My lunch at Tim Ho Wan ( 8 Kwong Wa street, Mong Kok, Kowloon, Hong Kong) was 44 Hong Kong dollars, the return trip from the Central Hong Kong – more than 200 HKD. (1 euro is 10.8 HKD today). Of course, I could have used the public transportation, but I thought hours of waiting at this one Michelin starred dim sum canteen would be painful enough.
Roughly 4 euros for a meal at an internationally recognized restaurant is surely a good deal, but first, you need to get a queue number and an order form from the not very nice lady organizing the seatings, then you need to wait, sometimes 3 hours they say.
I was lucky, I had to wait for only one hour- arrived at 12 pm, was seated by 1 pm. As I was alone, I had to share my tiny table with another person. You don’t even choose your lunch companions here. You do have a wide choice of dim sum on the other hand- I had steamed fresh shrimp dumplings (18 HKD), steamed catfish and celery with turnip dumplings (12 HKD) and baked buns with BBQ pork (12 HKD).
My favourite was the latter – the buns were so freshly baked, they were almost falling apart and you could also feel cinnamon inside.
To be honest, I didn’t find the shrimp and fish dumplings that spectacular though. They were tasty, perfect dumplings I guess, but nothing to remember. Having said that, I do think that Tim Ho Wan is a very good dim sum place. Is it worth the long wait? Depends on your patience.
