Learn how to Eat Like a Native in Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, each twist and switch presents a chance for meals. The town is filled with cha chaan tengs (Hong Kong–type cafés), dai pai dongs (outside hawker stalls), avenue carts, and eateries allotting native specialties, resembling congee and clay-pot rice. 

The town, a shimmering metropolis sometimes called “Asia’s World Metropolis” and the “Gateway to China,” is the place East meets West. Towering skyscrapers stand proudly subsequent to regal Victorian buildings, temples, and compact tenement flats. Neon indicators cling off the buildings, and beneath, double decker buses and trams from the 1900s rumble previous, a reminder of town’s British colonial previous. Hong Kong, a particular administrative area of China, is dwelling to about 7.5 million folks, which include Cantonese locals, Mandarin-speaking Chinese language nationals, expats from the West, and immigrants from different elements of Asia.

The meals, like its inhabitants, is various. Cantonese meals and Soy Sauce Western, a style of Western-inspired Chinese language meals, reign supreme. However you’ll additionally discover an abundance of regional Chinese language cuisines and South Asian, Southeast Asian, Japanese, and Korean meals. At swanky inns, the British custom of afternoon tea—full with scones, clotted cream, and jam—continues. Conventional Cantonese joints dish out clay-pot rice, congee, and noodles, whereas cha chaan tengs serve wealthy milk tea alongside spam and egg sandwiches.

The town’s delicacies, for probably the most half, is a little bit British, a little bit Chinese language, and distinctly Hong Kong. Chef Tony Tan writes in his guide Hong Kong Meals Metropolis, “Whereas it’s plain that Hong Kong is a quintessentially Chinese language metropolis with temples and noodle outlets, it’s also tempered by its British legacy and sensibilities.” 

I grew up in Hong Kong within the Nineteen Nineties, a transformational time for town. After 156 years of colonial rule, Britain returned Hong Kong to China in July 1997. China was simply starting to speak in confidence to the world, and companies and traders flocked to Hong Kong, looking forward to a share of the Chinese language market. Hong Kong—and Asia, usually—skilled fast financial development, and with it got here nice wealth and drastic earnings inequality, one thing that has continued to form the panorama and social cloth of town. Most of the beloved eating places and outlets my household frequented once I was a baby are lengthy gone, changed by newer, shinier, worldwide chains.

Although a lot has modified about Hong Kong, one factor has not: The meals stays glorious and plentiful. Native markets promote recent sugarcane juice and fruit from throughout Asia—ripe Carabao mangoes from the Philippines, pungent durian from Malaysia, and candy, tangy Kyoho grapes from Japan. Moist markets inventory regionally caught fish for pan-frying and steaming, together with grouper, threadfin, and big-eye fish. Meals, for probably the most half, stays inexpensive. A bowl of tender brisket, tendon, and tripe with rice noodles will run you about $12 USD, and a plate of roast goose and white rice prices nearly $8 USD. 

For our second spherical of World Eats—a meals lover’s information to the culinary capitals of the world—I will be your information, sharing a few of my favourite eating places and meals across the metropolis. (You may discover the primary World Eats sequence right here.) A nasty meal in Hong Kong is feasible, however you’d need to strive actually arduous—and if you happen to eat like an area, you possibly can’t go incorrect.

Cantonese Delights

Duen Kee

57-58 Chuen Lengthy Property
Route Twisk
Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong
+852 2490 5246

No web site

This dim sum restaurant is situated on the base of Tai Mo Shan, Hong Kong’s highest mountain. Tucked away within the tiny village of Chuen Lengthy, the restaurant is surrounded by mountains and is a hidden gem frequented by hikers and locals. The restaurant is self-serve: An assortment of tea leaves can be found so that you can brew your individual tea. Stacks of steamer baskets, crammed with Cantonese delicacies resembling pork and shrimp siu mai, beancurd pores and skin rolls, and fluffy barbecued pork buns, are lined up towards pink- and white-tiled partitions. Sit outdoors on the terrace, and also you’ll have the ability to benefit from the surroundings of Hong Kong’s lush mountains.

Snacks & Appetizers

Pork and Shrimp Siu Mai (Steamed Chinese language Dumplings) Recipe

Chinese language pork and shrimp siu mai are a dim sum traditional

“You simply really feel so removed from the chaos of town,” Charmaine Mok, the deputy tradition editor of the South China Morning Publish, says. “They nonetheless do lots of the normal dim sum dishes, like preserved sausage buns. They’ve their very own watercress farm within the again. It’s a healthful expertise and exhibits a unique aspect of Hong Kong, like the character surrounding it.”

