Hong Kong’s Lunch Rose 1 Percent

Dim sum is the meal that stayed close to last year.

Yesterday, Hong Kong’s Census and Statistics Department, which tracks what the city pays, said September’s prices were up 1.9 percent from a year earlier. Take out the government’s one-off relief and the rate was 2.1 percent, the figure it is quoting. Meals out and takeaway food rose 1 percent.

Electricity, gas, and water rose 12.9 percent. Transport rose 5.2 percent. What pushed September past August, the department said, was fares in and out of the city, and package holidays.

Lunch rose 1 percent. The power bill and the fare moved more.

One percent is every meal eaten out, a dumpling basket and a hotel breakfast in the same average. The price is whatever that shop printed on the order sheet.

Tim Ho Wan is the dim sum shop at 9–11 Fuk Wing Street in Sham Shui Po. It is on the MICHELIN Guide Hong Kong & Macau 2026 Bib Gourmand list, the guide’s mark for a good meal at a modest price. Weekdays the door opens at 10. Saturday and Sunday it opens at 9. Either way it closes at 10 at night.

Order the shrimp dumplings and the baked buns with barbecue pork. Those are the two the guide names. The meal sits at the inexpensive end of the guide. You pay the figure on the sheet.

Go in the morning, on a day you are already in Sham Shui Po.

Two baskets are lunch. The shrimp dumpling, and the baked bun with barbecue pork.

The sheet is longer than that. Stop unless you are still hungry. A second morning can be the same two, if the first was the one you liked.

If you are in Hong Kong this week, have them in the morning, while you are in Sham Shui Po. The fare, and a package holiday if you bought one, are a different purchase. The dumpling is the bill in front of you.