Lin Heung Update

Lin Heung Tea House was very full for dinner on Monday evening

After we finished what we thought was our last meal at Lin Heung Tea House in Central, our waiter casually let us know that the place would reopen on March 1 as Lin Heung Cha Sutt or Lin Heung Tea Room.

I was very annoyed to hear this as we all thought this was the end of an era, but no -- somehow there was a last-minute reprieve from the landlord, developer CSI Properties.

The place is re-opening on March 1 under new management

Hong Kong Economic Journal reported that some of the staff had bought the franchise from the restaurant owners and managed to get a three-year lease from CSI Properties with rent at HK$400,000 a month.

The staff said they would continue to run Lin Heung like before...

Can they really make the rent, pay staff salaries, electricity, gas, food and so on to make a profit?

First of all, last year CSI Properties seemed reluctant to renew Lin Heung's lease because it owns 90 percent of the building, so many believe it was the end of the restaurant. Why did the landlord have a change of heart?

Second, where did the staff get the money to buy the franchise? They don't seem to be earning super high wages to afford not only the franchise but to take on that kind of a financial risk.

Can the staff keep Lin Heung going another three years?

Third, do they think they can turn the place around just by continuing doing what they did before?

We'll have to see what happens come March 1, but I can tell you I felt cheated that I didn't know the place was going to stay open. So many of us went to Lin Heung to say good bye when in fact there was no reason to say arrivederci in the end.

But why the restaurant is staying open is a mystery to me and time will only tell.

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.

Old School Feast

Lin Heung Tea House is decorated with birdcages and fake birds in them

Tonight I had a taste of some traditional Chinese dishes at the famous Lin Heung Tea House on Wellington Street. My relatives invited me to come along and as the restaurant is known for serving large portions, the more the merrier.

The (large and) healthful pig lung soup!

Our reservation was for 8.15pm and the place was bustling, with every table occupied. There are bird cages hung around with fake birds in them; makes you wonder why they bother, but perhaps they think empty ones are even more depressing?

No one seemed to notice and preferred focusing on their dining companions and of course the food.

Lin Heung is known for preparing dishes that many other places in town don't make any more, mostly because they are labour intensive, not because they are expensive ingredients.

We started off with the pig lung soup that was served in a giant tureen -- so large that nine of us almost had three bowls each. This soup is tedious to prepare, mostly because the lung needs to be cleaned thoroughly before it is put in the soup otherwise it spoils the taste.

The fried crispy chicken was quickly devoured...

The soup also has lots of ground almond, making it milky white, with lots powdery residue, and enhances the taste, along with lean pork. The lung was cut into chunks and dipped in soy sauce had a soft texture.

It's said that drinking this soup helps get rid of coughs, or any respiratory ailments, so we made sure we each had an extra bowl.

Next came deep-fried chicken and it had a gorgeous dark crispy skin, juicy meat underneath. This was no lean bird either, with lots of meat that was very tender.

Another highlight dish was braised pork knuckle that arrived in a massive deep platter, with large chunks of lotus root. The pork knuckle was chopped into large pieces and quite a bit to chew on, but we all loved the sauce and started thinking of how it could be used in leftovers as a sauce with noodles, and adding dried tofu to it to soak up the flavour.

Another excellent dish of pork knuckle with lotus root

This dish was impossible to finish and luckily relatives brought some food containers to take the rest home.

The stir-fried glutinous rice was very good too, just the right stickiness and softness, and included chopped lap cheung, mushrooms dried shrimps topped with stringy fried egg and scallions.

Another highlight was a very large, relatively flat fish that was smoked with tea leaves and served with mayonnaise. Fish this large are hard to find in the markets these days and so this was a treat.

The server removes the bones of the tea-smoked fish

It was cooked perfectly, and had the lingering smoky flavour. It was a big portion, but since it was so good, we managed to polish it off literally from head to tail.

There were also two vegetable dishes, one of pea shoots with Chinese ham, another of Chinese cabbage braised with mushrooms and goose webs.

Finally it was time for dessert, the restaurant's signature baked pudding -- sago with lotus seed paste, that came out more runny than thick. It was very much on the sweet side, but the taste was comforting and old school.

By the time we waddled out at 10pm more than half the place had already cleared out. Another memorable meal sitting comfortably in our stomachs!

Baked sago pudding with lotus seed paste inside

Lin Heung Tea House

160-164 Wellington Street

Central
2544 4556

www.linheung.com.hk