortunately my mom wasn't tasting a lot of flavors due to the situation in her mouth so I will have to try the place again to get her take on it.