Hop Yik Tai

121 Kweilin Avenue
Sham Shui Po, Kowloon
Hong Kong
+852 2720 0239

No web site

Cheung enjoyable (rice noodle rolls) are usually made with rice flour and water, with a small amount of tapioca starch, glutinous rice flour, or mung bean starch for a slight chew. The batter is poured in a skinny layer onto a steamer tray or piece of fabric, steamed till translucent, then rolled into noodles. They fluctuate in form and measurement: At dim sum eating places, the noodles come stuffed and rolled with shrimp, beef, barbecued pork, or youtiao (Chinese language fried dough sticks). One other fashionable methodology is to stir-fry noodle rolls—trimmed into two-inch lengths—with XO sauce and bean sprouts. Eaten as a avenue meals, the rice noodle rolls are often left unfilled and garnished with an assortment of sauces.

Locals and vacationers alike flock to Hop Yik Tai for the cheung enjoyable, that are silky clean—a texture locals consult with as “wat loot loot”—with simply sufficient spring. Slightly cart crammed with recent rice noodle rolls stands on the entrance of the store; it’s manned by a gruff worker with a pair of scissors, able to trim rice noodle rolls to-order. Every portion comes drizzled with sesame sauce, candy sauce, and soy sauce, with a beneficiant sprinkling of sesame seeds. Phrase on the road is that Hop Yik Tai seasons their soy sauce with lard, which supplies the rice rolls an extra richness and savory taste. At Hop Yik Tai, you’ll discover different native avenue meals favorites, together with fish balls and siu mai (pork and shrimp dumplings).

Kwan Kee Claypot Rice

Store 1, G/F
263 Queen’s Highway West
Sai Ying Pun, Hong Kong
+852 2803 7209

No web site

Hong Kong’s subtropical local weather means town’s temperatures hardly ever dip beneath 59°F (15°C). When it does, nonetheless, crowds flock to eat clay-pot rice, a dish of rice steamed and crisped over charcoal stoves. The dish is Hong Kong’s model of a one-pot meal: Assorted toppings like funky preserved pork sausage, spare ribs marinated with black bean sauce, and velveted rooster are nestled onto the uncooked grains. The toppings gently steam because the rice cooks, and the grains on the backside char, forming a superbly crisp crust. 

White Rice

Cantonese Clay Pot Rice With Velveted Hen and Mushrooms (北菇滑雞煲仔飯)

When executed correctly, velveting can render a comparatively lean reduce of meat moist and tender—even after prolonged steaming.

prepare dinner time:


31 minutes

serves:


2

At Kwan Kee, the demand for clay-pot rice is year-round: The queue for dinner begins lengthy earlier than the doorways open at 5:30 p.m. every day, and a few wait so long as two hours for a chew of the restaurant’s well-known clay-pot rice. The restaurant is especially well-known for its white eel clay-pot rice: Plump morsels of white eel are drizzled in fermented black bean sauce and garnished with recent scallions and chiles. The soy sauce, subtly candy and aromatic, has a savory depth that brings your entire dish collectively. Kwan Kee could also be recognized for its clay-pot rice, however I additionally advocate ordering a number of of their glorious aspect dishes, such because the eggplant braised with salted fish or steamed minced pork patty with salted duck egg, to go together with your rice.

Sang Kee Congee Store

7 Burd Avenue
Sheung Wan, Hong Kong
+852 2542 1099

No web site

Sang Kee has been round for the reason that Nineteen Sixties; the congee store operated as an outside meals stall earlier than shifting into its present location within the Eighties. Over the a long time, Sang Kee has amassed a loyal following. The no-frills store is thought for its congee with tender fish stomach, although its congees with beef meatballs and fish balls are additionally fashionable. “Pure, thick, and snowy white with absolutely bloomed grains of rice, Sang Kee’s congee has an class that far exceeds the time period ‘savory rice porridge,’” author Betty Richardson raved within the South China Morning Publish earlier this yr. The congee comes with small bowls of soy sauce with julienned ginger and delicate ribbons of spring onions, however the porridge is so scrumptious you possible received’t want it. Do, nonetheless, order a aspect of Chinese language fried dough—zha leung in Cantonese, youtiao in Mandarin—for dipping.

