TimeOut: Tim Ho Wan

Photo: Graham Denholme

The eagle has landed. Tim Ho Wan, billed as the world’s cheapest Michelin-starred restaurant, has arrived in Melbourne. Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines.

Now, no one likes a party pooper, but let’s begin this dumpling celebration by noting that this particular Tim Ho Wan – you know, the one on Bourke Street with the queue snaking around the corner to a point on the horizon known as “two hours’ wait” - does not have a Michelin star. That belongs to the original, a tiny hole-in-the-wall joint in Hong Kong, opened by dumpling master Mak Kwai Pui in 2009. The franchises around Asia and Australia (how many are there now? Nineteen? Twenty?) run the same menu but don’t have the Michelin glitter attached to them.

Glad that’s over. Let’s get back to the party. Or at least to the queue. You might well meet your life partner during the wait, but if s/he doesn’t transpire, is it worth it? Well, there are missions with far less merit (waiting for a train on the Cranbourne line, for instance) than waiting for one of THW’s justifiably renowned barbecue pork buns.