Yum Cha – Central, Hong Kong – The Beer Drinking Vegetarian

A mid-week lunch at Yum Cha – Central – a lunch from which TBDV walked away extremely satisfied. Dim Sum style ordering, prompt service, tasty food, and no MSG – sounds good. There are a couple of caveats at the end of the post.

On to the meal:

Curly Kale with Pomegranate – HK$59. Clean tasting, fresh, light but a little underwhelming to be honest. Could have been a touch more substantial?

Hot and Sour Soup – HK$59/bowl. Good. Very good. Neither too hot nor too spicy. Was tempted to order a 2nd bowl.

Black Truffle Vegetable Dumplings – HK$49. Exactly what it says on the can. Not the most memorable dish, but pretty tasty

Seasonal Bak Choi with garlic – HK$79. Fresh, fresh, fresh veggies – crunchy, not overdosing on garlic.

Salt and Pepper Tofu – HK$69. Crispy n the outside, soft and gooey on the inside. Nicely seasoned, but a little on the bland side.

Penang Rice Noodles – HK$99. Sautéed rice noodles with bean sprouts, mushrooms, peppers. Again, felt like it was missing something.

Spicy Wok Fried Rice Rolls- HK$69. This really hit the spot, flavourful, perfectly seasoned, not too spicy, very moreish.

So, a good meal all-in-all – tasty, prompt, fresh. One thing that was a bit irksome was that although there were vegetarian options for many of the dishes, these were priced the same as the “regular” version. To use the example of the Penang noodles above, one pays for the sea-food noodles, but receives vegetarian noodles that were not designed to be so, and therefore lacking in flavour. For $99. As a result, the meal ended up being a touch on the punchy side price-wise.

Having said all of that, this is definitely a restaurant that TBDV would head back to.

TBDV Rating: 🍺🍺🍺🍻

Categories:Hong KongRestaurant Review