Waited More Than 1 Hour For This!

I didn’t have enough dim sum earlier, so I was always on the search for another good dim sum in Hong Kong before I leave.

There were so many restaurants (and hotels!) that I found on the Internet. Maxim’s Palace, Lung King Heen, Che’s, Yung Kee, Fook Lam Mun, Canton Room, Lin Heung Kui, Sportful Garden, Graces Restaurant, Zi Xing Xuan, Fu Sing, Lee Gardens, Sam Hui Yat, Luk Yu and the list goes on and on.

Almost everyone and their dog said it’s highly recommended. Everything is highly recommended.

Is dim sum in Hong Kong really that good?

There were enough of highly recommended dim sum places to confuse me to start with. So I stopped looking and went to Macau.

And on my way back from Macao to Hong Kong, there were this magazine (can’t remember the name) recommending a new dim sum outlet in Mongkok, which is very near to where I’m staying. It was recently opened by the ex main chef of Lung King Heen and famous for it’s Char Siew Pao. (More info of the restaurant here)

The shop is at Kwang Wa Street in Mongkok and it’s called Tim Ho Wan. The man behind it is Mak Pui Gor.

The very next day, I was outside his tiny dim sum shop. The first thing upon arriving was to get our queuing number and resulted in us waiting for more than 1 hour, at the 5 foot way. The shop is so small that it fits about 20 people at a given time and everyone else (no prizes for guessing) waits outside until your number is called.

Everyone Patiently Waiting For Their Turn - © Bernard Loke

Only 20 People At A Time (Others Wait For Your Turn Outside!) - © Bernard Loke

But 1 hour of waiting didn’t disappoint. I just had the best-est char siew pao in my entire life. It was even better than the one at Maxim’s Palace. Much, much much better.