I have been here enough to know "Who's the boss?"
I've conducted a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) shop searching in Chinatown. The criteria were preparation techniques, cleanliness, storage methods, freshness and most importantly, customer service. Tak Sing Hong went pass my usual place for TCM - Winseng and 5 others on my list.
I always treat TCM as an alternative medicine to western medical practice. It's nothing new to me as Mr. Gong 龔大夫 put 2 fingers on each of my wrist to "read" 把脈 my signs of weakness and wrote a prescription. For thousands of years, that's how it's done.
He took the formulary to the counter, while shopkeepers open the drawers of dried herbal medicines. They measured each ingredient and placed on the assembly sheets proportionally.
Unlike other herbal medicine shops, you have to call for doctor's schedule. Mr. Gong works in the shop as a helper when he's not seeing a patient.
Traditionally, this dried medicine is to be brewed in a clay pot over simmer mode. It takes very long time to avoid getting burned. Lucky me, I got a 啞巴媳婦 medicine brewing robot to help me brew to the perfection.
Other than TCM, Tak Sing Hong store sells loose tea leaves, imported candies, preserved fruits and vegetables, ingredients for variety of tonic soups, high-end ginseng and birds' nests, as well as ready-made Chinese medicines. There's staff that speaks Vietnamese, Mandarin, Cantonese and English. read more