Rice & Grain Mains

Congee (Rice Porridge) With Minced Pork and Crispy Shallots

A bowl of this creamy, gingery rice porridge is the culinary equal of a heat hug.

prepare dinner time:


80 minutes

serves:


3
to 4

Shui Kee

2 Gutzlaff Avenue
Central, Hong Kong
+852 2541 9769

No web site

This tiny, crowded noodle stall has been a mainstay of town’s Central district for the reason that Nineteen Forties. In 2014, Lam Kin Wing, the third-generation proprietor of Shui Kee, informed the South China Morning Publish that his grandfather opened up the store within the Nineteen Forties, simply after the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong. Positioned in an alleyway amidst the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong, Shui Kee makes a speciality of beef offal, which supposedly comes from freshly slaughtered cows and is rarely frozen. Diners vie for bowls of soup noodles with beef lungs, spleen, or intestines, although cuts like skirt steak and brisket can be found, too. 

Put together to go early: Shui Kee usually sells out earlier than 2:00 p.m., and hungry diners start lining up round 11:00 a.m. Like Sister Wah beneath, Shui Kee’s broth has layers of savory depth, and every sip is infused with the wealthy taste of beef. Additionally price ordering together with your offal soup: A aspect of crispy fried fish pores and skin and a glass of housemade chrysanthemum tea.

Sister Wah Beef Brisket

13 Electrical Highway
Tin Hau, Hong Kong
+852 2807 0181

Sister Wah is thought for its broth, which simmers all day lengthy. After I requested an worker how a lot broth they make every day, they responded: “We by no means cease making broth. We make all of it day lengthy, till we shut.” Clear and clear because the broth is, it’s also deeply flavored—there’s a contact of sweetness, a touch of star anise that provides it a really refined heat, and wealthy, savory depth from beef. 

The store is small and cramped, and in true Hong Kong type, I shared a desk with three different solo diners: two locals and a vacationer, all silently slurping their noodles. The meat brisket, tendon, and tripe noodles right here could very nicely be the very best bowl of noodles I’ve ever eaten in Hong Kong. The tangle of extensive rice noodles was topped with tender brisket, mushy, chewy tendon, and tripe with simply sufficient bounce. The opposite dishes on the menu, such because the wontons, are price ordering, too, however the beef brisket noodles are an absolute should.

Solar Hing Restaurant

Store C, 8 Smithfield Highway
Sai Wan, Hong Kong
+852 2816 0616 

No web site

Solar Hing is an old-school Hong Kong dim sum spot that’s open from 3:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. every day. It’s loud, chaotic, and really Hong Kong: Diners, perched on shabby plastic stools, crowd round small tables as servers shuffle stacks of steamer baskets forwards and backwards. Order the fried milk—a milk custard that’s coated in batter and fried till crisp—a retro dim sum dish that’s hardly ever discovered on menus these days. The tripe, cooked in a light Hong Kong–type yellow curry, is tender and springy. Don’t depart with out ordering one of many mild, fluffy custard buns that Solar Hing is well-known for: Crammed with a salted egg custard that oozes out, it’s a salty-sweet deal with that individuals trek right here for.

Wing Restaurant

29/F, The Wellington
198 Wellington Avenue
Central, Hong Kong
+852 2711 0063

https://wingrestaurant.hk/

After I requested Mok how she thought Hong Kong’s eating scene was altering, she talked about that many cooks and eating places within the metropolis—lengthy enamored with European cuisines resembling French and Italian—have been returning to Chinese language culinary traditions. A kind of cooks is Vicky Cheng, a Canadian-born prepare dinner who’s an alumnus of Daniel Boulud’s legendary French restaurant Daniel in Manhattan. Cheng moved to Hong Kong in 2015 and dove straight into studying every little thing he might about Chinese language delicacies. “He began experimenting and actually started to attempt to perceive what defines Chinese language cookery,” Mok says. “What are the components? What are the strategies? That’s when he got here up with Wing, which is a love letter to Hong Kong delicacies.”

At Wing, Cheng presents a up to date tackle conventional Cantonese dishes. Components native to Hong Kong and southern China star in his cooking: Braised pomelo pith, an area delicacy that’s troublesome to return by these days, is seasoned with savory shrimp roe and served in a luxurious abalone sauce. Threadfin, an area number of fish fashionable in Hong Kong, is steamed and topped with umami-rich salted pork and preserved greens. His signature dish is a “golden crystal egg,” a housemade century egg with amber whites and a jammy yolk, served with slippery Japanese oysters in a housemade chili sauce. It’s, Mok says, a meal to recollect—and one to find time for when visiting Hong Kong.

Yan Wo Dou Bun Chong

55 Jardine’s Bazaar
Causeway Bay, Hong Kong
+852 2808 4738

No web site

Each time I go to Hong Kong, I go to Yan Wo Dou Bun Chong, an eatery that makes a speciality of freshly made soy merchandise. Their soy bean dessert—a silken tofu pudding—is tender and quivers on the spoon. It’s glorious plain with a sprinkling of rock sugar, however is very scrumptious when topped with recent ginger juice for a refined kick. The savory scent of pan-fried tofu filled with fish sausage fills the air, and diners gulp down glasses of recent, nutty soy milk earlier than heading on their manner.

