Houston Diners Were Willing to Wait Hours for a Taste of Katy’s Hong Kong Food Street By Houston Eater

The second coming of Hong Kong Food Street in Katy saw more than 1,500 diners in four days during its opening week, sending its owner to the store more than once

ManyMany mourned Bellaire’s two-decade-old iconic Cantonese restaurant Hong Kong Food Street after it closed in 2020. But Johnny Cheung, who had worked at his family’s restaurant for years starting at 16 years old, had an idea. Maybe one day, he could revive it.

On Thursday, August 14, he did just that. After a four-year hiatus, Cheung “quietly” reopened an updated version of Hong Kong Food Street in Katy, offering a combination of new and old made-to-order Chinese dishes like heartwarming congee and roasted Beijing duck. In hopes of welcoming impromptu diners and passersby, Cheung says he avoided posting about the opening on social media. Still, diners came in droves.

The 3,800-square-foot restaurant, which seats a maximum of 122 people in its dining room, saw more than 1,500 diners in just four days. The restaurant was sold out daily from Thursday through Sunday, often sending Cheung to the store to replenish ingredients. Wait times exceeded an hour, and eventually, Cheung lost his voice from talking to so many people.

“I didn’t see that coming,” Cheung says.

 Johnny Cheung

Cheung had to start thinking strategically. He started by delaying dinner hours, using the time after lunch to prep and restock ingredients, but it didn’t help much. Cheung recalls one day when the line was already out the door just 15 minutes after opening at 5 p.m. By 5:30 p.m., the restaurant was full, with the wait time estimated at two hours. “In my almost 20 years of working in the restaurant business, I’ve never had a door open and the restaurant gets full in five minutes without a reservation,” he says. “We could not make this up.”

The long waits, however, did not deter the most devout diners. “I felt so bad,” says Cheung, particularly after seeing some diners waiting in line in the summer heat. “They’d say, put my name down and we’ll come back. I didn’t think they’d come back, but some really did. I thought, wow, that’s real support.”

Witnessing the packed house, Cheung says his 70-year-old retired father, who owned and operated the original Hong Kong Food Street, grumpily put on his apron and got in the kitchen to chop barbecue. “That’s how [my parents] show love. It’s tough love,” says Cheung. “They did it for 20 years. Now, I’m doing it by myself.”

Cheung’s parents Christine Wong and Hansun Cheung raised him in mainland China and later in Hong Kong before immigrating to the U.S. when he was 10 years old. In 2000, the couple opened Hong Kong Food Street in Bellaire’s Asiatown, offering nearly 400 dishes that celebrated traditional Chinese, and, more specifically, Cantonese cuisine. To the dismay of many Houstonians, though, the restaurant closed in 2020 after battling the pressures of the pandemic and a devastating flood.

The new and much-anticipated Katy rendition, what Cheung calls “Hong Kong Food Street 2.0,” is an homage to the original location, but with an emphasis on the current generation’s preferences. “When it opened 20 years ago, it was about what their generation liked,” says Cheung, noting that many diners brought their children, who along with “less experienced diners” viewed the organs and duck heads hanging in the restaurant as less appealing. “Now, we’re all grown, and we’re offering a more, evolved version of it, with more modern traditional stuff.”

Today, Hong Kong Food Street offers a fraction of its original menu, with around 100 dishes in total. Some iconic items remain like Hong Kong Food Street’s congee. “Congee really is a part of Cantonese dining,” says Cheung, who compares it to chicken noodle soup. “It’s nice, quick, and comforting.” Newer dishes that have been selling out include the Beijing duck, the roasted pork belly, and a black pepper tomahawk. Similar to black pepper beef, the dish is composed of an entire steak that is removed from the tomahawk, diced and stir-fried in a black pepper sauce with fried potato wedges and onion, and then served alongside the bone. A window into the Beijing duck carving station allows diners to see staff slicing freshly roasted duck, another new menu item. “We want to showcase that everything is made to order and piping hot and fresh, even though we’re slammed,” he says.

Wontons, here, are also handmade daily and served until sellout. (Depending on the day, diners might spot staff folding up the homemade dumplings in a corner of the bustling dining room.) “We don’t premake them or make a bunch in advance because it doesn’t taste as good,” Cheung says.

While Cheung is confident in the food, he is now hyper-focused on making the dining experience more efficient and faster. As things somewhat settle down (the wait has since dwindled to 10 to 15 minutes depending on the day), Cheung says he’ll work to better assess the demand and lessen the waiting time by activating the OpenTable reservation function and possibly hiring more staff. Though the explosive response from the community has been overwhelmingly positive, Cheung says “it’s a tough spot to be in” because of his desire to serve every diner.

“One person said something that made me almost cry,” Cheung says. “They said ‘I waited for you for almost four years. Two hours is nothing.”

“That really touched me,” Cheung says. “I’m really proud that I can carry on [my family’s] legacy.”

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Source: www.houstoneater.com