Hong Kong, China
We spent today figuring out how to eat. And, that’s pretty much it.
The weather forecast correctly called for rain off and on all day, so we tried to rush through our remaining outdoor activities first thing this morning. Our first stop was the Nan Lian Garden. The garden featured some traditional shrines with a modern city-scape backdrop. Inside the garden were several distinct areas, including a bonsai tree garden and a Rockery – which, not surprisingly, contained a bunch of different rocks.
Adjacent to the garden is the Chi Lin Nunnery. Several of the Buddhist nuns were walking silently through the garden and others were seen on the nunnery grounds. The nuns all had shaved heads and wore long gray tunics with pants underneath (kind of like the thawb a lot of men in the middle east wear). Inside the nunnery were several more shrines to Bodhisattvas (enlightened followers of Buddhism – kind of like catholic saints). People were solemnly kneeling and praying in front of the gold statues and grounds keepers, directed by the nuns, were trimming trees and tidying up along the paths. Overall, it was a very peaceful, quiet place and if I lived here, I could totally see myself taking walks there frequently.
Or, maybe going all the way and becoming a nun myself. This Hong Kong humidity is not being kind to my curly hair and that bald look with the glasses was pretty fierce.
We didn’t know it at the time, but strolling through this garden was the last time we would have dignity that day.
When travelling, we always plan a base itinerary with MUST DO items and things we’d like to do if there is time or opportunity. My only MUST DO for Hong Kong was lunch at Tim Ho Wan. Tim Ho Wan (which now has several locations – even one in NYC, I think) is a Dim Sum restaurant that has had a Michelin star for years. It is the standard for Dim Sum and no matter which location you go to, you will wait for at least an hour to be seated.
To cut down on wait time, we chose one of the more remote locations (although, Tim Ho Wan is known for being an unassuming, no frills, food-speaks-for-itself kind of place). We arrived at 10:30 am and almost couldn’t find the place because it was SO unassuming. The line going down the sidewalk let us know where were in the right place.
We got in the line and everyone around us had blue paper squares and green rack-cards with Chinese script. Someone very kindly told us we had to check in and get a number on the blue square paper. We exited the line and pushed our way through the dense crowd to the hostess desk. Where she (after ignoring us for sometime – as she was apparently out of blue papers until someone brought her another stack) without speaking wrote down 132/2 and handed us a white rack card that matched everyone else’s green one. It was the English menu with brief descriptions, prices and boxes to check what you wanted.
It didn’t take long to realize that the 132 was our reservation number and 2 was the number in our party. It also didn’t take long to realize that the hostess was calling out reservation numbers in Chinese and there was no way in the world we would be able to hear or understand when it was our turn.
We moved closer to the hostess station in hopes that when she got to our number she might remember our American faces and motion for us. We really had no concept of how long the wait was, so we were fully prepared for the likely situation in which we would stand there for two+ hours and unknowingly miss our number being called.
Luckily, the lady next to me had peaked at our blue sheet and had been listening for our number when it was, in fact, called out in Chinese. “Go. Go!” she said suddenly, pointing at my reservation number and then the hostess.
And that is when the madness really began. Now, of course, I had read some articles and reviews about Tim Ho Wan. I knew it was going to be plain looking, I knew the staff wouldn’t speak much English, I knew the food would be amazing and I knew it was cheap for a restaurant of its caliber. What I failed to understand was exactly how it worked.
See, the prices were SO cheap it really threw me off. The author of the article I read most recently indicated that her table had ordered everything on the (29 item) menu except for 5 things. Another article advised, “Order as much as you can possibly eat.”
The menu itself indicated that when ordering the baked bbq pork buns (a must try according to all the articles and reviews I read) you got 3 buns. This plus the low-cost for such a world-renowned restaurant led me to believe that all the other items on the menu came out as just one piece. So, check the buns box – you get three buns, as it says on the menu. Check the dumpling box – you get one dumpling. Check the vermicelli roll box – you get one roll.
We had filled out our menu card while we were waiting outside before we saw the tables or food inside. Once I had checked all the boxes I wanted based on the suggestions from reviews (bbq buns, steamed dumpling in chiu chow sauce, egg cake etc. . .) I had Josh calculate the total cost. It came out to be around $12 USD. That can’t be right. So I picked a few more things. The total came out to less than $20 USD. Which still seemed ridiculously cheap for even a self-proclaimed cheap Michelin start restaurant.
“Seems too cheap,” I said.
“It’s fine,” Josh said.
“Well,” I said, “let’s just order a few more things. Something from every section and we’ll get some weird stuff like the chicken feet!”
