A quintessentially Hong Kong breakfast

This morning I joined my friend at another stop on her dim sum tour de force.  The venue is one of the venerable names for classic, old-style yum cha: Lin Heung Tea House (蓮香樓).  Curiously, I have never managed to make it here in all the years I have lived in Hong Kong... since I've never wanted to fight the crowd for a seat.  We figured the crowd would be thinner at breakfast. 

One of us arrived and got us seats at 7:30am.  After the full crew had been assembled, the rest of them walked up to the push carts and started grabbing food while I stayed and guarded the table.  I was happy to leave the ordering to the others.

Steamed prawn dumplings (鮮蝦餃) - not bad.  The flavors of the prawns were more pronounced, although in one of the dumplings I found a chunk of bamboo shoots so tough and chewy I actually considered spitting it out...

Steamed rice flour rolls with chicken (雞絲粉卷) - actually very interesting, especially with yellowed chives (韮黃).

Steamed Chinese mud carp dumplings (鯪魚燒賣) - I normally hate mud carp but this was kinda interesting, with a little slice of sausage on top.

Deep-fried tofu skin with prawns (鮮蝦腐皮夾) - this was surprisingly good... especially the prawns.  I normally have low expectations of this dish.

Steamed quail egg dumplings (鵪鶉蛋燒賣) - very old school, with preserved orange rind blended in with the meat ball below the egg.

Steamed barbecued pork buns (叉燒包) - pretty big, but the bits of char siu (叉燒) were lean and tough. I suppose I shouldn't complain too much since this isn't an upscale place...

Mixed offal - there was a variety of goodies here... honey comb tripe (金錢肚), pig's kidney, gluten (麵筋)...etc.  Not bad.

Deep-fried egg cuillers (蛋散) - these were huge... and quite a sight to see someone carrying it from afar.  Not bad... Wish I had more stomach space to take half the plate.

Steamed lotus seed paste buns with egg yolk (蛋黃蓮蓉包) - these were pretty big.  The lotus seed paste was nice, although not as fatty as I expected.  The yolk was slightly dry and flaky.

Pretty full for a breakfast, and a great way to start the day!  I'm glad I finally made it to this Hong Kong institution.  Now if only I could make it to Ocean Park and scratch that off my list...