Tim Ho Wan: Dim Sum Specialists
“tim ho wan deserves the scrutiny over its michelin star.”
Those who grew up with Asian heritage like me may have very fond memories associated with the Cantonese specialty of dim sum. For my family, it was a Sunday brunch with the extended family at a small, unassuming shop called Mark’s Duck House in Bailey’s Crossroads in Northern Virginia. When it comes to Chinese food in particular, there’s an unspoken rule that the less visually appealing and clean the restaurant, the more delicious and authentic its food — and Mark’s Duck House was no exception to the rule. For those yet accquainted with it, traditional dim sum is comprised of several small dishes that are mostly either fried, steamed, or baked. They’re kept warm inside the very bamboo or metal baskets used to cook them in and wheeled around on carts pushed by servers who solicit your order by pushing the cart past your table. Often times, the waiter or waitress knew just enough of other languages to understand if you were looking for a specific dumpling or steamed bun, but otherwise, the universal “point-at-what-you-want” never fails. At the restaurant I grew up at, there were circular tables for larger parties and a humongous Lazy Susan on top so that dishes could be shared by spinning it as we ate. It was at these Sunday dim sum brunches that I was introduced to some of my most favorite foods and also some of the strangest ones I have ever had by my now 94-year old grandma: chicken feet, shredded beef tripe, and century egg. Of course, there are the innocent looking staple dishes like har gow and siu mai shrimp dumplings or steamed BBQ pork buns that we enjoyed too. Perhaps it’s my nostalgia talking, but when I remember those dim sum days I recall a certain warm feeling that reminded me of home cooking and family. Something about spinning the Lazy Susan and picking individual pieces of food to share or the process of asking my dad to order something off the cart because I was too shy to point at it myself made dim sum a certain special dining experience that no other restaurant or culture can emulate.
This is where Tim Ho Wan’s overzealous commercialization comes in and changes everything. The original Tim Ho Wan was a 20-seater restaurant in Hong Kong founded in 2009 with the expressed dream of “keeping the tradition alive for an affordable price.” Within a year of opening, the restaurant had earned an unprecedented and highly coveted 1-star Michelin rating for its cheap, high quality food. Springboarding off of its newfound fame, Tim Ho Wan expanded its reach by opening a multitude of restaurants in nine different countries including the U.S., Japan, and other parts of Hong Kong and in doing so, increased its prices while sacrificing quality where it mattered most. The location in New York’s East Village demonstrates a perfect example of this.
The storefront itself remained closed more than 20 minutes late after its supposed 11:30am opening time — the peak lunch rush in a busy borough like Manhattan, forcing my travel buddy and I to go visit another restaurant to tide us over before we came back to Tim Ho Wan (luckily, Ippudo actually opened on time right across the street). The inside of the store itself was bright and airy with several small tables designed to fit 2-4 spread out across the dining space. A waitress came by to take our order on menu we checked ourselves in pencil and handed to her: one order each of chrysanthemum tea, har gow, siu mai, and baked pork buns. To my surprise, I was not able to find deep fried taro dumplings or beef tripe on the menu — all favorite foods of mine for dim sum. When asked for, our waitress replied that they didn’t stock those dishes (insert incredulous eyebrow raise here). Thankfully, the food came out quickly. To those of you who think I’m about to absolutely tear into Tim Ho Wan for having lackluster food, you’d be only half right. The har gow and siu mai were certainly fresh - their shrimp fillings perfectly tender and seasoned with a dumpling wrapper that was not overly chewy (a common sign of frozen dumplings that have suffered microwave burns). The baked BBQ pork buns were perhaps the most interesting dish we ordered. Usually, pork buns are steamed with a white, fluffy outside. These buns were golden brown and solid casings dusted with sugar, the inside of each bun filled with piping hot, tangy BBQ-marinated pork pieces. Chrysanthemum tea is a traditional pairing with most dim sum because of its naturally sweet fragrance and flavor. Whole dried chrysanthemum flowers are steeped in boiling water until the tea becomes a distinct golden color. Sometimes, rock sugar is added to help the hot beverage cleanse the palate of the oil and fried dim sum. On this day however, our tea came in a packet. The flavor of the tea was strange - almost stale and without a hint of the familiar fragrance I had learned to recognize no matter which restaurant I was sitting at. To add to our disappointment, no rock sugar was provided for us to salvage our $6 pot of tea.
That pot of tea summed up my Tim Ho Wan experience in a nutshell. Despite its decent food, the lack of more authentic variety on its menu in favor of “American-recognizable” dishes combined with the missing food trolley and Lazy Susan made Tim Ho Wan seem like it was appealing only to a Western audience and not willing to tap into the very elements that make dim sum so nostalgic and unique for those fans who truly appreciate it for what it is. Even the layout of the restaurant felt like a whitewashed version of what a Cantonese diner would have been like. In a melodramatic sort of way, the restaurant in the East Village felt like a betrayal to all of us who had enjoyed dim sum before and grew up with it.
Truthfully, I was really excited to try Tim Ho Wan because a good friend of mine (whom we’ll call affectionately “Korean Kasparov” for his ethnicity and chess prowess) recommended it to me when he heard I was in New York City. He too is an avid restaurant reviewer and equal appreciator of good food (and thankfully recommended Ippudo to me as well to salvage my walk to the East Village). Unfortunately, Tim Ho Wan neither lived up to K.K.’s hype nor its supposed 1-star Michelin rating. In K.K.’s own words upon hearing my disappointing time there, “Sadly, this restaurant’s impression as a dim sum establishment has transformed to ‘sum-ting dim.’”
For those who are looking for a dim sum brunch to remember, this really isn’t the place you want to go for your first time or even for a good time. The experience was underwhelming and lacking in authenticity and its pricing was far too expensive for its portion sizes. Come visit Tim Ho Wan if you want to check off that you’ve visited a Michelin star in name only, because you’ll be a far cry from having a true Michelin experience by coming to this purported “dim sum specialist” chain.
Food Quality: 7.0/10
Meal Value: 5.5/10
Dining Experience: 6.0/10
Overall: 6.2/10
