Hong Kong Star

Fortunately there is no shortage of authentic Chinese restaurants in the Kansas City metro, so one of the ones on my list was Hong Kong Star in Olathe. A characteristic of all of these restaurants is a huge menu that makes it somewhat hard to make a selection unless I stick to the items I know the best, particularly if I am likely to only make one visit to the restaurant. There could have been many good choices here but the one I ordered was the tofu hot pot, the same item I ordered at ABC Cafe, and which is seemingly unavailable when I am dining in the El Paso borderland.

Hong Kong Star was busy, something I like to see at the authentic restaurants. Not only are they going to have the customer base to keep serving this type of food, but these restaurants usually prove that serving Americanized versions of Chinese food can become an outdated business model when people can order the real thing.

The Food

Tofu Hot Pot

I did not waste much time, and ordered the Tofu Hot Pot, a dish traditionally consisting of tofu, pork, and brown sauce. However, the tofu here was not the same as I have found at most other restaurants. It was very firm, and looked as if it had come packaged already cooked. Whatever the story was about the tofu, it was disappointing to me, although I liked everything else. I don’t know how it got to the point where I can think that Chinese food on the Kansas prairie is not quite like I want it and therefore is disappointing, but I am definitely happy about the huge menu they have with many good possibilities for authentic Chinese food.

The hot pot came with delicious mushrooms, so they definitely knew how to prepare food but were perhaps limited by the supply chain (or perhaps this type of tofu is the new popular trend).