One Dim Sum, 15 Playing Field Road, Mongkok, Kowloon, Hong Kong

This is in all the guide books, so we had to try it. It’s quite hard to find, the address is a bit misleading, but wander around, you’ll find it. They don’t take reservations, you just wait for a table to be free, but there is a row of stools outside, all occupied by people waiting to be fed.

It doesn’t look like a Michelin starred restaurant, but there’s the little red sticker in the window. When you arrive you tell them your name and how many people, then wait to be called. It can be up to 15 minutes, but we were lucky on both visits (yes, of course we went back!) and were seated very quickly. On the table are two important pieces of paper: the menu, which serves as a placemat, and the green order sheet. You make you selection from the menu, mark it on the order sheet, hand it over and wait. Considering it’s all cooked to order, they are pretty quick, but you do have time to lean back and check out what everyone else has on their table. On both of our visits we were the only Caucasians, but that doesn’t mean everyone else was local. Travelling in Australia and the Far East, we’ve met people from California, London, Indonesia and France, all tourists, but ethnically Chinese.

The menu has all the dishes in English underneath. On each visit we ordered abut 5 or 6 dishes, the most memorable being Steam Rice Noodle with Shrimp and Leek Sprouts, Deep Fried Sesame Balls and all the different Steamed Dumplings.

You’ll find many good reviews of One Dim Sum online, but also a few who say it is now past its best, no longer to be recommended, although these people give no reasons for saying this. I suspect that they mean it’s too well known and popular now, and thus is no longer cool. Well, I don’t care, I think it’s brilliant – and not expensive either – who cares about cool?

Approved. Daisy Solomons, November 2011 & January 2012