Claustrophobia has no place at Tim Ho Wan. Come prepared to sit elbow to elbow with strangers and accept that you will spend the better part of your meal listening to your neighbors chew.
The service is not good. You will wave your arms with the fervor of one conducting an orchestra, and if you wave any harder you might be able to fly away. The lactic acid will settle into your arm before you get attention, but fear not. Your food arrives shortly after you turn in your order slip, and your entire order will be met.
Don’t get snooty - there’s literally no room for your indignation here. These are just the things that make dim sum...dim sum, and all this happily buzzing, crowded joy simply completes the experience. Anyone who thinks dim sum should be ritzy hasn’t had real dim sum.
The menu is impressive, and I dare you to think of a staple that they don’t serve. You will know them all and you will want them all. What you get will be all those those things you know and love at their very best. They are familiar and entirely recognizable but they will be so much better than any iteration you’ve ever eaten.
Starting with my absolute favorite; I live for Shrimp Dumplings, and I’ve never seen anything so succulent. The crystal wrapper fits firmly around each ball of shrimp, embracing the curves and crevices. The al dente is impossible perfection and although it squishes and stretches, it never falls apart.
Everyone else’s favorite: the steamed pork dumplings, aka Shu Mai. They’re meaty and dense, heavy with a savory filling ten times what the size would suggest.
Steamed Egg Cake. A barely-there sponge, fluffy and hardly sweetened. It melts in your mouth in a puff that channels Japanese cheesecake.
The Vermicelli rolls with the soy sauce punches and slides down with a single slurp. These rice noodles are chewy and slick, and the shrimp inside is super fresh.
Crispy Beef Brisket with and essential mustard sauce. The mustard is a mildly bitter and robust. It cuts the fat because that’s all this brisket is. Decadent and delicious but too rich for more than a nibble.
These are the Baked Buns with bbq pork that put this place on the Michelin map. The pineapple crust is divine, and the bun shrouds the melty, juicy pork like a cloud.
I’ve had “turnip cakes”, but I’ve never had Turnip Cakes. Turns out they’re not just amorphous squares of bland AF gelatin. They’re supposed to be loaded with chunks of fresh turnip, glued together with a little gel, sweetened and brightened by snips of dried shrimp. I know what turnips taste like, but these cakes are a whole new world.
Another favorites: the Steamed Beancurd Roll, and this is the first one I’ve had that I can is legitimately fantastic. It’s chewy tofu skin filled with ground pork and veggies that crunch, doused in a viscous brown sauce.
Steamed Rice has the most amazing texture in a steaming, stainless steel bowl. The ground beef on top is tender like the inside of a xlb and soft like meatball frosting. It only gets better when the egg melts and the yolk mixes in.
Chicken feet are optional, but the Spareribs are non-negotiable. Off-the-bone morsels do require a little cartilage crunching and bone spitting, but it’s all good gristle and fun.
Dessert comes in the middle of breakfast and not a moment too soon. Deep Fried Sesame Balls take it up a notch, featuring a custard cream filling deep in egg yolk.
The damage: 280 hkd. For all that. It’s barely $40 US at the market rate of exchange, which will barely buy you a meal at Red Lobster in the states. This is the best thing about Hong Kong; you can mix up the Michelins and eat like a king for a ton of money or hardly any at all.
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