Hong Kong Islander

So happy i came here for my first dim sum experience. Once we sat down we were instantly brought out tea & so many plates & things to choose from. The staff is so nice & welcoming, i wish i could eat here everyday. The restaurant is so big & got pretty packed. All the food i ate was amazing & authentic. I legit felt like i was in Hong Kong. Everything is reasonably priced & overall a rly good dim sum restaurant!

Pros: Managers respond quickly to complaints.
Cons: First plate of dim sum was stale. Remaining dishes were not flavorful. Service was sub-​par.

very authentic Chinese/​dim sum but boy is this place stuck in the 80’s! or some time period… I would give this place a 4 star easily but thinking about the state of the restroom and how disgustingly dirty it was, how the guy who was cleaning the restroom was using a metal tongs to clean the toilet bowl, one can only hope that the kitchen isn’t that horrible… and pray that that tong isn’t use to prepare food ;-(

This place is NTB if you just want Chinese. They definitely have a selection. And holy crap is this venue big. Apparently they get used for weddings a lot. The chairs are always decked out.
Not much of a vegetarian selection other than vegetable plates and one egg foo young dish. Seriously that’s it. Unless you’re one of those I cheat with fish because they don’t have feelings vegetarians.
I got the only thing I could get which was mixed veg with garlic sauce and tofu. They didn’t put much tofu on it so we asked for extra and after balking at first they later said it would be fine. No extra charge either. I’d bump up to four but really the dish was not too good, that day or as leftovers. There was a lot of it though.
Seems like one of those places you just go because you’ve always gone and it’s what you do. Don’t think I’ll be back.

My favorite dim sum! Be sure to get there early, place fills up fast. Servers are nice and helpful — a BIG difference from other dim sum restaurants in the area. Dishes are tasty and hot.
I like to order: chicken feet, tripe, shumai, deep fried shrimp balls, and salted eggs buns — YUM!

Great traditional Cantonese food. Service is so so. They serve you and you’re on your own. Price is definitely right for $ 12 per person though.

Stopped in today for Dim Sum around 11:30. It was really crowded and parking was challenging. They originally said the wait would be around 30 minutes but they got the two of us in within 5 minutes. We were seated close to the door and it was pretty cold (so if you can try to sit further back).
They immediately asked what kind of tea we wanted and pretty soon after that the carts started to come by. We ordered jasmine tea, and it was really good, I was surprised that they charged us for it (2 dollars) since they did not offer us water I thought it was complimentary.
The carts do not seem to go in a regular pattern and it took almost an hour before we saw the cart with baked items or kitchen items, but we found that if we asked the waiters in the gold vests for the dishes we wanted they would bring them to us.
We ordered the:
BBQ Pork Buns (⁴⁄₅) Nice and fluffy with a good amount of sweet flavorful pork.
Shrimp Balls with Sticky Rice (⁵⁄₅) Soooo good, they are mostly ground shrimp with white pepper and they are then covered with a thin layer of sticky rice with a piece of Chinese pork sausage on top.
Fried Pork Dumplings (⁴⁄₅) I really love these kind of dumplings they have a chewy sweet rice flour dough on the outside and a savory ground pork filling. These were a bit light on the filling but were delicious with the red chili sauce and a little soy sauce. We ordered extra to take home and they heated up really well.
Deep Fried Stuffed Taro Puffs (²⁄₅) I generally love these guys but I have to agree with the other Unilocalers, they are just not good here. They were stone cold and bland, but at least they were nice and crispy.
Shrimp and Chive Dumplings (3.5/ 5) Very fresh and flavorful but the rice dough was too thick, also they are considered a large order (4.25 $) and you only get three of them so not a great value.
Green Tea Mochi Dumplings (⁴⁄₅) The green tea flavor was not very strong but the texture was good, and while I would have liked more of the black sesame paste filling it was still really good.
Chinese Donut (³⁄₅) These were sugar coated big puffs, on the inside there it is mostly air like choux pastry. It is very very egg-​y and rich. It was not my kind of thing but my friend really enjoyed it.
Roast Duck (²⁄₅) Very very salty, we ended up taking it home and washing the sauce off because it was just too salty to eat. After soaking it in water it was okay.
Chinese Broccoli with Oyster Sauce (⁵⁄₅) I thought this was crazy expensive for some braised vegetables (6.38 $) but it was really well done, the stems were steamed and then sauteed and the oyster sauce tasted wonderfully savory and homemade.
Overall we really enjoyed it and plan to return the next time we are craving dim sum.

