Dim Sum Lunch at Maxim's City Hall (Central, Hong Kong).

Epicurean Exploits - Food and Recipes
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The Alabang Group in Maxim’s City Hall, Central, Hong Kong

My wife and I started eating dimsum at Maxim’s City Hall (in Central, Hong Kong) sometime in 1996, if I recall correctly. It’s not a particularly special dimsum venue (unlike another favorite: Dim Sum at 63 Sing Woo Road, Happy Valley), but very popular with the locals (only one or two members of the staff speak English) and convenient when staying at the Ritz Carlton and more than decent dim sum served the old, traditional way - i.e., in push carts, with the staff hawking their wares as they pass by the tables. It’s a huge place with a nice view of the harbor. The Alabang Group eats here at least once for lunch on every trip. This trip was no different.

We always order the same things, most of which I don’t know the names of since I just point and indicate how many orders of each (fortunately, since the handover in 1997, many locals now speak Mandarin and two of our group do so as well). 10 in all, we were complete during lunch. We had multiple orders of each of the following:

Shrimp Cheong Fan

Baked Pork Puff


This is a lightly battered, deep-fried dish composed of minced pork and shrimp stuffed into a seaweed wrapper. It looks a little bit like nori, but it isn’t nori.

Deep-fried Pork Puff

Egg tarts, taro puff, steamed kailan, steamed bun with a sweetish yellow bean paste, etc.

Xiao long bao, har gaw, some cylindrical fried prawn dimsum served with a local mayonnaise.

Pork spare ribs, I think I heard Willy ordering it as “Pai Gwat”.

Fried milk in the foreground, cuttlefish tentacles behind on the left.

My favorite dessert here, a chilled bowl of taro and coconut cream with sago balls, topped with fresh watermelon bits.

I have no idea what this one was as I didn’t try it. It looks like dessert though.

With the girls around, dessert will always have to include some sort of Buchi.

There was a host of other dishes that Tonji and I weren’t able to get pictures of, such as the Lotus Rice, Ma-chang, etc. Our stamp-card of dimsum orders was so full, they had to give us another one and staple them together. The cards reflected 48 orders from the carts, but didn’t include a few more dishes ordered “off the carts” by Willy.

What a fun, heavy, comfortingly familiar lunch, washed down with some Tsing Tao and jasmine tea. Rejuvenated with the meal, the girls resumed shopping while we guys went our own ways. Boozze and I headed back to Kowloon side for some coffee and cigarettes. A nap was definitely in order as well - after all, we needed our strength for dinner that night.

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Ritz Carlton closed some time ago.

Thanks for reminding me of the restaurant. I haven’t been there for years. Must give them another try when I’m back in HK. For some strange reason I keep going to the Square (I believe also part of the Maxims group) for Dim Sum at weekends.

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Yes, I know it closed. I used to stay there all the time. I mentioned this in my Victoria City Seafood post (yesterday). They are reopening on the Kowloon side. We await their reopening, but I really prefer staying in Central (HK side) over Kowloon side.

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Man… I’ve got to get back to HK sometime…

Maybe we’ll tie it in with our long-postponed visit to see you in Manila! [drinks.gif]

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Wow. All of that food looks delicious. Your posts have been making me really hungry today, LMD. It all looks and sounds wonderful. I’ve got to get to HK.

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Steve and Chris,

Definitely see your ways back to HK. While you’re at it, drop me a line and I’ll try to make it there when you are.

N

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Wow, I wish I were in HK again. FWIW the version I know of the shrimp in seaweed dish does use nori, but no batter. I’ve always found it a very popular dish when I make it.

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Some great photos…I would really like to make it back to Asia (only been to Japan)

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Chris, I highly recommend you go to Yank Sing, off of Market St. in San Fran. They got the Zagat award for “best North American Dim Sum”. I’ve been twice, and it is incredible.