Mambo Cafe

Their spicy seafood fried rice is the best! Lots of seafood in it and no fake crab meat.
I also like their Singaporean fired noodle. The baked pork chop on rice is just a little too sweet. I hope they can improve on that one as it is one of my favourite HK style food. Portion size is also quite big. They are as equally good as Leung Kee nextdoor.

I have to say I m pretty disappointed in their milk tea. It has the look of authentic hongkong mill tea but it’s lacking the milkiness and tea taste. I just couldn’t drink it. The food is alright, let’s say it’s edible…

Got the spaghetti bolognese and flat noodle here was super good ⁵⁄₅ portions are good and really flavourful! Would come back for the spaghetti

Not that they need a good review to boost their business; this Hong-​Kong style café is located in the food court of Aberdeen Centre, and is flanked by two also decent HK-​style cafes. In my books, Mambo is preferred and the average entrée goes for $ 8 including a hot drink. My mom absolutely adores the XO-​sauce seafood fried rice, and for good reason. XO sauce is a mildly spiced seafood chili oil typical of a certain type of Cantonese cuisine, and the rice is fragrantly treated with savoury sauce. It includes a helping of tender, probably previously frozen goodies like baby scallops, peeled shrimp, squid, and chunks of a white fish, probably tilapia or sole. The average wait time was 15 minutes at noon hour on Chinese New Year’s Eve, and is usually not more than 20 minutes, but just be prepared to wait for your prize.

2.5*
It’s good for food court food and good value.
But still missing maximum flavour that you will get at diner hk cafes
8.50 $ gets you a full meal and drink. You’ll be stuffed.

Good prices, service, and great food served in large portions

Had been on the road for almost two weeks. Saw a girl in the food court eating baked macaroni. This is comfort food for me. Asked her where to get and she pointed me to this place. For about $ 7, you get a huge portion of macaroni in bolognese sauce and a drink (extra for iced beverage). Macaroni was a little mushy, but still comforting. Sauce is also a little sweet which is the Chinese style (I think it is ketchup) which is how my dad used to make it. Brought back memories.
This place offers all the Hong Kong café comfort foods: rice dishes, noodles, toasts, etc. and hot or cold drinks.

Chicken chow mein is big portion but its too salty and just tastes off today. I’m going to switch to Leung Kee if I happen to be at Aberdeen Foodcourt and need a quick HK café fix.

As a snack, the boyfriend and I usually order their baked pork chop on rice. The portion is a good size for sharing but if we are both hungry then we would just each order our own meal.
I’ve tried their French toast and I was not a fan of it. It was a bit soggy, not as «deep fried» as I thought it would be but overall, it still makes a good snack once in awhile.
The downside of Mambo Café is the waiting time. They tell you it will take 20 minutes but our food took over 45 minutes. Not the place to go if you are easily «HANGRY».

If you go on the weekends, be prepared to wait.
The Baked Pork Chop, as mentioned in other reviews, is great! Not the best mind you, but pretty impressive for a food court. The pork is huge, and the sauce is tangy/​sweet.
I also tried the Yuan Yeng fried rice, which wasn’t fried rice at all, but just plain white rice, with a cheese/​tomato sauce drizzled on top. The portion was large, but it tasted really bland.

Came here for some HK-​café goodness.
Parking in Aberdeen is available, but horrendous, as you probably know.
I had the pork chop instant noodle soup, and a cold lemon tea. The dish was quite reasonable, at $ 6.50. Soup was nothing special (think of what you get at most wonton places), but did the job. The pork was done well, and wasn’t soggy. Overall it was on the plain side, but this is comfort food. Hit the spot. The drink was decent in a typical way.

Possibly the best deal in Aberdeen food court. cold coffee/​tea drink plus the asian version of French Toast (kaya in the middle) for just $ 5!!!
Can say this dessert well worth it by itself.
Must be good when there’s a lineup here…

This kiosk/​stand (? what do you call restaurants in a food court?) is located at the Aberdeen Centre food court. Serving your typical Hong Kong style café dishes, this kiosk/​stand is one of our favourite places to eat at whenever we’re at the mall. Along with your typical dishes, the prices are also pretty standard.
Baked Porkchop on Rice — $ 7.50 (⁵⁄₇)
Typical dish. Typical tastes. Typical expectations. We’ve had better elsewhere, but you can’t really expect much from food court food. The rice to porkchop ratio is poor, but there’s lots of cheesy goodness. The one good thing about this place is that you DON’T have to wait 20 minutes for this baked item, unlike most Hong Kong style café’s.
Ratings:
Food: ⁵⁄₇
Service: ⁶⁄₇
Value: ⁵⁄₇

Baked pork chop rice. That’s all you need to know. Best in town

Can u tell i love to eat at Aberdeen Center?!
I only come to Mambo Café for one thing and one thing only… The Baked Pork Chop! This dish is so tasty, its got rice breaded fried pork chop topped off with sweet tomato sauce and cheese mm can u handle that??? and the funny part is im not even a big fan of HK style food!
This dish passes my taste buds of love!

Mambo Café is located at the food court at Aberdeen Centre in Richmond. Mambo has a Hong Kong café type restaurant menu. There were a number of dishes that interested me here and I ended up ordering the Portuguese chicken. I had seen this dish before at Café Ori in Bellevue, but had no idea what this looked like or consisted of. It turns out this is a baked curry like dish. Anyway, I did not expect that this dish would take so long to be ready. It was at least a 20 minute wait before it was ready, not exactly a fast turnaround time for a food court eatery.
Overall, I was a bit underwhelmed with the dish. I would have liked a better mix of dish to rice ratio. There was also more veggies than chicken in the dish. In addition to the entrée, I got a Hong Kong milk tea, which was just okay. Prices here were pretty good for what you get. Considering the number of eateries choose from in Richmond, I probably should tried elsewhere in hindsight. Mambo Café is okay, but I would have liked to have seen quicker service.

While my friends and I were at the Aberdeen Center… we had a debate: should we do dimsum at Fisherman’s Terrace or should we eat at the food court so we don’t take up so much time? In our group of five, my friend and I wanted dimsum, while the other three wanted fast food. We obviously got outvoted.
My friend and I decided on the Mambo Café — she wanted wonton noodles and I wanted a steamed pork with preserved vegetable rice dish. We figured it looked good and those dazzling television menus can’t sway us wrong, right?
However for whatever reason there was a huge backup and we ended up waiting 45 minutes just for those two items plus our drinks. And they got my drink order wrong. I wanted a cold milk tea (and paid extra for the ice), but they gave me a hot one. And on top of that, our food was really bland.
I guess irony kinda sucks for my three other friends — they were so vehement on maximizing time by eating at the food court it actually took about the same amount of time had we just done dimsum in the first place.