+3 ½ Stars
+This place has gone through so many incarnations. It’ll always be Wong’s Islander to me.
+Came here with my Aunt and Uncle and some of their friends.
+My Aunt kept going on and on about how there was virtually no one there when we came in.
+My Uncle said it’s always like that at dinner and Dim Sum is when they are really busy.
+They kept bickering about it. Old people are funny when they’ve been together so long.
+We had the $ 79 dinner assortment.
+My Uncle didn’t want the fish and wanted to substitute it. It took a lot of miscommunication to get the point across. One he figured out what dialect she spoke, things got a lot easier.
+The dishes were pretty good. I don’t remember everything too well.
+I did like the Crab Meat Soup, Vegetables w/​Black Mushrooms and Steak Cubes.
+There was hardly any meat in the Lobster dish.
+The substituted for egg and shrimp dish was watery and the shrimp seemed under cooked.
+Décor was completely different from what it used to be. There are four flat screen TVs. One was on ESPN the others were on some kind of loop of a Chinese news broadcast.
+My Aunt and Uncle’s friends picked up the tab, cool.

Not a bad place at all! On 12/​19/​2015, my Unilocal buddies and I were heading to Hong Kong Islander for a fine Dim Sum brunch. I’ve actually been to this place for quite some times rarely until I came back for a long absent visit, and I’m impressed for this effort! The atmosphere is quite warming and elegant. The concept is quite average despite the mixed décor although I have no issues about it for me.
The employees are doing a fine job here for making the customers like me a great service. No cons at all!
For the Dim Sum choice, we ordered the Baked Pork Buns, Siu Mai, Har Gow, Shrimp flat noodles in soy sauce, and seasoned pork balls. So far, there are the
! The pork buns, siu mai, har gow, shrimp flat noodles in soy sauce, and the seasoned pork balls tasted very good! I can feel the flavors of each dim sum entrees I ate. Not a bad meal at all!
There’s plenty of parking available, so go there early before the doors open because it will be jammed pack soon.
In the end, Hong Kong Islander is the finest Dim Sum and Chinese restaurant that I’ve ever visited right in the Land Park neighborhood. Perfect for friends and family gatherings! A worthy visit! My rating: 4 solid stars.

Service: Terrible, I wanted to leave the moment I sat down. My family ordered chow fun and the lady brought fried rice. After bringing the wrong order twice we got some other guy to finally bring our correct dish. Frustrated with my family, the lady avoided our table the rest of the time. It was dim sum hour so you get to listen to people yelling Chinese in your ear the whole time.
Food: So-​so. If I went to Ranch 99, I might have got something I’d eat…
I think the owner should play the Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer. The tables are so close to each other that there is no space to move. If you look at the back walls you’ll notice that it has a bunch of scratch marks from the food carts maneuvering around tables.