By the time I finished our selection process we had our total bill up to around $30 USD – which seemed reasonable. Josh was in stand back and let me do whatever I want mode, so he just nodded along when I continued explaining my thought process.
“The article I read said they ordered almost everything on the menu, we haven’t even ordered half the items on the menu – I hope we’re not still hungry. I hope no one judges us because we’re not getting two of anything and just sharing.”
So, back to our number being called. We entered the tiny, equally unassuming interior of the restaurant. It was packed to the brim with food and interesting aromas and chit-chat. We were seated at the end of a group table next to a young Chinese women, her parents and her Australian boyfriend/friend.
We sat silently with our menu card on the table as the server brought us chopsticks and sat down two glasses and a picture of hot tea (hot tea is the default free drink here instead of ice water like at home).
As we waited, I looked around at the other tables nearby. People’s dishes had multiple dumplings and egg rolls. I thought, Oh, they must have marked that they wanted four dumplings. Those are small. I knew we should have ordered two.
The nice family next to us could see we had no clue what we were doing so the Australian guy showed me a photo he had taken of their full table when the food arrived and described some of the dishes.
All their dishes were pretty decent portions and had multiple items on each plate – too. Again, I assumed because they specified it that way on the menu.
They continued to be so nice and helpful. After sitting for 10-15 minutes with no service, our tablemates let us know the server wouldn’t come take our order without being called. We flaged her down and told her we were ready. Just as the server picked up our marked menu order, the Australian guy remarked on how much food they had, “Im so full. We ordered like seven dishes!”
Wait. What?
But, it was too late. The dishes immediately started coming out one-by-one. First, the three bbq pork buns. They were crispy on the outside, soft on the inside and the bbq was sweet and gooey in the best way possible. Next came a steamer basket with our dumpling. I opened the basket and the steam and smell of shrimp and spices filled my nose. Then I noticed there were four dumplings inside. Hum, I thought, we didn’t order four. The came three spring rolls. Five chicken feet (or phoenix talons as the table menu said).
Four wontons in chili sauce.
A whole bowl of spare ribs in black bean sauce.
Four chiu chow sauce dumplings.
Three turnip cakes.
Three beef vermicelli rolls.
Three pieces of tonic medlar cake (like jello dessert squares with herbs and small dates inside).
A whole cereal bowl full of pork and egg congee (like oatmeal soup).
A huge portion of fried noodles.
A plate of wilted lettuce in sauce.
And a two-person sized piece of egg cake – which I thought was a side dish but was basically like a second dessert.
I was mortified. Our table was too small to hold all the food and the Australian guy and Chinese mom had to move their bowls over to make room for our stuff. The Chinese mom looked at the plates and steamer bowls stacked five high, “You sure this is your order?”
She wasn’t the only one staring either. We had twice as much food as the family of six on the other side of us and some of the people behind Josh were laughing. Haha look at the chubby Americans. They’re eating all the food. Save some for the rest of us. oink oink – is what I am 100% sure they were saying. And, they weren’t wrong.
We, literally, ran out of room on our table!
We couldn’t even enjoy tasting the food because we had to shove the egg rolls and the dumplings down our over-fed American gullets just to make room on the table for more steamer baskets – which were stacked so high, I couldn’t even look over them to see Josh’s “I told you so” face.
We ate as much as we could, but the piles of food seemed to keep growing and growing. Looking around, Josh noted everyone was clearing their tables. No one was leaving food behind. Not sure if this a is a cultural thing (like it’s rude to leave food) or if it’s just because this is a great restaurant and were you to order a normal human – not hippo – sized portion, you’d want to eat it all. As the Australian guy left, he leaned over and said, “they have take away boxes, if you ask.”
There is literally nothing that screams American abroad more than a to-go box. Well, that, and two people eating enough food for fourteen.
We were in the restaurant forever, but we were making progress and I was not asking for a take out box. So, we ate until we couldn’t eat anymore and then we resorted to hiding food.
Under napkins. Under noodles. Sunk like the titanic in the oatmeal soup. I discretely mashed up delicious, but now cold, turnip cake and snuck it in the steamer box next to the untouched phoenix talons – which I put to my lips but just couldn’t get any further in (at the end of the day, they are still just chicken’s feet. Fancy feet, but still rough, boney feet). After we ate all we could eat and we hid all we could hide, there was still ample food left on the table. It had been hours. We had to leave the restaurant.
So, I made the ask. And, we strolled back to the hotel, umbrellaless, in the pouring rain – like the tears of Rick Steves – with our styrofoam box of yankee-doodle shame.
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