Hong Kong has been best known for it’s east-meets-west culture. In terms of dining, you can find the latest dining cuisines while there’s also options for the most traditional ones like the oldie Yum-Cha. Yum-Cha is properly the most popular kind of cuisine the locals like me preferred, it’s not just simply dim-sums but also represents a lot of Hong Kong cultures, people goes to Yum-Cha will enjoy the time altogether, chattering, and just let the world goes round while enjoying the tea. However this traditional Yum-Cha culture is fading fast in Hong Kong, as Hong Kong people’s lifestyle changes and the emerging Gen-Ys, new modern Chinese restaurants and fast-foods open to adopt the new trend. It’s less and less people nowadays would like to just sit down and spend a few hours for just that a few Dim-Sums.

The iconic Lung Mun's red building and neon sign, with another Hong Kong icon - trams.

Checkout my gallery of Lung Mun Restaurant.

Earlier on this week, I have got the news of Lung Mun Restaurant (龍門大酒樓) (Location), one of the last few old-style traditional Yum-Cha restaurant, will be fall on the history river on Nov 30 2009. So I’ve paid a special visit to it to keep it’s last moments. This is one of Hong Kong’s traditional icon first opened its doors on 1949, renowned for its iconic red building, neon lights sign, “Dai-Baos” (Large steamed buns filled with chicken, mushrooms and preserved eggs) and charcoal roasted Cha-Siu.

Dai-Baos - one of the most well-known item of Lung Mun.

Of course for the Gen-Y peoples like me, will never like the dining environment as Lung Mun can offer – fainting, Chinese hanging lamps, heavily worn-off wallpapers and paints, the noisy atmosphere, and mostly the self-service basis Yum-Cha – that is, to get Dim-Sum, you will need to walk out to the “Dim-Sum Corner” or “Dim-Sum Station”, and yell to the staffer for the dish you want, wait him to grab it for you and stamp your “Dim-Sum Record Card”. You’re then need to grab the greasy dish back to your table by yourself. In some cases, if you’re not fast enough, fresh and popular dishes like their signature “Dai-Baos” will always out fast and you’ll need to wait and bet your luck for next round. This is why traditional Yum-Cha is so important to Hong Kong’s culture – modern Chinese restaurants will never offer anything like that – brightly lighted atmospheres, and people will never need to rush for their dishes – to order, just mark the things you liked and hand to the waiter and you can only need to sit-back and relax.

Check below of my video on Lung Mun:

During my short visit, probably due to newspaper’s report on Lung Mun’s closure, there’s people photo-taking around to keep it’s last moments, especially with Lung Mun’s signature items like it’s 1960s first-generation cash register, “Lung Mun” sign written in Seal Script (篆書) and it’s wooden handcrafted wall decorations.

1960s first generation cash register.

"Lung Mun" sign written in Seal Script (篆書).

I mostly likes it’s Siu-Mai and Beef Balls, they’re large and filled. But their Shrimp Dumplings are a bit small for me.

This week there has been news of names of Hong Kong pop culture passing away, like actor Mr. Chan Hung-Lit (陳鴻烈) and voice of RTHK Mr. Chung Wai-Ming (鍾偉明). I am suddenly feeling Hong Kong’s old traditions are wearing off fast. So don’t waste every moment you’ve gone through, it’s always memorable.

Further reading: Read more about Lung Mun Restaurant as CNN Go reports it’s closure.