Favorite HK dim sum eatery eyes new lease of life

DINERS crowd around carts of steaming dim sum steered by fierce “trolley aunties” at Hong Kong’s Lin Heung Tea House, one of the Chinese city’s most famous restaurants, now fearing for its future.

Lin Heung’s traditional homemade dishes, including cha siu bao (barbecue pork buns), har gow (shrimp dumplings) and ma lai go (Cantonese sponge cake), have earned a loyal following from locals with a taste for nostalgia, as well as inquisitive tourists.

The two-story restaurant in the bustling Central district has multiple top listings in global travel guides and serves customers from 6am until 10pm, seven days a week.

Diners sit elbow-to-elbow at shared round tables, metal spittoons still tucked beside them, the walls hung with decorative bird cages and traditional Chinese numerals used for menu prices.

But the restaurant says the building’s new owner has not yet contacted them about renewing their lease, despite it expiring early next year, and they feel in the dark about the landlord’s intentions.

That has sparked fears that Lin Heung will be the latest Hong Kong culinary treasure to fall foul of the city’s thirst for redevelopment.

The building’s landlord, CSI Properties, said it could not comment on the case.

Lin Heung’s possible demise has been widely reported by local media and worried regulars say they are visiting more often in case it closes.

Retiree Mr Yip, 80, says he is coming as often as he can to enjoy his favorite dish of pork liver siu mai — a kind of dumpling — and freshly made tea.

The city’s housing market was crowned the most expensive in the world in 2017 — the most recent figures available — according to US-based Demographia and developers clamor for prime real estate.

The selling off of older buildings, as well as spiralling rents, has spelled the end for a number of family-run neighborhood favorites across Hong Kong.

Lin Heung is one of the city’s oldest Cantonese restaurant businesses and is run by the Ngan family, who arrived from southern Guangdong Province and set it up in 1926. The Central venue on Wellington Street is its main restaurant and has been there for 22 years.

Restaurant spokesman Terence Lam said the current lease would end in March 2019 and he hoped the restaurant would not have to close. “It’s not only a business. It embodies the legacy of the past,” Lam said. “It represents the hardship of our ancestors.”