Even though it has been around in HK for a while now, people still line up for it constantly and you can just imagine the same thing for the Manila franchise. Yes, a queue builds up and sometimes get three rows deep but if you arrive early enough or late enough to avoid peak dining hours, it is relatively easy to get a seat. We did just that and had early lunch at 11 AM. Although there was already a sizeable crowd dining inside, we were still seated right away.
The interiors are nothing special, but they are clean and well lit. It seems that a lot of these new hip Chinese restaurants are using dimsum baskets as lighting ornament. It's not the first time we have seen that, but still a fun sight to look at.
It is worth noting that despite diners constantly arriving and multiplying as the peak lunch hour was nearing, the service was really fast and efficient. They'd give you paper to fill out your order in, just make sure you look at where you are putting a check mark on as we made a mistake in ours. LOL. Anyway, the food is always made after you order so one can imagine that serving time would take a while, but our food didn't really take more than 5 minutes to get served.
Tim Ho Wan has a pretty compact menu, so if you are in a good sized group you can probably order everything off the menu and share. And the other great thing about its menu is that nothing is prized over 200php! Pretty affordable especially for a place like this.
On to our orders. Tim Ho Wan has what it calls the Big 4 Heavenly Kings, which are sort of their best and recommended dishes. We ordered a couple of those and some other items in the menu.
Baked Bun with BBQ Pork (3 pcs). 145php.
If you've seen blog posts or even just IG posts about Tim Ho Wan then I'm sure you've seen the popular Baked Buns. These kind of remind me of asado siopao except that they are baked instead of steamed and that the pork inside is sweetly flavored. We liked it and it was great to eat while still hot. The sweetness can be toned down a bit though.
Steamed Egg Cake. 85php.
The Steamed Egg Cake on the other hand was nothing special. It had a spongy texture and slightly sweet taste that sort of resembled the puto that is hawked on the streets. Not the round sticky ones, but the triangular ones that are mostly dry.
Prawn Dumpling. 160php.
In most local restaurants, we know this as Hakaw. But in THW calls it the Prawn Dumpling, and it makes me wonder why they didn't take the Hong Kong name for it which is Hargaw. That aside, this has got to be most plump and shrimp filled Hakaw we've had.. ever! And we loved that the wrapper didn't break easily as is the case for most other times we've had hakaw.
Pork Dumpling with Shrimp. 150php.
Siomai, what more can I say? It tasted good and had a good sized shrimp in the middle of the pork, but it wasn't really that special. This was the deal breaker for Kim since she loved the original version in HK and described it as the best siomai she had ever had.
Spring Roll with Egg White. 120php.
I was totally surprised when I took a bite out of this. I was sort of expecting something in between Max's Fried Lumpiang Sariwa and Dimsum Break's Spring Rolls. This was so far off those two. I'm not saying it tasted bad, just that it wasn't the taste I was expecting. To be honest, it really didn't taste like anything. The egg white was too weird in texture which does not go well with the deep fried dumpling.
Chicken, Sausage and Mushroom. 170php.
So we got confused during marking our orders on the order slip they provided that we ordered the wrong thing! We wanted to order the Rice with Beef and Fried Egg, but ended up checking the box for Chicken, Sausage and Mushroom. Good thing, it tasted good or else we would have really been disappointed. It was mostly chicken though, with a couple slices of sausage and one mushroom.
Overall, it was a great dining experience. The service was great, and so was the food.. well, mostly. But I think we just needed to order something else aside from the Siomai and Spring Roll, since those were just a little too bland or normal tasting for us. We'd probably try to eat here again, as the menu is really affordable and each order is good to share for 2 or more people.
Tim Ho Wan
Tim Ho Wan
Ground Floor, Fashion Hall
SM Megamall, Ortigas
Mandaluyong City
