By Lo Hoi-ying

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Customers have lamented the “end of an era” as Hong Kong’s Metropol Restaurant marked its final day of operation after decades of serving handmade dim sum on trolleys, with the venue set to become a teaching facility under a local university.
Dozens of diners stayed until the end of lunch service on Saturday afternoon to bid their goodbyes to the Admiralty restaurant. Many regular customers shook the hands of staff, saying on their way out: “Thank you for your hard work all these years.”
Diners were seen taking photos around the restaurant and bringing home copies of the dim sum stamp card and menus as memorabilia.
After the kitchen staff wrapped up their final lunch service, they went to the front of the house to take photos with a dim sum trolley specially set up in an area for selfies.

The restaurant offered a special “last dinner set menu” for the farewell, and manager Erica Chan said most of the tables were fully booked.
She added that the company would try to transfer the 100-odd employees to other restaurants it operates.
Tuen Mun resident Dennis Cheng, 51, said he only learned about the closure on Saturday morning and travelled with his family from the New Territories just in time for lunch.
“It feels like the end of an era, restaurants like these with dim sum trolleys are becoming increasingly scarce,” he said. “Sometimes the trolleys offer freshly pan-fried cheong fun or radish cake; it is a fond memory for people my age and I want the younger generation to experience it as well.”

Cheng, who works in the construction industry, said the yum cha experience had changed over the decades.
“Now, we just order everything at one go by ticking on the paper, unlike the olden days when we could slowly choose from the trolleys making their rounds and spend time enjoying the tea,” he said.
He added that with the manpower shortage in the industry, many restaurants switched to using QR codes to place orders and he questioned whether there would be any hospitality to speak of if caterers started employing robots.
News of Metropol Restaurant’s closure emerged in July, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology subsequently confirmed it had acquired the property at the United Centre for HK$354.4 million (US$45 million).
The restaurant, which can accommodate 1,200 people, opened in 1990 and is one of three eateries in Hong Kong operated under the Heichinrou Group, a Japanese brand of traditional Chinese restaurants first established in the Chinatown of Yokohama, Japan, in 1884.
It was also one of the few dim sum restaurants in Hong Kong that still served patrons from trolleys.

Diner Fiona Cheung, 50, who said she had eaten at the restaurant for the past 30 years, was trying to soak up every detail on her last visit.
“My father worked nearby so we would always come here for dim sum,” she said. “It is such a pity and I cannot bear to see it shut down. The food is delicious and the location is convenient.”
Filipino businessman Randolph Edward Salazar, whose office is in the same building as the restaurant, described the Metropol as the regular lunch haunt for him and his colleagues, as he has visited it at least once a week for the past 35 years.
“My favourite dish is chicken feet, and I also like har gao and siu mai,” he said.
As a regular, he has rented out the private rooms for business and personal functions, and his love for the restaurant saw him bringing his family members from out of town for lunch to commemorate the closure.

Eight of his relatives from the Philippines planned their trip to Hong Kong around the meal, heading to the restaurant straight from the airport to catch the final lunch service.
“We have to look for a new place but I don’t know if there would be any restaurant that could replace the food or the quality of the service here,” he said.