We Tried The Food At The Hello Kitty Restaurant In Hong Kong

    Kawaii Chinese dumplings? Yes please!

    Sarah Fung
    by Sarah Fung

    BuzzFeed Contributor

    1. Hello Kitty Chinese Cuisine opened in Hong Kong just two months ago, and everyone is excited.

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    In addition to coverage from local magazines, venerable institutions such as CNN and Time have written pieces on the restaurant. Reporters from a radio station in Germany flew out just to visit the restaurant. That's a 12-hour flight each way.

    2. If you visit, be prepared to queue.

    Tom Lee for BuzzFeed

    If you want a table at lunchtime, you'll be waiting for at least half an hour, and for dinner, expect to wait 45 minutes or more.

    3. There's no English menu.

    hellokittychinesecuisine.com.hk

    But not to worry – there are photos of the specials.

    4. The most popular dishes are (surprise surprise) the dumplings.

    Tom Lee

    The "lau sa bau" (centre) is filled with runny egg custard and the "har gau" (left) is a shrimp dumpling encased in rice flour. The yellow one is a "ma lai go" sponge cake (right). They have been photographed a LOT.

    5. The restaurant was founded by entrepreneur Man Kwong.

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    The entrepreneur has been running a health magazine for the past six years, and had the idea for a Hello Kitty restaurant just over two years ago, he tells BuzzFeed Life.

    6. Kwong says the restaurant's success is all due to the fans.

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    "Hello Kitty is a young and famous icon. I wanted to choose something that's easy to promote to her fans", says Kwong. "But the response has been 500 times better than I expected. It's all down to the merit of Hello Kitty".

    The clientele at the restaurant is 75 percent female.

    7. The food is surprisingly good for you.

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    With founder Kwong's background in the health industry, he makes sure to use healthy ingredients such as organic veggies, coconut oil and goji juice. The dishes are also low in oil and salt compared to regular Chinese restaurants. This dish is saffron fried rice with shredded chicken in apple sauce.

    8. All the details are made with natural colouring.

    Tom Lee

    No e-numbers here. Hello Kitty's bow is made from rice flour and coloured with beetroot and corn. For her eyes and whiskers, the chefs use squid ink.

    9. There's a private VIP room.

    Hello Kitty Chinese Cuisine

    You can book out "Apple Court" for a minimum spend of HK$5,000 (about £420).

    10. The decor is pretty highbrow.

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    The walls of Apple Court are decorated with Chinese paintings of Hello Kitty depicted as the Four Great Beauties of Chinese history.

    11. Hello Kitty Wine is available too.

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    Sparkling, red and white are available. Now there's a label for your wine cellar.

    12. As are bricks of Chinese tea leaves.

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    Want a cute memento of your visit? Pick up a cake of dried pu'er tea leaves from Yunnan Province. Pressed into a Hello Kitty shape, natch.

    13. Kwong's favourite dish is the meat patty hair bow.

    Hello Kitty Chinese Cuisine

    "We use fresh pork, and the flavour is really different [compared to regular meat patties]", he says.

    14. He also loves the fried flat noodles.

    Hello Kitty Chinese Cuisine

    It's one of the restaurant's top five best-selling dishes. Note the bow made out of shredded egg.

    15. The food is actually pretty tasty.

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    We personally taste-tested some of the buns and dumplings, and we have to say, they ain't half bad.

    16. Though you are paying a premium to eat Hello Kitty's face.

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    The har gau dumplings cost HK$68 (£5.70) – the ones at the Peninsula hotel's Spring Moon restaurant are slightly cheaper at HK$64 (£5.40).

    17. This is Master Law, the head dumpling chef.

    Hello Kitty Chinese Cuisine

    He has 40 years experience in the restaurant industry, and has worked in Chinese restaurants in Japan and Hong Kong. We are seriously digging the golden Hello Kitty patch on his chef's whites.

    18. Making Hello Kitty-shaped dim sum is harder than it looks.

    Tom Lee for BuzzFeed

    "Each dumpling takes twice as long to make compared to a regular dumpling", Kwong tells BuzzFeed Life. "There are 17 steps to decorating each one. Chinese chefs have a different working culture; they are trained to make everything fast, hot and delicious. We have to explain our dreams and goals to them, and convince them to slow down and pay attention to detail."

    19. In fact, the whole project was tricky to pull together.

    Tom Lee for BuzzFeed

    From conception to completion, it took 18 months to get the restaurant up and running. This is partly because executives from Sanrio, which owns the Hello Kitty brand, had to fly from Japan to taste and approve every dish, from the type of ingredients used to the taste and even the plating. Kwong says the process was "very painful".

    BTW check out the 3D bow in this prawn dish; it's made with red bell pepper.

    20. Labour of love is an understatement.

    Tom Lee for BuzzFeed

    The restaurant nearly broke Kwong. "You can see the level of persistence in my eyes. In this year-and-a-half, I have been very depressed, and thought of giving up several times. But still, the next day I would pick up again and keep going. I had to recruit chefs, hire a manager... all since last November. I had to pay the rent on this premises. There were a lot of costs."

    21. But it's all been worth it.