Hop Won Chinese Noodle Shop
139 East 45th Street
New York, NY 10017
https://hopwonrestaurant.netwaiter.com/
Telephone: (212) 661-4280/867-4996
Fax: (212) 867-0208
Open: Sunday Closed/Monday-Friday 10:00am-8:45pm/Saturday 11:00am-7:30pm
My review on TripAdvisor:
Hop Won Express at 139 East 45th Street
On my travels to the Turtle Bay neighborhood, I came across a little gem of a restaurant tucked into the office buildings that line the border of Turtle Bay and Midtown East. Hop Won Chinese Noodle Shop is located in a series of small mom and pop restaurants in what is left of the brownstone section of the neighborhood. The rest of the street had been leveled for new office towers and this small strip of restaurants is what remains.
Hop Won appears small from the outside but the restaurant is rather large in the back with lots of nice seating to enjoy your meal. The front section of the restaurant is where you do your ordering and during the lunch rush most entrees are prepared ahead of time and ready for office workers to dash in and out. If you have the time, try to eat in the back of the restaurant and sit in one of the cushioned chairs. On a hot day, the air conditioning works so nicely, and the restaurant is such a pleasure to dine in.
The inside of Hop Won Chinese Noodle Soup
The food is terrific. I had lunch here a couple of times and the restaurant is less Cantonese ‘take-out’ food and concentrates more on barbecued meats, noodle soups and dishes accompanied with rice. It is more of a Chinatown restaurant in the middle of Midtown. The smells of the roasted meats make them mouthwatering, and you really want to concentrate on them when you first visit the restaurant.
The Roasted Duck and Roast Pork at Hop Won are delicious
The Roasted Meat combination platter makes a good lunch/dinner combination.
My first trip to the restaurant, I had the Boneless Roast Pork Combination platter with Fried Rice and an egg roll ($10.75) with a Coke. The roast pork was delicious with a smoky flavor due to the red soy marinade and a finishing of honey. Each piece was perfectly roasted and had a nice, lacquered color to it.
The Boneless Roast Pork is so succulent here.
I had to admit that they were very generous with the portion size as well and it must have been about a half pound of meat on the plate. The Vegetarian Fried Rice was perfectly cooked with slivers or small pieces of vegetables studded in the dish. The egg roll was pretty standard but still good.
The egg rolls are delicious.
On my second trip to the restaurant, I concentrated on the roasted meats again and had the Roast Pork and Roast Duck combination platter with White Rice ($10.00) with a Coke and a side of Wonton Soup ($3.00). Again the roasted meats were perfect marinated and lacquered.
The roast pork had a succulent red color to it, and you could taste the salty soy sauce in it. The roasted duck had that lacquered crisp skin on the outside and moist sweet duck meat on the inside. It was a nice contrast in flavors with the white rice. Again the portion sizes were very fair and filling. It was so good that I had it a second time on a recent visit.
The Boneless Roast Pork with Pork Fried Rice and an Egg Roll
My most recent trip for dinner, I had the Boneless Roast Pork with Pork Fried Rice and an Egg Roll. The portion size was extremely generous and the roast pork had a nice rich flavor to it accompanied by more chopped roast pork both in the egg roll and in the fried rice.
The Wonton Soup is rich but a bit salty. It has a deep meat flavor as you can taste the boiled and long simmering chicken in the broth. You got two Wontons in the small portion, and they were very generous in size and had a nice filling of ground pork.
They have a wonderful Wonton Soup.
On my most recent trip while walking the Avenues of Midtown East, I had the Sweet & Sour Shrimp Combination lunch with a Coke ($11.00). The Shrimp was very fresh, and they gave me about eight pieces of these lightly tempura battered shrimp in a pungent sauce that was not sweet. Their fried rice is very good, and the egg rolls here are pretty standard. The one thing I like about their combination lunches is the generous portions at a fair price.
The Sweet & Sour Shrimp with Pork Fried Rice
I wanted to try something different on my recent trip to the restaurant and was disappointed by the Chicken and String Beans combination platter ($11.00). It just looked off. The chicken was cooked in a black bean sauce which explained the weird color of the dish and the strange dark things in the food. The string beans were so over-cooked that they were dead. They were so mushy. The fried rice was listless. It tasted okay but this is not the quality I had had on previous trips. I know a restaurant can have an off day, but this was strange.
On another trip months later, I ordered the same dish, and it was delicious. The chicken was so tender and juicy and there was a lot of it in the dish. The string beans were perfectly cooked and snapped when you bit into them. It was served with a brown rice with small pieces of egg and vegetables. The egg roll that was part of the combination plate for lunch ($10.00) was fried crisp and filled with shredded vegetables. I thought any restaurant can have a bad day and this trip made up for the other.
The Chicken and String beans was good
They made up for it on a recent trip I made to the restaurant when walking Central Park South my main blog, MywalkinManhattan.com. I had the Beef and Broccoli with Fried Rice and an egg roll combination platter ($10.00). It was wonderful.
On a cold day, the dish came out steaming hot and loaded with pieces of tender beef and chunks of well-cooked broccoli in a combination of Soy and Hunan sauce. It had a nice pinch to it. The egg rolls this time was a little better than the last few trips in. It had some pork in it.
The tender Beef and Broccoli with an egg roll.
The prices have gone up in late 2022 and the combination platters for lunch and dinner have gone up to $11.00 (in 2024 to $12.00) and the soups have gone up a dollar. On a cool November night, I had the Cantonese Wonton Soup with Noodles, Wontons and Roast Pork with an egg roll on the side and a Coke. Talk about delicious.
The Cantonese Soups are a meal onto themselves
The Chicken broth was rich and flavorful and was loaded with ingredients. The large bowl of the Cantonese soup was loaded with chopped Roast Pork, thin egg noodles and five large wontons that looked freshly made. It really warmed me up and helped me get over a cold. At $15.00 is was a bit more with the add ons but was well worth it.
I recently had to make a quick trip into the City and stopped by the restaurant for a quick lunch/dinner and the food is always great. I had the Beef and String beans with an egg roll and it was delicious. Thin slices of beef with lots of freshly cooked string beans with a side of fried rice makes the perfect meal on a cool day. The combination of the black bean sauce with the soy sauce made for a good combination.
The Beef and String beans were delicious and hit the spot.
The service here is very quick especially at lunch where they seem to have it down as a science to get customers in and out. The family still eyes you as a new customer and I can tell they are trying to figure out if you are going to be a repeat customer. Still, they have been very pleasant on my trips to eat here.
The prices have gone up again to $12.00 for the combination plates in 2024. It still is a good bargain and the portion sizes are generous.
Dining on a Shoestring in the New York City area and beyond. 
Don’t miss Hop Won for their roasted meats and noodle soups.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on mywalkinmanhattan and commented:
Don’t miss this Midtown East tiny Chinese restaurant for excellent food, generous portions and good service.
LikeLiked by 1 person
In 2022, the prices have gone up a bit but there are still reasonably priced with combination platters being around $11.00 and the the soups at $11.00-13.00. An egg roll is still $2.00.
LikeLiked by 1 person