If you’re even slightly interested in the delectable delights of dim sum, you’ve probably heard of or perhaps already tried Tim Ho Wan. Starting off as a hole-in-the-wall eatery opened in 2009 by a former Four Seasons chef in Hong Kong, the tiny dim sum shop soon earned rave reviews and a highly prestigious Michelin Star (the most cheaply priced restaurant to ever do so), earning it worldwide fame. Since then, THW has opened in several other countries, including Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia with branches in Jakarta’s Pantai Indah Kapuk and Grand Indonesia mall.
The PIK location, which is a multi-story free-standing restaurant, often has lines of people eager to get their chopsticks on THW’s famous dumplings and signature BBQ pork buns. But for some reason the Grand Indo location hasn’t gotten the same rabid attention.
Having eaten at the Grand Indo branch a few times, I can say the mall outlet maintains the same high standards of its PIK counterpart. But while PIK has a large Chinese population that are happy to indulge in THW’s pork-filled menu, it seems halal options were a bigger concern for Grand Indo’s more mixed crowd shoppers.
In an effort to tap into a larger market, Tim Ho Wan recently unveiled a brand new non-pork menu, full of dishes available exclusively at the Grand Indo branch, which greatly expands the number of choices available for customers.
This is good news even for dim sum fans who enjoy their buns with babi. One of THW’s few weaknesses was its somewhat limited menu, which fit onto the placemats set before each diner. Those placemats are now double-sided, with the pork dishes and those containing lard on one side and non-pork items on the other.
Some of the non-pork items are basically halal versions of THW signature dishes. Most significantly, they’ve created a chicken version of their famous baked BBQ buns,and that frankly, I thought couldn’t possibly compare to the original.
But I was wrong. The bun had the same amazingly crispy yet chewy exterior that remains a marvel of dim sum engineering, and I honestly found the chicken filling to be as rich and moreish as its pork counterpart.
Another one of THW’s signatures reworked for non-pork eaters is the chicken pan fried radish cakes. I felt this one wasn’t quite as tasty as its pork version, probably more due to the lack of lard more than anything else. But the chestnut chicken siew mai were a standout, packed with moist, flavorful meat.
One of my favorite things about THW’s dim sum isn’t even the pork or chicken dishes, but anything filled with shrimp, as the ones they use are consistently juicy, plump and fresh. This can be seen in the new menu’s golden mushroom prawn har gau, which are packed with meaty succulent shrimp.
Other winners we tried from the new menu were the addictive prawn sauce fried chicken wings and the fried seafood balls which is filled with taro mash, shrimp, bits of peaches and creamy sauce (an odd combination of savory and sweet but one that I really enjoyed).
Overall, if you’ve been avoiding Tim Ho Wan because you need to avoid pork, the new menu gives you plenty of reasons to check out this humble yet high-class dim sum shop. And if you’ve already been there before, the new menu’s plethora of choices should give you reason to come again.
Tim Ho Wan
Grand Indonesia Mall
Lower Ground Floor, West Mall
021 23580290
http://www.timhowan.co.id/
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