NG dim Tim

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A friend of mine is moving out of Hong Kong in a few days, and we decided to meet up for lunch.  She had apparently dined at Tim's Kitchen (桃花源) a few nights ago but did not have any of the signature dishes.  I figured she shouldn't leave town without having tasted the goodies...

I arrived to find the lunch menu largely different from the dinner menu I'm used to seeing.  There are two full pages of dim sum items, the page of signature dishes, and a bunch of more "normal" dishes.  Unfortunately for me, a few of the dishes I really liked aren't on the menu today.  We ended up having dim sum for lunch.

My friend took a crystal king prawn (玻璃明蝦球) and a deep-fried whole fresh crab claw with peppercorn salt (椒鹽炸原隻鮮蟹鉗).  I skipped these since I've simply had them many times and wanted to save space for the dim sum items.

Steamed superior fresh shrimp dumplings (頂級鮮蝦餃) - these were OK... the skin was slightly over-steamed and had somehow condensation had settled on it.  I counted 11 folds, but then again I can't count...

Deep-fried crabmeat spring rolls (蟹肉春卷) - failed pretty badly.  While the filling was OK, there simply simply too much oil absorbed into the deep-fried skin.  Instead of being perfectly crispy and dry, it actually tasted like a puddle of oil... Blegh!

Barbecued pork puff (香脆叉燒酥) - I thought this was OK, if somewhat interesting.  The crust was a little stiff and hard.  My friend didn't like it so much.

Pan Fried Turnip Pudding (香煎蘿蔔糕) - it's been a very long time since I've had turnip pudding that failed so badly... While they had tried to stuff it with tasty ingredients like conpoy (瑤柱), the consistency was simply too hard... I felt like I was chewing on a solid block of I-don't-know-what.

Steamed crystal chives dumplings (水晶韭菜餃) - chives were yummy.  Skin was slightly over-steamed but OK.

Steamed chicken with mushroom and fish maw (北菇棉花雞) - this was OK.

Chiuchow dumplings (潮州粉果) - always one of my favorite dim sum items.  Unfortunately we left this one covered for too long, and the heat and moisture got to the skin.

Steamed chicken bundles (魚肚雞扎) - was too full to try out one of these...

A very disappointing meal, so say the least.  I had expected better from a restaurant with two macarons, but as I found out with another starred Cantonese restaurant, the dim sum chef - who is often someone else - may not always have the same level of skills as the head chef.  Valuable lesson learned today: stay away during lunch time, and come for dinner instead.