There was a lot of hype surrounding this place when it officially opened its doors a couple of years ago. Here was a hot shot chef from overseas who had won several awards for his Taiwanese beef noodle soup and he was opening a restaurant in Aberdeen Centre in Richmond. It had to be good, right? The hype surrounding Chef Hung certainly begot more hype, as people were known to line up for an hour or more to get a seat.
For some reason or another, I didn’t go… that is, until about a week ago when I happened to be in Richmond doing some shopping anyhow. We initially planned on just getting a quick meal at the Aberdeen Centre food court (we already tried Aoyama Cafe before), but opted to try out this noodle place instead. After all, there was no more lineup.
It was a little odd that they didn’t have nicely printed menus for us, giving us simple “takeout” style menus instead. And then, you have to fill out your own order sheet; that might be a good thing, since the service staff seems to have limited English.
Just as we did at Ali Shan Taiwanese Restaurant in Burnaby, we started our meal with some deep fried chicken nuggets ($4.95). These certainly aren’t the same as the giant fried chicken fillets in Taipei night markets, but the breading and seasoning is similar. I found that these nuggets lacked the right level of crunch and tasted a little too doughy. There could have been more seasoning too.
The menu gives you several options for the beef noodle soup, but many of them are going to be very similar. You typically get to choose from beef shank, brisket, tendon, tripe, or some combination of the above.
You also get to choose between thin and thick noodles; both Susanne and I opted for thin, as that’s usually what we get for our Taiwanese beef noodle. The spicy soup is more typical (it’s not that spicy), though there are non-spicy options too.
I found the noodles to still have a nice amount of chew and “bounce” to them, cooked to a great al dente. There’s quite a bit of meat in the bowl and the soup had a good flavor to it too. All beef noodle soups are served with a small dish of pickled vegetables.
Not surprisingly, the price is nowhere close to what you’d get in Taiwan, but it is still a little higher than the many other Taiwanese beef noodle soup restaurants in and around Vancouver. Most bowls at Chef Hung range from $8-$11.
I don’t think this restaurant deserves the sub-50% rating it currently has on Urbanspoon, but it’s doesn’t exactly provide the breathtaking experience that the hype would lead you to believe either.
looks delicious #yummy