New Hong Kong Snack House

  


New Hong Kong Snack House

407 Notre Dame Ave

Winnipeg, MB

204-942-5315

January 2013

The place is a hole.  Wow.  The outside looks run down and beat up and things don’t improve much after you walk through the doors.  The park benches with red tabletops have some character but the rest of the décor reminds me of a beat up shack.  Appearances aside, some of these little hovels deliver the best food around.  Judging by the rave recommendations, I have high hopes that the Snack House will be another gem.  Things look promising as the shack bursts of customers and I’m happy to have a seat in the even-more-beat-up backroom. 

A lot of Chinese restaurants carry ridiculous menus featuring hundreds of options—not so here.  In fact, this is probably the skimpiest Chinese menu I’ve ever seen. 

I’m a little disappointed that some of my favourite dim sum staples aren’t here—but oddly, they serve some things that are not remotely Chinese (onion crepes and perogy soup?). 

Fill out the order form and the food comes in no time—perfect for the lunch hour diner.  The Beginner’s Plate comes with a nice assortment if you want a bit of the standard foods.  I love shrimp dumplings but I don’t love these dumplings.  Many of the other dim sum houses boost the size of their portions because a lot of Chinese customers (my entire family network as examples) would rather have quantity over quality.  The Snack House hasn’t followed this trend and the dumplings as the same size as they were years ago—bite sized.  Dim sum items were meant to be eaten in one bite but today’s monsters stretch your mouth to the limits and you need a snake-like jaw that can dislocate to swallow them.  I’m all right with the size of the shrimp dumplings, but I’m disappointed with the taste.  There isn’t a lot of flavour to the shrimp and what’s there tastes a little fishy.  I love fish eggs, but I’m not sure I like the fish eggs in this dumpling.  They seem a bit dry and dusty.

The pork dumplings too taste dry and dusty.  Most pork dumplings come plump and fat, oozing with grease.  By contrast, these are small, dense and compact.  Worse, the meat tastes rubbery and processed, somewhat wiener-like.  The Snack House does a much better job on the fried dumplings (fried perogies) but these too are very small and dense.  The soup seeped out of the wrapper and hardened on the fry pan; the leakage gives an extra dimension of crispness and flavour on the outside. 

The steamed, barbecued pork bun has very little flavour on the outside, primarily because the dough is too thick—there’s too much dough and not enough goo.  The sweetish pork sauce has a hoisin base, which is like a Chinese barbecue sauce.  More sauce, more pork and less dough would make this a more flavourful, better bun.

The soup in the wonton soup doesn’t lack flavour but much of the flavour comes from the liberal usage of MSG.  The health conscious have waged war on sodium and MSG; I agree that an excess of either can harm your health but in moderation, they’re necessary to season your food.  Snack House is a little heavy-handed in the seasoning but I’d rather have an MSG-based broth than the tasteless broth that’s little better than dirty water in some restaurants.  For the price, you get a generous number of wontons to go with this broth.  The plump and ample wontons also have nice flavour with plenty of seasoning. 

The wonton soup is one of the best dishes on the menu, and I’m saddened by this.  The New Hong Kong Snack House may be a dive and a hole but this is the kind of place I like.  I want to discover modest places where the owners put their heart and soul into the food.  I have no doubt that owners put their best into the Snack House but alas, it’s not as good as the flashier dim sum houses.  I really wanted to love the Snack House, but I don’t.  They have a good, loyal following here, and I hope they keep it up.  These are the kinds of customers that will likely hammer me in the comments because I didn’t love their restaurant—and I’m all right with that.  Keep going, because I want the Snack House to do well—but if you want my honest opinion, there’s better dim sum to be had.

** /5

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