She wants to make pineapple buns as popular as ramen: how Ho Yuen Cafe brings a little bit of Hong Kong’s Lion Rock spirit to Canada

In Vancouver, Canada, a Hong Kong-style cafe offers former Hongkongers a taste of home – think barbecue pork, pineapple buns, instant noodles and egg tarts

Its owner has the DNA to run a cha chaan teng – her father opened one in Hong Kong in the 1960s and brought it to Canada in the 1980s. She continues his legacy

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A pineapple bun with butter at Ho Yuen Cafe in Vancouver, Canada. Founder Conina Mui wants to have a chain of cafes in North America and make pineapple buns and other Hong Kong-style tea cafe favourites as popular as Japanese ramen.
Photo: Ho Yuen Cafe

Bernice Chanin Vancouver

Published: 6:16pm, 15 Feb 2024Updated: 7:51pm, 15 Feb 2024

Inside Ho Yuen Cafe in Vancouver, Canada, hangs a painting.

The image is that of Hong Kong’s Lion Rock mountain nestled between Hong Kong’s and Vancouver’s cityscapes – an illustration of how the “Lion Rock spirit” links the newly opened cha chaan teng with its original in Hong Kong.

The restaurant in Vancouver is bright and cheery, with large windows that let in natural light and a kitchen where the staff make char siu, or barbecue pork, from scratch, as well as pineapple buns and egg tarts.

There are other familiar cha chaan teng staples, like luncheon meat and macaroni in tomato soup, satay beef in instant noodle soup, as well as milk tea, Horlicks and lemon Coke with ginger.

Ho Yuen Cafe in Vancouver, Canada, has a painting on one wall that depicts Lion Rock, a mountain, sandwiched between the skylines of Hong Kong and Vancouver. Photo: Ho Yuen Cafe

Conina Mui Lok-man is the second-generation owner of Ho Yuen, the first of which was established by her father in Hong Kong in the 1960s.