LockCha Teahouse, Hong Kong by Bilby Blue

Hong Kong – so many restaurants, so many great foodie experiences. It can be a bit overwhelming, but in the green oasis of Hong Kong Park, the LockCha Teahouse is a peaceful refuge from the hurly-burly of Central. It is one of my favourite spots in Hong Kong. So when Rose Pink and I were visiting recently for business, it was the ideal spot for a relaxing lunchtime break between appointments.

LockCha Teahouse, Hong Kong, vegetable beancurd roll

Vegetable beancurd roll

Rose Pink is a true tea aficionado. Her all-time bugbear: restaurants that serve a cup of hot water and a tea bag while lavishing loads of care on producing the perfect espresso. And charging similar prices. All she wants is leaf tea in a proper teapot – how difficult is that? So I knew she would love to visit the Flagstaff Museum of Teaware and the adjoining teahouse.

The museum is housed in the elegant Flagstaff House – built in the 1840s it was the office and residence of the commander of the British forces in Hong Kong. The teahouse is in a separate wing, built in 1995, but in a style sympathetic to the older building.

The LockCha Teahouse has a rather daunting menu with more than a hundred teas, ranging from reasonably priced to very, very expensive. To accompany your tea there is a small range of vegetarian dim sum.

At the height of the lunch hour, we were very lucky that one table was free. Faced with way too much choice for tea, we played safe and each ordered one of the lunchtime specials. I had a floral tea – it was naturally quite sweet and yes, very floral and refreshing.

Rose Pink chose a red tea. It was very dark in colour, but did not taste strong at all. She loved it.

Service was very efficient – our dim sum morsels arrived promptly, so we had no worries about being late for our afternoon appointment. All the dishes were very tasty, and most resembled meat varieties I have eaten at home in Melbourne.

LockCha Teahouse, Hong Kong, vegetable siu mai

Vegetable siu mai looked just like the regular pork siu mai but was meatless.

LockCha Teahouse, Hong Kong, steamed golden mushroom bun

Steamed golden mushroom bun was my favourite amongst our dishes, but I thought bun was a bit of a misnomer as the generous mushroom filling was encased in a relatively thin skin of semi-translucent rice flour dough.

LockCha Teahouse, Hong Kong, steamed bamboo shoot dumpling

The steamed bamboo shoot dumpling looked like a prawn har gow.

The vegetable beancurd roll had a vegie filling wrapped in beancurd skin and was lightly fried (see first pic).