Tim Ho Wan - New York

For Beep Beep’s 40th birthday, we went to New York. This is my second time in the Big Apple. This visit around, I was scammed, spat on and subjected to pornographic language. For this post, let’s listen to JAY-Z and Alicia Keys – Empire State of the Mind. As this was Beep Beep’s trip, I told her to pick all the restaurants and the itinerary. The restaurant she was most excited to try was Tim Ho Wan – the cheapest Michelin star restaurant in New York.

I’ve been excited to try this Dim Sum spot, labelled as the ‘cheapest Michelin-starred restaurant in the world‘, since it opened in December 2016.  Horror stories of insanely long lines kept me away till now.  I stopped by around 2pm on a Tuesday was told that the wait would be 30 minutes.  You can leave your number they’ll send you a text when your table is nearly ready.

Last month New York received America’s first branch of Tim Ho Wan, a Hong Kong based Dim Sum specialist known to foodies as the “cheapest Michelin starred restaurant in the world.” As you can imagine with anywhere that includes the words “Michelin Starred” and “Cheap” the waits immediately became ridiculous. How bad is it? THW opens at 10 for lunch and 5 for dinner. Our designated line waiter (thanks NYCFoodFomo! arrived in line at 9:15am, had his name taken at 10:15 only to have the three of us sit at one of the last lunch seatings at 1:15 PM. So currently think of dining at Tim Ho Wan as a half day commitment.

I’d been hearing a lot about Tim Ho Wan, the dim sum restaurant on 4th Avenue in the East Village that’s been called “the world’s cheapest Michelin-starred restaurant.” Tim Ho Wan is the first US location of the Hong Kong-based restaurant chain. One with legendary waits. I decided to venture there at opening time (10 am) midweek and wait, while reading my next book group book, that is if the lines were reasonable. I was so lucky as there were no lines; I was seated immediately.

I visited a dim-sum restaurant in New York called Tom Ho Wan, and I can honestly say it was the greatest dimsum i've ever had in my entire life. I'm normally not a huge fan of dim sum, but my aunt took me here because she was really craving it. When we first walked in, they said we had a 3-hour waiting period. However, we stuck around and not even 10 minutes later, they grabbed a table for us. Our waiter was a really nice handsome gentleman, and throughout the entire night he joked around with us and always had a great attitude with him. The food they served us was DELICIOUS! It was by far the BEST dimsum I have ever eaten in my entire life, hands down. The whole vibe in that restaurant was really nice, and this one french toast dessert they had was absolutely tasty. It still hurts me that I cant find it anywhere else because I really miss the taste of it!