The cheapest Michelin star restaurant in the world – Hong Kong.

Tim Ho Wan is the cheapest Michelin star restaurant, and a must do on your first trip to Hong Kong.
Tim Ho Wan

Eating Michelin star rated food, in Hong Kong, for little over a tenner. Impossible? Well actually it’s not. Tim Ho Wan is the cheapest Michelin star restaurant in the world – and it’s fantastic.

Tim Ho Wan is an inviting and delicious dim sum restaurant with a few different venues over the city. The menu contains both English and Cantonese with tick boxes at the side of each item. As opposed to telling the waiter what you would like, you simply put ticks in the correlating boxes and hand the slip over once you’ve decided. We visited the restaurant at lunch time, it was very busy but also moving at such a fast pace, people were seated with no longer than a 10-minute wait. We ordered 5 dishes between 2 of us and left feeling suitably full and astounded by an impressive bill of $118HK.

Let’s be honest, the trip wouldn’t have been completed without at least a few steamed items served in bamboo baskets. So, we opted for a portion of shrimp and veg dumplings, and a portion of beef and ginger. The shrimp ones were perhaps my favourite item we ordered. Flavoursome but not overpowering, they tasted fresh and light. The beef and ginger really packed a punch. I loved the ginger and onion in this dish but the ground beef inside just wasn’t to my personal taste.

cheapest Michelin star restaurant
cheapest Michelin star restaurant

I had read that you absolutely cannot come to Tim Ho Wan without trying to pork buns. For the best part of £2 you are served three hot, soft, delicious buns packed with pork in a sticky sauce. Again, the taste seemed to hit the nail on the head providing a beautiful flavour without leaving the strong salty after-taste, which I find that this cuisine sometimes does.

For the 4th dish we ordered turnip cake. This one was a bit of a wild card as I had literally no idea what turnip cake could be; and it’s safe to say it was not what I was expecting. The texture resembled a hash brown and the taste was for sure more fish than turnip. The turnip cake provided a welcome difference in texture and was very dense meaning we were both left with full stomachs!

The 5th and final dish we ordered was barbecued pork vermicelli. This came in a portion of three and was one of the highlights of the meal for me. The filling was rich and tasty; and the carby outer provided structure which allowed me to eat comfortably with chopsticks without ruining my shirt.

The service in this place isn’t fantastic but it also isn’t bad. Similar to most places you will find in Hong Kong. We left with full tummy’s, content from a fun experience and without putting a dint in our bank account. Here is a full itinerary for getting the most out of 24 hours in Hong Kong.

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Tim Ho Wan Hong Kong

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