I was last in Hong Kong when planes still banked hard over apartment blocks to land at Kai Tak, close enough to count rooftop air conditioners. Back then, if you wanted to eat well, you didn’t check a rating – you asked the person beside you. No Google, no smartphone, no English menu. Just a queue, a cloud of steam, and a stranger happy to tell you what was good. At Hong Kong Wonton on Fade Street, Dublin, the same rules apply. I queue. I hover. And a Chinese regular leans over and says, “Get the five-spice beef noodles.”
The 16-seat room is compact and bright, tiled in white and green – a nod to Hong Kong’s tram green and old-school cha chaan tengs – with a line of cream, two-seater tables down one side and a few squeezed in opposite. The kitchen is visible behind the counter, steaming and clattering.
The bilingual menu is displayed on the glass of the ordering hatch. It’s short: four soups, four lo mein, a few sides, and Hong Kong staples such as chicken congee, satay beef with ramen, pork chop with fried rice and Hong Kong French toast. The home-made wontons come steamed or fried, with prawn and pork or mushroom and vegetables. A second menu shows photos of every dish. We place our order and luck out just as a table frees up.
The congee (€9) arrives first, served in a large bowl. The rice has collapsed beautifully: smooth but not paste, warm and restorative, with generous chunks of white chicken folded through and a sprinkling of chopped scallions on top. It comes with the classic youtiao – a golden, crispy dough stick – which we break up and dip into the congee, soaking up all that flavour. Yes, it would be better if the chicken was free-range, but the flavour is good.
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Before we can finish it, the rest of our order lands on two black plastic trays. The pork and prawn wonton lo mein (€12.50) comes without broth – just a nest of egg noodles slicked in soy, vinegar, and a serious hit of chilli crisp. There are three large handmade wontons, substantial enough to demand a plan of attack. Poke one and it leaks steam: the filling is all prawn – actual pieces, not the pasty stuff you find in supermarket dumplings – with minced pork for ballast. The noodles are springy and rich, the chilli oil clings with just enough burn.
Then there’s the vegetable wonton noodle soup (€12), a proper tangle of thin noodles in a hot, clear broth. The wontons themselves – mushroom, carrot, glass noodles, and ginger – are tight little parcels that hold their shape with skins that are soft but not fragile. The home-made broth has a whisper of dried fish, sharpened with fresh ginger.
We’ve added a side of crispy prawn wontons (€7.50) – five of them, scrunched into little pastry grenades, irregularly shaped, and served with a red dipping sauce that’s more sweet than hot. Same prawn-heavy filling, completely different texture: firm inside, shatteringly crisp outside.
Then, the five-spice beef brisket noodle soup (€14.50). Chunks of beef sit on top, sliced across the grain and stewed to that point where the lean meat pulls apart and the fat melts on contact. Thin, springy yellow noodles are curled into a clear, spiced broth – light and aromatic. A proper bowl. A fine recommendation.
The Hong Kong French toast (€9) may have wiped out my calorie allowance for the decade. Three thick slices of white bread enclose a heroic layer of peanut butter, deep-fried in egg, topped with a glug of golden syrup and condensed milk and a slab of butter. The outside is golden and crisp, the middle soft but not soaked, and the peanut butter practically molten. It’s absurd.
The drinks menu includes yin yeung – Hong Kong’s tea-coffee hybrid laced with condensed milk – but we skip it for the iced coconut red bean (€4.50). It’s coconut milk and sweetened red beans, served in a plastic cup with a straw wide enough to hoover up the lot. There’s a quiet satisfaction in sucking beans through what feels like industrial piping.
The Pau family – who run Asia Market nearby – opened Hong Kong Wonton to bring Dublin fast, nostalgic, everyday food: soup hot enough to hurt, dumplings that hold their shape, and nothing dressed up for effect. They’ve done exactly that – and the queue says it all. So does my new best friend who told me what to order.
Dinner for three with a drink was €69.
The verdict: Delicious bowls of steaming, hand-folded wontons.
Food provenance: Prawns from India and Vietnam, chicken and pork is Irish but not free-range, beef is Irish.
Vegetarian options: Mushroom and vegetable wontons, vegetable lo mein, and Chinese pak choi without oyster sauce.
Wheelchair access: Partially accessible room with extendable ramp, no accessible toilet.
Music: Dave Wang and Cantonese pop.
