Tim Ho Wan quickly became a household name. Its opening saw long lines at all hours and intense media attention. Replicating the same taste of its Hong Kong counterpart, it was an unbridled success. Tim Ho Wan’s first international restaurant opened at Plaza Singapura in 2013. The humble ‘hole-in-the-wall’ eatery in Hong Kong started to bring its delicious and affordable, dim sum restaurant overseas, with its first international location in Singapore. The accolades for serving superb food at affordable prices soon followed. More restaurants opened, each earning its own Michelin star. A year later, they would earn their own one Michelin star. This rating is based on the Good Food Guide scoring system.Tim Ho Wan opened their first dim sum restaurant in Mongkok. Terry Durack is chief restaurant critic for The Sydney Morning Herald and senior reviewer for the Good Food Guide. THE LOW-DOWN Best bit: The foodie chats you have in the queue Worst bit: Service struggles to keep up Go-to dish: Baked bun with barbecue pork, $6.80 for three I'm just not convinced it's worth the queue. So, yes, Tim Ho Wan is over-hyped and over here, but it's still worth a visit for the curiosity factor, the undeniable freshness of the food, and The Bun. With two more Sydney venues coming, as well as a Melbourne outlet, they'd better get their systems sorted pretty fast. The floor around me is littered with dropped paper serviettes, and tables are slow to be cleared, prolonging the queue even further. My menu card doesn't make it into the "system" for 20 minutes, while those behind me in the queue are fed before I am. Service is a real issue, and I'm not sure it isn't worse a few days after opening than on opening day itself. Cheung faan with pig's liver (listed here as vermicelli roll, $7.50) was leathery on the liver.
A bowl of steamed rice with sausage, chicken and mushroom ($8.80) felt dry and lifeless. Wasabi salad prawn dumplings were unrewarding, deep-fried and striped with wasabi mayo ($7.80). Other offerings are more miss than hit, or just plain old average. It's rich, and sweet – scandalously so – but that doesn't seem to stop anyone from devouring them. Spring rolls ($6) are flat, flaky and filled with a prawn and egg white mousse: a highlight.Īnd then there's The Bun ($6.80 for three), a golden, tanned orb of awesomeness: the pastry crust remarkably fragile and flaky-soft, the barbecue pork inside saucy and satiny. Braised chicken feet in abalone sauce ($6.20) are toe-lickin' good, and pai gwat, those slippery little pork ribs in black bean sauce ($6.80) are steamy and tender. The classics – siu mai ($7.20) and har gau ($7.80) dumplings – are done well and are notable for their top-grade prawns. As in Hong Kong, you are handed a pick-and-tick menu card as you arrive, and the food comes as it is cooked. The 100-seater corner outlet is clean and bright, with a mix of banquette and small timber stool seating. With Eric Koh, former dim sum chef of Mr Wong in the kitchen, I'm curious enough to add to the dragontail of a queue twice in the space of a week. Now Sydney's first Tim Ho Wan has steamed into town, landing at Chatswood's new Asian-inspired food court, The District, in the perfect storm of social media frenzy, orchestrated publicity and dumpling love. Tim Ho Wan is now touted as "the cheapest Michelin-star restaurant in the world", and queues form in Singapore, Taipei, Hanoi, Kuala Lumpur and Manila at the mere mention of its signature sugar-dusted, crisp-crusted, baked barbecue pork bun. Chef Mak partnered with the Singapore-based Hersing Corporation, renowned for its "aggressive strategy of growth", and things went ballistic. Then the Michelin Guide gave little Tim Ho Wan a Michelin star, in order to make a bit of a splash for its first Hong Kong guide. I wasn't blown away but it was good on quality and value. Chef Mak Kwai Pui simply did old-school yum cha that reminded me of how yum cha used to be, when prawns were prawns and dumplings were steamed to order. Tipped off by some local mates that the dim sum chef from the elegant Lung King Heen at the Four Seasons had struck out on his own, I took my number and waited for an hour and a half outside the first, tiny (20-seater) Tim Ho Wan in Mong Kok.
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