Hong Kong Restaurant revisited

Published 5:00 am Friday, September 12, 2008

A recent evening visit to the Hong Kong Restaurant in Bend has convinced me this Chinese cuisine establishment has improved dramatically since my last visits a year ago.

In September 2007, when I rated this three-decade-old restaurant “C-,” I wrote: “Eighty percent of the food I tasted at the Hong Kong was subpar. Service was dour and unresponsive, even with the restaurant less than one-quarter occupied. The atmosphere is … nothing to shout about.”

Okay, so I’m still not impressed with the ambience, and again only two tables were patronized. But service was prompt and friendly, quite unlike my previous experience. And I found the food to be at least as good as that of other Chinese restaurants in the Bend area.

I chose from a menu option that allowed me to pick four items for $10.50. To vary the tastes, I chose beef chow mein, sweet-and-sour pork, garlic green beans and Hunan chicken.

Best of the bunch were the green beans, with onions, mushrooms and carrots in a spicy black-bean sauce. The chow mein, with sliced beef, bean sprouts and a half-dozen other vegetables, was bland, but chili sauce remedied that shortcoming.

Of the two other meat dishes, I preferred the Hunan chicken, breaded and wok-fried in a tomato-rich chili sauce. The pork was dry and a little too chewy. But 75 percent isn’t bad.

I can’t give the Hong Kong top marks. But I will give it an upgrade of a full mark to a “B-.”

Open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday to Friday, noon to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. 530 S.E. Third St. (at Wilson Avenue), Bend. 541-389-8880.

— John Gottberg Anderson