Tim Hon Wan, Hong Kong
Best Of Hong Kong Dim Sum
Hong Kong offers some of the best cuisines throughout all of Asia. With many fantastic restaurants scattered throughout the city, it is impossible to not find a great place to eat. What is hard is finding a place that is delicious, and affordable. Dim Sum is a style of Chinese cuisine typically prepared in small bite-sized portions of food served. It is sort of like the Asian equivalent to tapas. I love eating at dim sum restaurants because they offer a chance to try a lot of different things, and the food is simply delicious! Throughout my six weeks in Hong Kong, I found three delicious and affordable dim sum restaurants that you have to try on your next adventure to Hong Kong.
#1 Tim Ho Wan
Tim Ho Wan is an incredible place to experience a Michelin star restaurant on a budget! This delicious dim sum restaurant now has multiple locations throughout Hong Kong, and has expanded with a new location in New York City! Hungry tourists will line up outside Tim Ho Wan for as long as 90 minutes to get a taste of their delicious BBQ pork buns.
Finding the Tim Ho Wan location can be a bit tricky. There is a location inside the Central MTR station. It is Shop 12A and on Level 1 of the IFC Mall. Easy way to find it: Follow the signs to the High Speed Train that goes from Central to the Hong Kong Airport, then go down the stairs one level. That should bring you to the correct floor and location where the restaurant is.
Make sure to get to Tim Ho Wan EARLY! They have a strict policy on when the stop taking orders. Check for current closing times, but when I was there they stopped taking orders around 8:30PM-9:00PM.
Service will not be great here, and there will certainly be a wait, but the food is absolutely worth it. A meal here will cost around $10-$18 depending on how hungry you are! Grab at least an order of the pork buns for yourself because trust me, you won't be sharing!
#2 Gut Gut Dim Sum
If you want to escape the tourists and find a place off the beaten track where the locals go, you've got to try Gut Gut Dim Sum. Finding this place was even harder than Tim Ho Wan, but the food was equally as good. You will find no English on the menu here. We got lucky when a nice man who spoke some English helped us order. But honestly, that is part of the fun of eating in real Asian restaurants! Not knowing exactly what you're going to get can often expose you to new foods that you wouldn't have thought to try. At Gut Gut they have all the classics like Sui Mai, shrimp spring rolls (Best I've ever had!), and pork buns. But they also have many more options!
Gut Gut Dim Sum is the name we found on the Hong Kong version of Yelp, but you won't find that name anywhere on the restaurant sign. That was part of what made this restaurant hard to find. The other is that it is literally located in a side alley off the main road that we kept looking for it on. To get to Gut Gut, take the metro to the Ngau Tau Kok station. Exit B1. Walk east on Ngau Tau Kok Road. Left on Luen On Street, Right on Yee On Street, turn left at the first alley.
Definitely, make a stop at Gut Gut Dim Sum. A meal here will be a little cheaper than Tim Ho Wan, maybe in the $8-$14 range. It offers fantastic food and an authentic local vibe you won't get at the tourist traps in the city.
#3 One Dim Sum
One Dim Sum is another option similar to Tim Ho Wan, but will be a different version of the same dim sum dishes. Each time we went, there was at least a 30 minute wait. When you arrive, find the host inside and they will give you a number. Stay close by so you do not miss when you're called! Definitely get orders of the sticky rice and the shrimp rolls.
It is probably the easiest of the three to find. Take the MTR to Prince Edwards, go to exit B1, make left turn. Turn left on Tung Choi Street. It will be on the right side.