HK Boy Cart Noodle @ Pavilion

HK Boy Cart Noodle first opened in Bandar Mahkota Cheras more than a year ago offering Hong Kong street food such as their signature cart noodles and street snacks (like curry fish balls, egg waffle, rice noodle roll, fried fish skin and more).

They've since added branches in Pavilion, Kepong and Puchong.  Since there's now a HK Boy Cart Noodle @ Pavilion near me, I thought I'd finally give it a try to see what it's all about.  

Love these olden days metal mugs and hot water flask.  My mother-in-law has a similar one too (in red) and kept it till this day.

Ordering is made simple through the use of order chits found at the table.  The order chits are self-explanatory, so you just need to tick your preferred choices.

Step 1 - Pick your favourite soup (noodle soup, dry noodle, tomato broth or spicy soup).

Step 2 - Pick your favourite noodle (select one only from yellow noodle, hor fun, lo shu fan, meehoon & mi xian to instant noodles or udon that'll cost you extra).

Step 3 - Choose your favourite special sauce (beef tendon, curry or braised sauce with an option to add special chilli sauce).

Step 4 - Choose your favourite topping (with more than 40 toppings for you to choose from, some of which include pork intestine, smoked duck, braised chicken wing, lemongrass pork chop, luncheon meat, radish, mushrooms & braised egg).  There are also premium add-ons like braised beef, beef tendon & beef stomach which cost an extra RM3.  Any extra topping will be charged RM3.90 each.  

I duly made my choices on the chit provided.

A bowl of soup noodles with 2 toppings costs RM11.80 while 3 toppings will set you back RM13.60.  I chose one with 3 toppings and my bowl of piping hot mi xian with special braised sauce arrived with large pork intestine and braised beef sans the braised egg.

I was told then that the braised eggs weren't quite ready yet as it had not been braised long enough (since they opened late).  I was asked if I'd like to substitute it with something else, otherwise they'll adjust the price accordingly.  So, I substituted it with luncheon meat that ended up being served separately.

I chose the special braised sauce...and if you don't specify 'less spicy' or 'not spicy', your bowl of noodles will come with a dollop of chilli paste.

First impression when the bowl of piping hot noodles arrived....I noticed right away the layer of oil around the rim of the bowl.  Not only that but the soup was filled with a lot of minced garlic.

The soup base was way too oily...and the flavour of the broth (with a beefy taste) was too robust for my liking. >_<  I'm not sure if the oiliness is due to the broth itself or caused by the sauce or the result of the chilli paste.  And the abundance of minced garlic made the soup even more pungent in taste.  I do love garlic but too much of it in the soup can be off-putting.

As for the mi xian noodles, they came looking like they've been cut up into shorter strands (for some reason) which I didn't appreciate.

I love pork intestines (the small intestines) but have rarely eaten large intestines (which happens to be a favourite of my mother-in-law).  I don't know what made me order it but I soon regretted my first choice of large pork intestines as the fats inside were not cleaned out.  The larger pieces were ok and they were tender without being too "smelly" as large intestines are known to be.

But the smaller ones, as you can clearly see, had quite a lot of fat within the intestinal walls.  So, I had to spend quite a lot of time to remove them one by one.  In the end, I left most of them uneaten.  Ok, no more large intestines for me from now on.

My second choice was a premium add-on of braised beef that cost an additional RM3.

This was a better choice as the beef was super tender that taste much like one of those Taiwanese beef noodles or "lobak ngau lam" (braised sirloin with radish) you'd find in beef ball mee stalls.

My third topping (the substitute) turned out to be the best one of the three.  The luncheon meat was fragrant and of a good quality.

More surprising was just how thick the slice was....yum! ^.^  Sorry, I was too eager and ate half of it before realising I should show you just how unbelievably thick it was.

They offer a couple of street snacks on their menu too for your munching pleasure.

For drinks, I went with their Iced Milk Tea which cost RM3 instead of the usual price of RM6.90 (I think it was a set promotion at that time).  Didn't care much for their milk tea either.

I don't know how the real mccoy taste like in Hong Kong but, if it tastes anything like this, I don't think I'd want to have it again! :P  But since I've only tried out one combination, I thought I'd give it at least one more go.  So, I returned another day hoping to try the noodles without adding any sauce to see if it tastes any better (though I read somewhere that the soup will be bland without any sauce...hmmm).  But, as I walked in, I was told that they were late in opening and weren't ready yet and will only open at around 12 noon (I was there at 11 am) when the outlet clearly states that they open from 10 am to 10 pm.  In fact, when I was there the first time (also at 11 am), they also opened late and the braised egg was not ready.  I really hate it when a place doesn't open at the time when they're supposed to be opened but at their whim and fancy. Oh well, they blew their second chance.    

My Personal Opinion

If this is as close as the real thing in Hong Kong (maybe less 'dirty' ^_*), then I don't understand why people like cart noodles.

The reviews on this place are rather mixed and on opposite ends, you either like it or you don't.  I guess I'm the latter.  The broth was too robustly flavoured for my palate (especially with the added sauce), too oily and too overpowering with the taste of garlic.  

Maybe I just don't like Hong Kong-style food all that much, just like in Starz Kitchen, and now here.  Maybe I ordered the wrong noodle combination but I don't think I'd be trying any more noodle combinations.

HK Boy Cart Noodle
Lot 1.28.00 & P1.22.00 Level 1
Pavilion Kuala Lumpur
168 Jalan Bukit Bintang
55100 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 017-651 1005