Ehhh, I enjoyed the food for sure, but the service was close to non-​existent. We made a reservation for 5:30, so not many people were there when we were seated. Within the next half hour, the restaurant became packed. Annoyingly, it was equally difficult to get any servers attention the whole time. The waitresses aren’t very fluent in English, so we had trouble understanding the answers to the menu questions we had, as well as conveying to the server that we were still waiting for part of our order. It seemed that the kitchen would make many servings of a specific dish, the plates would be distributed to the tables who had ordered it, and then the next dish would be prepared. This caused the first dishes to be cold by the time the last few were brought to our table.
The food itself was quite good, I’d give it ⁴⁄₅! My favourite dish was the Kung pao chicken. We ordered 5 dishes to split as a group. They were out of ice cream, but the oranges were a refreshing conclusion to the meal.
Tip: do not come here when you’re rushed or even expecting a normal time frame for your meal. The tables are good for groups, so if you don’t mind waiting a bit for service, you might dare to bring your group here for a laid-​back meal.

My first visit to Hong Kong Islander and the second time I’d had (participated in) dim sum. The last time was at least 12 years ago. Because I don’t like to be unprepared, I did do some online research ahead of time. My cram session of dim sum didn’t prepare me enough for the dim sum cram. I was here with a group of friends and our (assumed) host took control, used his experience, and ordered what he thought was a best fit for the group. With the exception of chicken feet and tripe, I tried it all.
Saturday: we arrived at the 10am opening and it was fairly quiet. By 11am, the dining room was almost full. When we left at about 11:30am, there was a significant crowd of patrons waiting to be seated. This is obviously a very popular place.
As said, I’m don’t frequent dim sum. I was happy to have some experienced peeps in our group to guide me (right or wrong). I did see that the service staff, pushing carts of dim sum, was helpful to people at other tables describing the foods. The food was fresh and served hot (or cold, as appropriate). All very very reasonably priced. Our group of about 8 spent $ 70. not bad at all.
There’s a card on the table where the staff will tally what is left at your table/​party. When done, a staff person will tally your card and bring you your tab.

This place is great for groups. Came here for the first time with my sister and her friends.
Service was pretty decent considering it’s an Asian place. They did their jobs, but of course, they aren’t the most courteous.
Compared to the other places I’ve been in Sac for dim sum such as Happy Garden and Asian Pearl… This place tops best in Sac by far.
Only thing I seen was kinda bad was how they clean their tables… They did not santize it at all. They just wiped it with the dirty table cloth and changed it.
More like a 3 5 for that, but 4 will do because I enjoyed the food and I didn’t get sick…
Least. for now… lol.

After a pretty average dim-​sum experience at New Canton, I was hoping to give my future dim-​sum business to Hong Kong Islander. Granted, I had lowered my expectations based on the reviews here, but I was still hoping for better quality overall.
First, the pros:
— the place is cleaner, more spacious, and more welcoming than New Canton. By a lot, actually.
— service is attentive and prompt without being obnoxious or pushy.
Is the place authentic? Absolutely — from the dim sum menu and the Cantonese-​speaking staff to the cheesy chandeliers and yellowish lighting and pillars framed with cheap gold-​plated patterns — the décor would not be out of place if transplanted wholesale back to the Mongkok /​Yau Ma Tei stretch of Nathan Road in Hong Kong circa 1980s. This is the very definition of a middle-​class Hong Kong dim sum restaurant that I grew up with before coming to the States.
In short, the two star rating is not because of any circumstantial factor, but is squarely aimed at the quality of food.
I waited till 11 am (on a weekday) to get here, so there would be about half an hour after opening for the steamed offerings to be ready and available. I found all of the basic dim sum staples, and ordered eight different kinds. I’m always of the mindset that if you do the basic things right, then the rest will take care of itself. So here’s the play by play:
1) Shrimp Dumpling /​Ha Gow — somewhat thick and doughy wrappings around bland-​tasting shrimp. Not as bad as 1 star, but definitely only 2 stars out of five.
2) Pork and Shrimp Dumplings /​Siu Mai — Decent, but nothing to write home about. Typical size, typical flavor.
3) Chicken Feet /​Fung Zow — Steamed right with everything falling off the bones, but probably one of the blander flavored chicken feet sauces /​marinades I’ve had in a while. I don’t consider a dim-​sum lunch complete until I’ve had my chicken feet, but I just couldn’t get excited about these at all.
4) Fried Taro Balls /​Wu Gok — Right texture and crispiness, but again, very bland.
5) Steamed Pork Buns /​Cha Siu Bao — Pork to bun ratio was quite decent, but the pork filling had a funny taste to it that was just off. Don’t get me wrong — I don’t think it was spoiled or anything; it’s just flavored incorrectly.
6) Turnip Cakes /​Lor Bak Goh — the texture was barely OK because of the higher-​than-​desired dough /​corn-​starch content, but again, just like many of the other ones — flavor was sorely lacking.
7) Shrimp Wrapped in Rice Noodles /​Shrimp Cheung Fun — this was the ONLY dish out of the eight I ordered that I would recommend to a native Hong Konger (like me). The noodle wrapping, in particular, was tender and silky smooth — as it should be when done right. They were not skimpy about the amount of shrimp given either.
8) Egg Custard Tarts /​Dahn Taht for dessert — not the flaky pastry crust that I prefer; just the regular butter /​lard-​type crust. The crust was pretty crumbly, which was fine — except that it was too thick. Also, the egg custard was (here’s that word again) bland and flavorless.
Prices are comparable to other dim sum restaurants in the area — $ 2.35 for «small» plates; $ 3.38 for «medium» plates; and $ 4.25 for «large» plates. (Their pricing for «large» is likely on the top-​end.)
Between New Canton and Hong Kong Islander, it’s a toss-​up. New Canton, despite being very very average, had more flavorful dim sum overall, but the décor is an obvious step-​down from Hong Kong Islander. You can eat very comfortably at Hong Kong Islander, but most everything I had today was just bland and unexciting.
I don’t really feel a strong urge to go back to either one. The search continues for a decent dim sum place that could satisfy my dim sum cravings.

