The opening of Tim Ho Wan has been one of the most highly anticipated restaurant openings in a while. It's been touted as the world's cheapest Michelin starred restaurant (the original is in Hong Kong) mostly because it's all dim sum style. The first US output opened in the East Village this past week to a insane frenzy. Virginia and I managed to sweet talk our way into the friends and family soft opening before it was open to the general public on Friday. This was all totally by accident. I saw that they were done with construction so when VA and I had dinner plans during the week, I suggested that we give this place a try not knowing that it wasn't really open to the public yet.
I got there late and VA texted me asking if I had made a reservation, which I hadn't (and they don't take them anyways). So when I walked in she told me that we were likely not going to sit because everyone there was part of some private event. But in true VA style, she managed to make friends with the hostess and with a little bit of waiting, we were seated at a table! While this place is all dim sum, it's not like in Chinatown where they have push carts. You order by the menu and they bring it to your table, which is totally fine with me because it actually allows you to get exactly what you want because sometimes with the push carts they don't always have what you want. The prices were all in the $4.00-$5.50 range so totally reasonable. The menu has the usual line up of traditional dim sum - there wasn't anything that I wanted that wasn't on there. We ordered the roast pork buns, rice crepes with shrimp and minced meat, shu mai, hargow, turnip cake, sticky rice wrapped in a lotus leaf and chiu chow dumplings.
Since it was still a soft opening, things were a bit chaotic but once the food came out, it was all good. We started with the roast pork buns, which usually I never order because they tend to be really heavy on the bread but these were really delicious. The break was fluffy and soft and not too dense. The pork was sweet and salty and roasted to perfection. If every pork bun tasted like this, I would totally get them. Next came the rice crepes - which is my favorite dim sum dish, I usually order 2 because I can eat an entire plate myself. It was soft, moist and not too greasy or oily. I still prefer the shrimp one to the meat one but they were both fantastic and really well done. Next came with shu mai and har gow in the steamed bamboo baskets. They were piping hot and super fresh. This is what makes getting dim sum made to order vs. cart better because with the carts you never know how long the dishes have been sitting there for and many times the ones I've gotten can be cold and not very fresh tasting. You can tell that these dumplings were delicately hand made and not some frozen shit thrown into a steamer. The one dumpling I wasn't a huge fan of was the chiu chow but mostly because I didn't like the filling of water chestnuts and peanuts not because of how it was made. The sticky rice was actually my favorite dish of the night - it was a very large portion and perfect texture of rice - sticky but still moist and filled with tender pork and Chinese sausage inside. I was scrapping the bottom of the leaf to make sure that I got every single bite. If there was one slightly disappointing dish of the night, it was the turnip cake. It was a bit undercooked and soft - normally I like it a bit crunchy and slightly burned on the outside and this was missing that element but at least it wasn't super greasy which this dish can easily get.
We decided to end the meal with a dessert, which I normally wouldn't recommend at a dim sum place because dessert is not Chinese people's strong suit. But we decided to try to goji berry jello, which was just eh. I don't particularly love goji berries and the jello didn't have ton of flavor to it but it was a bit of a refreshing palate cleanser.
But now comes the crazy part of the meal. We ask for the check and instead of getting a check we just got a survey and comment card. Waaa?? Apparently the reason it was so crazy and why we technically shouldn't have been seated was because it was truly for friends and family and they weren't charging anyone for the night. WTF?!?! Amazing. I would have easily paid but we literally had no idea how much these were, so we left a $20 tip. I wish I could say these type of cool things happen to me all the time because I blog about food but it was literally by chance and circumstance.
Overall, this place is a hit and the food is way cleaner and fresher than the places in Chinatown. But I had read that on opening day, people were waiting 2-3 hours to get seated which I would definitely not wait around for. Definitely wait until things have died down a bit, but it's a fantastic addition to the dim sum world without having to trek to Chinatown or Queens.
Photo Credit: Yelp
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