Last Supper at Lin Heung

The line outside at 7pm this evening at Lin Heung

Lin Heung Tea House on Wellington Street in Central is considered an institution -- and its history goes back 101 years in Guangdong.

Braised goose webs with mushrooms and cabbage

However it will close in a few days and so my relatives and I made one last pilgrimage here for dinner tonight.

It is typically chaotic in the mornings for dim sum, where not only do you have to fight for a table, or rather a seat where you share the table, but you also have to act like a hunter-gatherer and flock to the trolleys carrying bamboo baskets of steamed dim sum otherwise you'll go hungry.

For dinner it's usually more civilized, but this evening there was a line out the door of people waiting to eat. On Sunday evening we heard the line went all the way down to Stanley Street! Luckily some of my relatives got to Lin Heung early just to grab a table and pre-order some dishes.

Eight treasure duck was very flavourful

However, by the time we were ready to eat, one of the dishes, translated as "gold coin chicken" was already sold out. It's definitely first come, first served here. We could only order what was available so trying to order from the menu was kind of useless.

We managed to snag the eight treasure duck dish that was fantastic -- inside the duck are ingredients like chopped pork, lotus seeds, barley, and salted egg yolk marinated in a thick gravy. Another winner was the steamed minced pork with salted fish garnished with finely chopped ginger strips.

Fantastic deep-fried chicken, a pity only a half portion left

The half portion of deep-fried chicken we were able to get was also excellent with shrimp chips, and scrambled egg with white bait was good too, along with braised goose webs with mushrooms and cabbage.

Other dishes like the stir-fried fish strips were overcooked, while the vegetable dishes like stir-fried pea shoots and vegetables in a broth with vermicelli were lacklustre.

By the time we finished around 8.30pm, we asked about dessert and the waiter said there was only water left, no ingredients like red bean or sweet potato. They really were cleaning out the kitchen larder.

Excellent steamed minced pork with salted fish and ginger

My relatives who had arrived earlier bought some of the restaurant's cookies that are sold on the ground floor so we ate those for dessert. The staff didn't mind that we stayed so long -- the customers were clearing out and even gave us fresh pots of tea.

Everyone else like us were taking pictures of the place, from the menus to the tea pots, the dishes and the dining area. It's not much to look at, but it's a piece of Hong Kong's culinary history.

Apparently from March 1 it will become an iteration of itself with a modified name that will include the words Lin Heung.

But as we all know, that new version could be drastically different.

A station with bowls, plates and tea leaves in the boxes

This past year I've been to a few restaurant closings and it's sad to eat at these places one last time because they are being forced out by the landlords. At the same time there aren't any young people willing to take on such laborious work either. It's our fault for not nurturing the next generation to keep traditional cuisine alive because we don't value it, and instead are always chasing the next new thing.