In Sacramento, there are not many good Chinese restaurants. I think this place is decent place for Chinese food if compared with other smaller restaurants. The dimsum was good with price. Many times I go HongKong Islander for the Jinsha Changfen, it is very good, best dimsum dish and I strong recommend it.
Anyways, I personally like the side dishes more, like their dinner dishes. Most of dishes are good, like seafood dishes, vegetables and appetizers. I don’t like their honey walnut shrimps, tasted bad, bad shrimps and shrimps are very small. I would say it is not bad option to try out this place if you are craving for Chinese food.

I tried this place for my search of the best dim sum in Elk Grove/​Sacramento area. This is not the «to die for» dim sum restaurant, but this place definitely has some pros and is actually a smidgen better than the other places I’ve tried.
I actually like the variety here over some of the other dim sum restaurants in the area. They actually served a variety of soups that is fitting for this cold, fall weather. I also liked that they served cold jellyfish, duck with crispy skin and plum sauce along with the usual faves.
What makes this place better is the dishes were actually served warm and some fresh and hot from the kitchen. I don’t know if it was the location of our table, but I was doing the «it’s hot! It’s hot!» dance with a full shu mai in my mouth. There’s always the risk with dim sum of lukewarm dishes arriving to your table because of the cart service, but this was not the case for us!
Servers were definitely on top of it here. Waters were refilled promptly and dishes were cleared in a timely manner. And everyone was actually really pleasant and friendly. The sizes of dumplings and dishes were also Connie-​approved because I came in hungry and wanted to run home because I was so stuffed.
The only downfallI I can think of is the pineapple custard bun was not baked thoroughly. The bun was a pale yellow color that I am not used to. Also, the dough was too doughy on the inside. Maybe it was just that batch, but we didn’t eat it.
This place was packed by 11:00am on a Saturday so I can tell this is one of the more popular dim sum restaurants. I definitely liked this place enough that I’ll be back for my dim sum cravings!

