Starlight Kitchen

Since I can remember, Phở Hòa occupied the large restaurant space on Kingsway at Nanaimo.  However, it is now a Hong Kong-style cafe known as Starlight Kitchen.  Renovations are not very extensive as the interior looks roughly the same.  However, whatever they saved in their renos, it seems to have gone directly into the portion sizes.  They are quite generous and for the 2 times I've been there, the food has been solid and so has the service.

Let's get right into the usual dishes that we judge an HK-style cafe on.  The most obvious is the Baked Pork Chop Rice.  This was a good version as the fried rice base was nutty and chewy while the ample sauce on top was flavourful and slightly tangy.  It was more sweet than savoury, but it worked well with the melted cheese.  I liked how they didn't skimp on the sauce since there was enough for both the rice and pork chop.  About that pork chop, it was tender and still featured a crispy panko coating.

Next up, we had another classic in the Linguine Bolognese (instead of spaghetti in this case).  Really enjoyed this one as the pasta was almost al dente.  This is significant because many HK-style cafes overcook their pastas.  Just like the previous dish, they put more than enough sauce to coat every strand of pasta.  Furthermore, the sauce was thick, meaty and full-of-depth.  The melted cheese on top was definitely noticeable.

Moving away from tomato sauces, we had another HK-style cafe staple in the Baked Seafood Rice.   As you can see, the theme of "lots of sauce" applies here once again.  That meant that all of the fried rice base was coated with the starch-thickened cream sauce.  It was quite mild but had some aroma and sweetness.  There was a mix of seafood that included fish, imitation crab, prawns and Kiwi mussels.  They were more or less cooked properly.

Normally here, we would be ordering something like the Portuguese Chicken, but nope, this was the Baked Portuguese Pork Chop Rice.  Not sure if there is actually such a thing, but the sauce was the HK-style Portuguese sauce.  It was creamy and coconutty with a bit of earthiness.  Lots of sauce here on top of the crispy pork chop (like the previous dish) and also the fried rice base.  This was good but I personally enjoy the classic chicken version more.

When at a HK-style cafe, it is always a given that they have combo meat plates or other Western complete dish meals.  Hence we got the 2-Item Plate with chicken steak, pork chop with veggies, black pepper sauce and a side of spaghetti (this also included a soup to start).  Yet another solid dish with a juicy deboned and seared chicken leg as well as thin pork chops that were still moist.  Black pepper sauce was well-seasoned and slightly peppery.

Continuing on with a Hong Kong take with Western dishes, we had the Ham & Egg Sandwich with a side of fries.  This would be like the closest thing to what it should be if we walked into a diner.  However, the HK touches included toasted soft white bread without the crust and soft scrambled eggs.  I would've liked the eggs to be runnier and also the bread to be less toasted.  Fries were cooked perfectly being hot, crunchy and potatoey in the middle.

Like most other HK-style restos, they had a Chinese Dishes section of the menu too that included the Pickled Vegetable & Duck Vermicelli.  This was a huge portion that featured al dente vermicelli that was not clumpy nor dry.  There was enough moisture to keep things loose but not making the dish wet.  I found the flavours to be mild for this dish, but I usually add hot sauce anyways...  I would've liked to see just a bit more in the way of ingredients as there was very little of it beyond what you see in the picture.

So for whatever reason, I decided to try the Ja Jeun Mein.  I would say this was the only dish I didn't like in my 2 visits to the place.  I found the white noodles to be far too clumpy and even when I mixed the meat sauce into it, the noodles didn't seem like they wanted to separate.  The made for an overly cumbersome way to eat the dish.  Furthermore, the sauce was meaty but lacking in overall impact.  It was slightly sweet but I didn't get much beyond that.

Lastly and probably one of the best dishes of the bunch, was the Special House Fried Noodle.  This was absolutely massive and had a bevy of properly-cooked components including giant scallops, prawns, squid, BBQ pork and chicken.  The crispy noodles were soften by the proper amount of sauce.  Overall, the food and portion sizes at Starlight Kitchen are very good.  Compared to somewhere like Copa Cafe, Starlight is better in all regards including price point.  This will be one of my go to spots for HK-style eats for the forseeable future.

The Good:
- Solid eats
- Large portions
- Well-priced for what you get

The Bad:
- Not sure how it will be in the winter, but the dining room gets stuffy
- Service is good but hurried