Tim Ho Wan // $3 Michelin Dim Sum

Tim Ho Wan
Address: 9-11 Fuk Wing St, Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong (Other Locations Available)
Price: $

[wp-review] This little dim sum joint, camouflaged in one of Hong Kong’s homiest neighborhoods, Sham Shui Po, is where you can snatch up a 1 Star Michelin meal for under $10. Tim Ho Wan may look like your average mom-and-pop dim sum restaurant, but take one bite and it can change your standard of dim sum for life. Sink your teeth into the roast pork bun with a crispy outside and juicy inside or try their rice noodle that’s so soft it’ll practically glide down your throat and you’ll know what we mean.

We also visited Tim Ho Wan at their Olympic City location which had a much more trendy interior but we were met with a much longer queue likely because this location is more popular for tourist. Although the Sham Shui Po location is the original holder of the Michelin title, both locations were equally satisfying in their offerings.

A must-try, is their roast pork bun (pronounced char siu bao) which unlike your traditional steam buns, this one has a flaky exterior (similar to a Pinaepple bun) giving it a crispy texture you won’t find anywhere else. Once ripped open, you’ll expose the roast pork bathing in juice with the consistency of jam but much more savory and tasty.

Another dish that really wowed us, were the steamed rice rolls (pronounced churn fun). These rice rolls come stuffed with roast pork (char siu churn), ground beef (ow churn), whole shrimps (har churn) or fried dough (ja lurn). The key to an excellent rice roll is the texture of the wrap which should be thin, soft and smooth and Tim Ho Wan’s rice rolls were the best ones we’ve ever had.

We also tried stuffed eggplant (yeung kei ji), a typical go-to of mine when having dim sum. This dish consists of soft eggplant stuffed with fish paste that is then fried and topped with a thick garlic and oyster sauce mixture.

Unlike the larger dim sum restaurants we are use to where “dim sum ladies” cart around a trolley carrying different sort of dim sum for you to choose from, Tim Ho Wan provides a paper menu where you check off the items you want and you simply submit the paper to the waiter to have them bring it out to you.

The dim sum here ranges from $16 to $30 HKD which is relatively low in price and much less than other dim sum locations we’ve been to.

What to Order