*** The Kam Ho Restaurant is the reincarnation of the original Ho Yuen Restaurant in Richmond! ***

About a month ago, we went to the Ho Yuen restaurant for dinner. It was supposed to be one of the ho-hum posts because we did not find it particularly interesting. We did not even plan to dine there.

What surprised us was that the Ho Yuen post generated 34 comments! The reason was because of the new owner behind Ho Yuen … a self-bestowed “Dr” Jaime Chan. If you don’t know who “Dr” Jaime Chan is, read the comments and you will know why he attracts such ire from people who know who he is.

Some readers lamented that they missed the old Ho Yuen. We learned that when “Dr” Jaime Chan took over Ho Yuen, it was not the same anymore.

Despair not … it is because the Ho Yuen is back!

The original Ho Yuen had reincarnated as Kam Ho!

Huey wrote an email to us last week alerting us to this news (thanks Huey!) that Kam Ho is opening on last Saturday. So we changed our dinner plans and made our way to Kam Ho for dinner.

The new Kam Ho is located in Alexandra Road but it is not on the section of Alexandra road that you would automatically think of. Instead it is located on the No 3 Road section of Alexandra. You should get to Kam Ho via No 3 Road. Kam Ho is on the same strip mall as Celsius and Kelong.

It had been a while since we saw a new Cantonese style restaurant opening. Almost all new restaurants in Richmond these days are mainland Chinese or Taiwanese restaurants, not so much Cantonese. So we are glad to see a new one opening here.

It was opening night. The waitresses are all eager and helpful. I guess not many people know of Kam Ho’s opening because there were not many customers. Half of the customers that night seems to be someone they know.

No pretty young waitress here. All of them are middle aged ladies. In Chinese we call them “ah sows” or aunties. Not that it’s a problem. I am just saying. When I mentioned this observation, both Arkensen and Nanzaro reacted saying that what I said is not nice.

Kam Ho is about half the size of Ho Yuen and seats about 50 people. They have a wide open kitchen that you could see all the going ons in it.

Kam Ho is not a HK Style Cafe. It is more like a HK Style Diner. The have a big menu with sections of noodles, congee and such.

We decided to get a Dinner Combo. We opted for the $33.95 3-item combo from the menu above (click to read in bigger font). We thought it should be enough for the four of us as it usually is.

Besides the selection of dishes, the combo also includes soup, rice and sweet dessert.

The Daily soup is some of the best we had ever had. In it was pork, chicken feet, snow fungus and Chinese herbs. I like the Cantonese word for this type of soup. “Lo For Tong” is translated as “old fire” soup and means soup that had been boiled for a long period of time.

The soup itself was really flavourful. It was a good start.

At first we ordered a house hot pot but the lady insisted that we try their Hainanese Chicken. It did not take much convincing for us.

It looked very good. They don’t even pour any soya sauce on the chicken. It was just plain Hainanese chicken with parsley and fried peanuts.

The chicken is boney and the first thing we observed is that the chicken is cold. This apparently is a style of Hainanese chicken where it is dipped in ice after cooking. This produces a gelatinous layer underneath the skin. The skin is springy and on all accounts very good.

We upgraded the steamed rice to Hainanese Chicken Rice for 50 cents a bowl. The oily rice is mildly flavoured. We had tasted bolder tasting ones but this is just alright. However, their rice bowl is bigger than most other places. We like that.

With Hainanese Chicken Rice, you normally would get the dip. We like the ginger and green onion more than the chili. The chili is kind of strange that it is quite “chunky”. We prefer garlic’d chili instead.

The other item they recommended us is the Deep Fried Prawn with Pepper Salt. OMG, it was good.

It is topped with … green onions, chili and shallots. The shallot does give this a different twist to the flavour of this usually salty dish. If anything, this was not very salty which we appreciate.

The prawns are delightfully large and is deep fried with the shells on. The shells was so crispy that we ate it with the shells on … except for Suanne who does not want to eat like that … despite all the cajoling from us. She said that it is not deep fried enough that the shell disintegrates 0n the bite. We all beg to differ.

There are four types of Tilapia dishes which costs an extra $2. We assumed that Tilapia is one of their specialties too because it was called out on the menu.

Suanne insisted that we get the Tilapia with sour vegetable. I wasn’t too gung-ho about it and I know the boys will refuse to touch it if they know it has “sour” vegetables. So we had to speak to each other in Cantonese and softly too.

The “sour” vegetable was not that bad after all. It is crunchy and appetizing.

The fish was deep fried to a crisp but the flesh is still soft and all white on the inside. You got to eat this as fast as possible because it you don’t the fish will soak the sauce making it softer. I was thinking perhaps they should serve the sauce and the fish separately and combine them only on the table? But then the sauce has to be hot. Hmmm …

The free sweet dessert is green bean soup. It was slightly thick and not watery.

Arkensen and Nanzaro does not eat these dessert. They are just like me when I was their age. I just hate the greenish looking soup no matter how tasty it is.

So Suanne ended up having three bowls. She pretends to grumble saying she does not want to waste the food … but I know she likes it.

It was just $40 before tips. We like Kam Ho and will definitely return again to try their other items. As I earlier said, their menu is quite big and so there are a lot more to try and taste. OK … spread the word … that the original Ho Yuen is now reincarnated as Kam Ho.