Comments (0) BEST CHINESE RESTAURANT - 2004
Gourmet House of Hong Kong
1438 E. McDowell Road
Phoenix, AZ 85006
602-253-4859
Color scheme is not the Gourmet House of Hong Kong's strong suit: The exterior is the color of aqua-blue taffy; the interior, a sickly Pepto-Bismol pink with a dismal, though clean, gray tile flooring. The furnishings? Round tables and plain, armless chairs, with the occasional generic Chinese-style painting of a pool of fish. The ceiling is best left unremarked upon, save to say that looking at it will do nothing for your appetite. And yet, if you are familiar with Chinatowns in NYC and elsewhere, you'll know that the best Cantonese food in the world comes from just such eateries with hundreds of items on their menus -- pagodas of gastronomic greatness that operate in Cantonese and English, with the day's specials inevitably posted on the walls. Gourmet House of Hong Kong is one of these, albeit near 16th Street and McDowell here in P-town, rather than near Gotham's Mott and Canal. You can get everything from shark-fin soup and Peking duck with pancakes to five-flavor frogs' legs and soup with chunks of thousand-year-old egg. The bill of fare's nearly as lengthy as the Great Wall! PHX may lack a true Chinatown, but as long as chef/proprietor Michael Leung's GHHK is open for business, we've got the next best thing. Readers' Choice: P.F. Chang's China Bistro
