Hong Kong vacation day 4 – Tim Ho Wan

On day 4 of our Hong Kong vacation, the highlight is dining in the famed Tim Ho Wan!

it was our last full day in hk, but we didn’t exactly have much that we really wanted to do, so we went to try our luck at tim ho wan again for dim sum.

my ootd, feel like a sloppy auntie though! necklace from h&m, asos maternity top, Casio watch, demin bag from tough, demin rights from forever 21 and Tory Burch flip flops.

door front of tim ho wan, filled with media articles and food recommendations.

 

address:
shop 8, taui Yuen mansion,
phase 2, 2-20 kwong wa street
mongkok, kowloon

our order chit, with queue no 43 at top right of chit. we arrived when they were serving no 19, and we waited for 1.5hrs before it was our turn. my tip is, go in a small group and there is a higher chance to get tables. or you could take a queue number, and go about doing your things and come back some time later because apparently, you’ll never miss your queue. just keep your order chit with the queue number with you and not lose it because that is the proof they need for ascertaining that your queue nos is legit. they’ll just slot you in as next if your number is over. also, a lot of people give up or leave the place so the queue does jump rather fast once the server ascertains that no one is around when a number is called, so be sure to hang around if you don’t ever wanna miss the queue. if you are in a big group, you can opt to split up so you get seats faster.

the shop space. its really tiny! it sits less than 40 at full capacity.

me and baby. he sits on my lap in the restaurant, and the chef/cooking area to my left.

tight and cosy, I’ll say. but it only took a while for the food to arrive so our hungry tummies didn’t have to wait too long once we were in the restaurant.

steamed spinach dumpling with shrimp. this is rather yummy and I ate 2 of the 3.

steamed dumpling in chiu chow style, or what we locally know it as teochew soon kuay.

I didn’t quite like this though, the ingredients were crunchy and in big chunky bits in comparison to our usual soon kuay so I couldn’t quite get used to it. it wasn’t as sweet as our Singapore version so I am so used to.

steamed fresh shrimp dumpling or commonly known as har-gao. this was fresh, but I’m not a lover (usually don’t eat this) so i don’t find it spectacular.

carrot cake. this is omg soft and good. I could eat 3 plates of this at one go, unfortunately it is not possible. more on this later. poached lettuce. the menu said seasonal vegetables and I ordered it because I havent much vege for days but its quite a waste of my stomach space actually, and moolah. I wouldn’t have ordered if I know it would be lettuce.

vermicelli rolls with fresh shrimp. this is good as well, but nothing overly impressive.

steamed pork.dumpling with quail egg topping. I ordered this because I love love quail eggs but was rather disappointed with this. the quail egg was tough/hard and I could barely taste it.

sweet sago cream with taro. this was ok and passable. again, nothing spectacular.

 

I also ordered a bowl of lean meat and century egg porridge but didn’t take a picture because I was so busy eating, keeping the bub occupied and his hands out of all the hot dim sum, feeding him and at the same time, taking pictures. you can try imagining my octopus act.

 

and oh, if you are wondering.. no. they do not have a baby chair available and the aisles are so tight, you wouldn’t be able to fit one in anyway. the tables are also very very small and barely enough to contain our orders so Der & me were desperately clearing out the food to make space for more.

deep fried seasame balls with red bean paste. ok. this is good and had me wanting more. i wanted to tabao but this is also what pissed me off.

 

I was told that i can’t place any additional orders and if we want to take away, we have to go wait outside, join the queue for takeaways and the wait is 20mins.

 

THIS PISSED THE HUSBAND OFF.

 

well, we asked for chilli oil when our food came, they served us a really pathetic portion that was only sufficient for 2-3 dips. we quickly depleted it with the amount of food we ordered and when  we asked for another, they say each table is only allowed one serving and they have to charge 2HKD for another saucer. fine, we said ok, and they added an order chit to our bill. but when we asked to add food order, they gave the excuse that they cannot add another order chlit to the table. Der retorted that they could add the chilli order chit but not additional food? what logic was that? they were adamant and said we had to wait outside for the new order. seeing his fury at the situation, I decided not to order extras anymore and we promptly paid up and left. still, the husband was really really sore and decided he wouldn’t come back ever if he had a choice.

 

me? i’ll gladly visit the rest of the branches they have.. just to have the deep fried sesame ball and carrot cake. here’s the address of the rest of the branches if you are keen. am not sure about the queues at these branches though. we spent the rest of the day idling away in malls. went to kwai fung area to buy random stuff as Christmas presents but realised the mall changed so much, there’s nothing to buy at all. I ended up doing a gel manicure instead and trooped off to central thereafter.

 

popped into landmark mall to look-see look-see but I ended up spending money on a balenciaga city!

errmm, definitely not the wisest choice to get in hk but then, I’m so in love with the bright color, I didn’t really think that much. besides, I did check out the baleciaga store in sg and they don’t have this color so I guess that’s a consolation right? I’m impulsive that way.

 

hub was v nice to say that it isn’t exactly an impulse buy because I have been lemming for one for a long long while but always manage to convince myself that I didnt need another bag (even in Paris where its super cheap!). I succumbed this time round.

 

we popped over to ifc for dinner and for hubby to grab some music CDs. no pictures of dinner since it wasn’t anything wow. I cannot even remember the restaurant name, some “tasty congee” chain restaurant. ok. hubby just told me its called tasty congee and noodle wantun shop.

baby nomming on a plain croissant.

I was pretty amused by this rectangle toilet bowl in ifc mall that I had to snap a picture. it was a rainy and cold day and we were rather thankful to be hiding in the malls the entire day.

that, pretty much concluded our trip in hk. our last day was spent packing up, popping over to a nearby cha chang teng (teahouse) to bag 2 roasted goose, mtr station to refund octopus card and off to the airport. super mad rush morning. details/pictures in next post.

Here’s more links to our HK vacation;

Day 1 – Hotel check-in, and random shopping

Day 2 – Visiting the wet market, dim sum & hairy crabs

Day 3 – Hong Kong Disneyland!

Day 5 – our favourite seafood stall and homebound!