Lin Heung, the real and remote Hong Kong
Yum cha ‐ the southern Chinese style morning or afternoon tea, involves eating Dim Sum (small dishes steamed, fried , or baked sweets) and drinking tea ‐ is one of the most traditional daily activities in Hong Kong, many old people still keep this habit and go to the ‘tea house’ of their neighborhoods, as they’ve been doing for the last decades.
Lin Heung Tea House is one of the oldest in Hong Kong, before changing its previous name to ‘Lin Heung (‘the scent of lotus’ in Chinese)’ in 1889 (Qing dynasty), it was a cake bakery famously known for its Cantonese‐style moon cake filled with lotus seed.
Nowadays, it’s getting harder and harder to find real traditional way of serving Dim Sum like they still do here – a trolley of freshly cooked Dim Sum is pushed out of the kitchen to the middle of the dining area, where usually a crowd of people are already waiting. The popular dishes are normally finished early before noon; and the whole thing runs till 15:00 – if not all dishes run out before.
I just had to go for its fame, and for that I’d never seen ‘Yum cha’ like that.
It was a Sunday, and we arrived around 13:00, were told that not many dishes were left. But lucky enough, the two of us got a table almost immediately, which we shared with about 8 others.
After we ordered tea, the first trolley got out of the kitchen, my Hong Kong friend went chasing immediately, and got a few dishes back ‐ mostly stemmed meat balls and dumplings of different kinds – which were really delicious, explains perfectly the restaurants fame and popularity, but too little, unfortunately, finished by us in less than a minute…
When the 2nd round of trolley tour started, I went for the ‘experience’, but failed totally – the food was out even before I managed to get close to the trolley! And that was the last trolley of that day, what a shame…
It’s a unique experience indeed, such as to watch the local elderly people we shared table with ‐ how they were calmly drinking tea and reading newspaper in the noisy crowds of diners, looking totally relaxed… But on the other hand, it’s just impossible for me to get food there, too sad… Story ends…
Price: HKD 50‐150 per person.
Address: No. 160‐164 Wellington Street, Central, Hong Kong. Tel: +852 2544 4556 