Hokkai-en

On a Sunday afternoon, Sarah and I picked up lunch for the family in time for their return home from church. It was rainy that day and we didn’t want to go far, so we grabbed take-out from Hokkai-en, a Chinese restaurant located literally a five minute walk from Sarah’s apartment in Roppongi.

From what I’ve read, Hokkai-en ranks among the better Chinese restaurants in Tokyo, many people claiming that it serves the best Beijing-style cuisine in the whole city. It opened about 20 years ago and quickly grew a reputation for offering authentic, high-quality dishes.

I’m also told that the yakuza dine at Hokkai-en a lot, which could be another reason why I advocated for taking-out rather than dining-in. Perhaps subconsciously I feared the negative ramifications of a misplaced shrimp shell. I could imagine it all unfolding in my head like that infamous restaurant scene in the movie Pretty Woman…with a few extra gruesome details. I accidentally flip a clam or mussel onto a nearby table and next thing you know, I leave the restaurant with one less limb than I came in with.

When trying to place our order and ask for dish recommendations, the hostess had trouble communicating with us. She spoke no English and very little Japanese. One of the waitresses came over and noticed I was of Chinese ethnicity and started speaking Mandarin to me. Well, needless to say, she wasn’t much help either because being the disgrace that I am to my ancestors, I can’t speak a word of my native language. We ended up just pointing to the dishes that looked interesting to us.

Sauteed pea-pod stems

The pea pod stems were pretty similar what I’m used to having at the Cantonese-style restaurants I eat at – very garlicky.

Pan-fried flat noodles with beef

We wanted a noodle dish, so I suggested this dish, which I assumed was Hokkai-en’s version of gwun chow gnor hor, a very standard dish in Chinese cuisine. Their version was okay – a tad dull I thought. I’ve definitely had much better before.

Beef and broccoli with oyster sauce

Beef and broccoli is another dish I always seem to order when I have Chinese food, so it was a no-brainer to order this. It turned out pretty tasty, and the beef was tender.

Fried Rice

I think we ordered this just so we could have some rice to go along with the meal. It was good but nothing too memorable.

Sauteed jumbo prawns

These prawns were by far my favorite. They were huge, succulent and really quite tasty smothered in the light sauce with a hint of garlic and leeks.

Lemon chicken

The lemon chicken was another highlight of the meal for me, and it’s funny because out of all the dishes, Sarah and I were on the fence about this the most. We were debating on ordering something else instead but finally went with this. The meat was deep-fried but still tender on the inside and was covered in a sweet, slightly tangy sauce.

So we ordered six dishes for four people to share, and the bill came to about 15,000 yen. In other words, this was not a cheap meal! Luckily for us, Sarah’s mom treated. Overall, I thought the meal was pretty good, but I’ve had better Chinese food elsewhere for much less money.

Out of all the cities I have visited with a respectable Chinese restaurant scene – Boston, New York, San Francisco, Vancouver, Sydney, Toronto, and now Tokyo – I would have to say that Toronto offers the best Chinese food. I’ve been to Toronto a few times (before I started my blog), and I’ve always had great meals there. I’m still waiting to visit Hong Kong and mainland China, and I'm really interested to see how the cuisine fares in its natural birthplace.