Came here for dinner with friends from out of town. We ordered cod fish with tofu hot pot, sizzling beef, chicken chow fun with broccoli, and hot and sour soup. We all thought the food was all fresh, delicious and beautifully presented. The menu offers a huge variety of yummy Chinese dishes which are reasonably priced.
The service was good and Charles always checking our table to see if everything is ok and if we need anything else.
They also offer Dim Sum daily.
Will definitely be back for more dinners!

Shout out to all the Asian girls, let the lights dim sum…
I have yet to find a dim sum place I actually like. Or maybe I just like to eat a lot and dim sum isn’t for me and it taste the same everywhere I go. Or maybe the food is good but service is just never up to par. Or maybe it’s because I don’t know what I’m actually eating but it looks good so I tell the cart lady we want it and then we end up paying $ 20/​person. OMG… I could have spent $ 20 on a delicious brunch with a mimosa. But seriously, this place is your typical Chinese restaurant that has dim sum. Décor is like any other cheap Chinese place. There are TVs for those football fanatics on Sundays. Again, another dim sum place where I end up spending $ 20 and I’m still hungry.

3.5 stars — Although not the best dim sum in the world (or Northern California), Hong Kong Islander is one of the better dim sum restaurants in the Sacramento area. But it also depends on what you order. I’ve probably been here over 20 times since they re-​opened after their remodeling a few years ago and they have always been somewhat above average.
Some of the better items to order — shrimp dumplings (ha gao), pork dumplings (siu mai), any rice noodle roll (shrimp, BBQ pork, or crispy donut with shrimp) (cheung fun), deep-​fried shrimp ball, deep-​fried pork dumpling (ham sui gok), pineapple buns with egg custard filling (bolo nai wong bao), Portuguese egg custard tarts (po taats), and deep fried green tea mochi with black sesame filling.
There are many other dishes that are pretty good, but I couldn’t list them all. Sometimes you have to see what looks best on the carts before selecting as not every item is best every time.
Some less desirable items to order — fried taro puff (I’ve had better elsewhere), the regular egg custard tart (yuck! tastes artificial and bland, crust is not flaky at all), and fried salt and pepper calamari (it was WAY too salty last time).
Their noodle dishes (on their regular menu) were pretty good as well. And importantly (at least to me), their tea tastes good! Some Chinese restaurants offer watered down, tasteless tea, but HK Islander has a decent selection and is fragrant and pleasant tasting.
The restaurant is huge with plenty of seating (and a back room with even more seating), but sometimes on the weekends, there is a bit of a wait. There is not a lot of natural light in the restaurant as there are no windows, but they have plenty of beautiful artificial lights throughout the restaurant. They have plenty of TVs around the restaurant as well in case you want to watch that game on Sunday. Also, the service is not bad for a Chinese restaurant. Definitely one of the better dim sum restaurants in Sacramento. So if you are trying to decide between here and a place on Broadway or downtown, go here!

This review is for dim sum only.
I came here for dim sum last Saturday for the first time here. Since we came in around 2 pm, it wasn’t that busy and we were seated right away. The interior is beautiful, and they have linen tablecloths and chair covers.
If you don’t speak Chinese and is unfamiliar with dim sum, this would be a difficult place for you to navigate. The majority of the women pushing the carts have limited English skills. Luckily for me, with my limited Cantonese and their limited English melded into a workable communication… barely. The dim sum carts whiz by, and you have to physically stop them in their tracks. The dim sum overall was just ok. The steamed sticky rice in the leaf was disappointing, it had only small bits of ground meat. I am use to that dim sum dish having Chinese sausage and preserved egg in it. This was like a poor mans version of the dish. They ran out of sui mai. The steamed pork baos contained some sort of meat, I’m not sure if it was char sui. The quality and taste of the dim sum I ate was just ok, kinda mediocre.
I would not come back for dim sum service.

A mí me gusta venir aquí. Mis platillos favoritos son el siu mai y el har gaw. Pero si tienen muchos opciones pero si se pono ocupado durante el almuerzo asi que talvez tendrás que esperar un poco pero la comida es buena. ¡Buen provécho!