Dumplings, noodles and turnip cakes can be yours as Hong Kong’s Tim Ho Wan arrives in town
NO ONE LIKES a party pooper, but let’s begin this dumpling celebration by noting that this particular Tim Ho Wan – you know, the one on Bourke Street with the queue snaking around the corner to a point on the horizon known as “two hours’ wait” – does not have a Michelin star. That belongs to the original, a tiny hole-in-the-wall joint in Hong Kong, opened by dumpling master Mak Kwai Pui in 2009. The franchises around Asia and Australia run the same menu but don’t have the Michelin glitter attached to them. But back to the queue. Is it worth it? Well, there are missions with far less merit than waiting for one of THW’S renowned barbecue pork buns. They sound like Hong Kong’s answer to the Frankenfood craze – sugar-dusted buns filled with a jammy filling of savoury barbecue pork – but they’re really very good. They’re baked rather than steamed, and the featherweight pastry makes good sense with the dusting of sweetness. More traditional dumplings come in the form of the arrestingly translucent casings containing a garlicky spinach and some shyly hiding shrimp meat (we say nix the prawn and give it to the vegetarians). There are vermicelli rice noodles flapped around nuggety bits of barbecued pork doused in a sweetish soy with mystery ingredient (the waiters are efficient but sure don’t like to divulge any trade secrets), and some ugly duckling beef meatballs on strips of bean curd that are a taste revelation, all ginger crunch and fresh coriander. Spring rolls aren’t your typical fried stodge either: the frying is clean and the filling is mostly a custardy eggwhite, which lessens the usual post-spring roll recriminations. And do check out the pan-fried turnip cakes, gelatinous wobbling things with a good smoky char that are really a vehicle for the relish-like chilli sauce.