[Hongkong] The best Hong Kong dim sum

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Best cinematic backdrop: Luk Yu Teahouse
Central's Luk Yu Teahouse retains an Old Hong Kong glamour with its art deco embellishments, retro menu and urban legends. It's no wonder it regularly appears in movies and literature.

First opened in 1933, Luk Yu Teahouse relocated to its current location in 1976. The building’s colonial façade opens to a three-floor restaurant dripping with nostalgia. Eating at Luk Yu is falling through a time warp.

A dim sum meal easily averages more than HK$100 per person per meal. Some customers are paying for the teahouse’s history and ambiance. Others are long-term patrons who stay all day.

Hard-to-find items harkening back four or five decades make up the menu, such as excellent liver siu mai and deep-fried dumplings in soup.

Service is notoriously bad and wait staff are intimidating to non-regulars. So much so that it has become a signature of the restaurant.

Luk Yu Teahouse, G/F-3/F, 24 Stanley Street, +852 2523 5464. Open daily, 7 a.m. - 10 p.m.; dim sum is available until 4 p.m.

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Best hole-in-the-wall: Saam Hui Yaat (叁去壹)
This tiny pearl of a teahouse is tucked snug into the metaphorical buttcrack of a dilapidated stretch of Pokfulam Road.

Old men without shirts seem to be the primary clientele, squeezing into the grime-covered hovel that hasn't changed an iota since it opened in the late 1970s.

As with most hole-in-the-walls, hygiene is questionable, but the bright flavors of the food draw us back again and again. Besides, we haven't gotten sick yet.

Prices are low, starting at HK$9 per dim sum basket -- “dirt cheap” is a more than appropriate description for Saam Hui Yaat.

Anyone tired of the sanitized chain restaurant dim sum experience should make a visit for the har gau, cheung fun and steamed rice dishes.

Saam Hui Yaat 叁去壹, 11 Pokfulam Road, +852 2547 3917. Open daily, 5 a.m. - 3 p.m.

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Best vegetarian for meat-lovers: M Garden Vegetarian
Meat-free dim sum might seem an improbable venture, but at M Garden you won’t even notice the lack of animal on your table.

As with most vegetarian Chinese restaurants, the meat here is replaced with bean curd and mushrooms, but where M Garden stands apart is its emphasis on unusual textures that don’t slavishly try to resemble meat, like the coarsely packed imitation beef balls.

Even more interesting are the standard vegetarian dishes found on every dim sum menu.

Here, the radish cake is made with mushroom and peppers, then diced and stir-fried.

The steamed egg custard buns are made with whole wheat flour, which gives them more heft and a breadier taste than the usual white flour variety.

Prices range from HK$15 to $25 per dish.

Try to get a seat in the sun-drenched atrium, which is much more pleasant than the dreary interior.
M Garden Vegetarian, shop D, 6/F, Grand Tower, 639 Nathan Road, Mong Kok, +852 2787 3128. Open daily, 11 a.m. - 11 p.m.

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Best sense of community: Lam Kee (林記點心)
There’s something about the tile floors, high ceilings and boisterous atmosphere of a wet market food hall that makes a meal more fun than it might otherwise be.

Lam Kee, located in the Tai Po Hui Market’s food court, is a casual neighborhood Hong Kong dim sum spot with simple, delicious fare.

The portions here are small, but also inexpensive -- mostly less than HK$10 -- which allows for plenty of ordering experimentation.

Particularly memorable are the bean curd wraps, which contain an assortment of ingredients that work together remarkably well, like baby corn, taro, chicken and spam.

The black bean spareribs are fantastic and so are the tiny har gau.

But the best part of any meal is the company. At the Tai Po Hui food court, patrons sit in a communal dining area. Neighbors run into each other as they head to the food stalls for a break during a grocery run.

If it's early morning, grannies fueling up for an afternoon of mahjong make conversation over a pot of tea.

Lam Kee 林記點心, shop 8-9, 2/F, Tai Po Hui Market Cooked Food Centre, Tai Po.

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Best taxi driver's pit stop: Yue Fu Kitchen (裕富小廚)
Dim sum 24 hours a day is taken for granted here in Hong Kong. When we get those midnight cravings, Yue Fu is one of our top choices for getting a Hong Kong dim sum fix.

Taxis are parked outside Yue Fu in Tai Wai every night as the drivers have a meal inside -- it's a sign the food and value are both great.

The most expensive dim sum is only HK$18 at Yue Fu. They only serve steamed dim sum and not every dim sum is perfect (forget about the har gau here). But it is the local way of experiencing dim sum that we are aiming for.

Blend in by sitting outside, washing your utensils in hot water and pouring out the water onto the street.

Dim sum to try are steamed rice with ribs and chicken feet, beancurd beef balls, siu mai with quail eggs.

Go late at night for more choices and don't go in big groups as they usually don't have the space to accommodate all of you.

Yue Fu Kitchen 裕富小廚, 1-3 Chik Shun St., Tai Wai, +852 2698 7278. Open daily 9:30 p.m. - 2 p.m.

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Best power lunch: Lung King Heen
As one of Hong Kong's few Michelin three-starred restaurants and a Four Seasons Hotel signature, Lung King Heen enjoys an elevated status.

It's the perfect setting for special occasions: harborviews, central location, crease free white tablecloths. Dim sum as fine dining.

The dim sum menu is full of classics that have been given novel twists. Lobster and scallop in a thin wrapper resemble decadent siu mai. Cheung fun is filled with garoupa. Dumplings are stuffed with duck liver.

The hotel-ness of the place can't be dimissed. Service is a bit mechanical and halfway through the meal, we start craving the controlled chaos of a typical Cantonese restaurant.

But Lung King Heen isn't a typical Cantonese restaurant. It's the kind of place where Jack Donaghy would go for an intense round of negotiations over an aged Pu-erh tea.

Book ahead.

Lung King Heen, Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong, 8 Finance Street, Central, +852 3196 8888, www.fourseasons.com. Open daily, noon to 2:30 p.m.; 6 - 10:30 p.m.

sharonlucky

that's great...