Canton’s Kitchen Dim Sum Expert

No.11 Humphreys Avenue, basement

Tsim Sha Tsui

Hong Kong

Overall rating: 7/10

Date of visit: December 2016

 

As mentioned in my review of Tim Ho Wan, these two restaurants are very similar, except that Tim Ho Wan has a Michelin star and Canton’s Kitchen Dim Sum Expert doesn’t.

In my case, I actually had overall slightly better food at Canton’s Kitchen Dim Sum Expert than at Tim Ho Wan, but a part of this is that I chose different dishes in the two restaurants, so if I had happened to choose other dishes, my opinion might have been the opposite. As far as I could tell, Canton’s Kitchen Dim Sum Expert did, however, also seem to have more dishes than Tim Ho Wan, and unlike in the other restaurant, in Canton’s Kitchen Dim Sum Expert I didn’t have any dishes I disliked.

Anyway, not everything is easy to find in Hong Kong, so this is the facade you should be looking for:

I went here twice, and the dishes I had were:

Black truffle and shrimp dumpling (my favourite dish here):

Another type of dumpling, which I don’t recall the name of, but which was good as well:

Rice casing with deep-fried stuffing. This was very similar to the one I had in Tim Ho Wan, but a bit better here, as the casing was less slimy:

My companion the first time had rice with octopus on top, and steamed buns with barbecue pork:

The second time I went here I had the truffle and shrimp dumplings again (front), as well as steamed shrimp dumplings and crystal buns (right), and lastly baked buns with barbecued pork (left). The latter one were very similar to the ones I had in Tim Ho Wan, although I might prefer the ones in Tim Ho Wan ever so slightly.

The first time the bill for two came to HK$211 (€25.65), and the second time it came to $107 (€13) for one, both times including drinks (soda).

While we’re on the subject of drinks, the restaurant insists on serving tea with the meal, although you don’t want it (and you pay for it). The second time I tried to explain that I didn’t like tea, so I asked if could swap it for a soda free of charge. Due to their poor English they didn’t seem to understand, and they insisted that I payed for the tea. In the end I just said “okay, I’ll pay for the tea, but I don’t want any tea as I don’t like tea”, and then they served me tea.

So, again, the service here wasn’t exactly great. I can’t say if this is true or not, but an acquaintance of mine once said that the service in Japanese restaurants is always great, and the service in Chinese restaurants is always poor. I can only relay what he said, as I don’t have much experience, but I certainly didn’t have anything to complain about after my trip to Japan, and the service I had in Joe’s Shanghai in New York was probably the worst I’ve ever had, but that’s only one place, which doesn’t say much. In any case, the service here was not bad, but not great either.

So, overall a nice Cantonese restaurant at a decent price. I didn’t go to any top restaurants in Hong Kong, as they all seemed extremely expensive, so this restaurant ranks the best among the ones I tried in Hong Kong along with Le Cafe de Joel Robuchon.