Soy Sauce Western

Cheung Hing Espresso Store

9 Yik Yam Avenue
Glad Valley, Hong Kong
+2572 5097

No web site

Strolling into Cheung Hing Espresso Store appears like entering into the Fifties. The tiled flooring, ceiling followers, and mid-century picket eating chairs give the cha chaan teng a nostalgic really feel. Opened in 1951, the espresso store is fashionable amongst locals for its puff pastry egg tarts and pineapple buns. The egg tarts—crisp, flaky, and crammed with a golden custard that wobbles ever so barely—are the very best I’ve had, and for me, a go to to Hong Kong could be incomplete with out one. The pineapple buns can be found with numerous fillings, together with satay beef or ham and egg, or filled with a beneficiant slab of butter. The scrambled eggs are velvety and scrumptious on their very own, or sandwiched with fried spam between two slices of buttered white bread. I’ve tried to copy the silkiness of the eggs in my very own recipe for the traditional Hong Kong sandwich, although in my trustworthy opinion, nothing will evaluate to the actual factor from Cheung Hing. After all, every little thing should be washed down with a cup of sturdy Hong Kong milk tea. Cheung Hing’s is silky clean, and the evaporated milk’s richness balances the nice bitter, tannic notes of the tea. 

Yee Shun Dairy Firm

506 Lockhart Highway
Causeway Bay, Hong Kong
+852 2591 1837

No web site

Macaroni and ham in soup and French toast drizzled with condensed milk could not sound like meals from Hong Kong, however these native interpretations of Western dishes are cha chaan teng staples. Although Yee Shun Dairy Firm hails from Macau, one other particular administrative area situated an hour away from Hong Kong, the cafe is a Hong Kong stalwart frequented by each locals and vacationers. My mom usually introduced me right here for an afterschool snack once I was a baby, and we’d every demolish a bowl of the store’s specialty: delicate “double pores and skin” milk puddings. The primary pores and skin is the one which types when boiled milk cools; the second is one which types when the pudding—a combination of milk, sugar, and egg whites—cools.

French Toast

Hong Kong-Fashion French Toast

With a custardy inside that oozes peanut butter and a beneficiant drizzle of condensed milk, that is the breakfast of champions.

prepare dinner time:


40 minutes

serves:


4

The puddings can be found sizzling or chilly, and plain, chocolate-flavored, coffee-flavored, or with ginger juice. Ginger juice is my go-to—its heat taste enhances the pure sweetness of the milk. In case you’re within the temper for savory meals, contemplate the macaroni with satay or the Macanese pork chop sandwich, which is de facto simply an excuse to eat a crispy, well-seasoned piece of meat between a toasted bun. Just like the pork chop sandwich at Yee Shun, my recipe for the Macanese dish delivers a chop that is well-seasoned and crisp.

Chinese language Bakeries and Desserts

Conventional Chinese language pastries and desserts aren’t notably candy: They’re usually made with nuts, seeds, beans, rice, and fruits. There are dessert soups referred to as tong sui, which implies “sugar water,” although most of those aren’t very candy in any respect. Most of them use nuts and seeds like walnuts, sesame, almonds, or coconut milk as the bottom. Sago, grass jelly, taro, candy potato, and ginger are additionally different generally used components in cold and hot desserts. Truffles and dumplings like sesame paste-filled tong yuen are often made with glutinous rice flour, giving them a pleasantly chewy texture. Fruits have a starring function, too: Mango, durian, lychees, and longan are particularly fashionable.

C Dessert

Store 1D, G/F, Newman Home
35-45 Johnston Highway
Wan Chai, Hong Kong
+852 2493 3349

When the beloved Hong Kong dessert spot Cong Sao Dessert (“Auntie Cong’s Dessert”) shuttered in 2020, locals mourned. The store provided artistic and up to date spins on Chinese language dessert, together with longan sorbet with jellies and nata de coco and mango milkshake–flavored steamed milk puddings. A lot to everybody’s delight, Auntie Cong returned with C Dessert in 2023. And each night, you possibly can anticipate to see a queue of hungry diners—looking forward to one thing candy—snaking across the block. 

The desserts are daring and flavorful: Creamy durian, candy and funky with notes of gasoline, sits on high of a refreshing mattress of shaved ice. Chilled mango soup with pomelo and sago, a traditional Cantonese dessert, is vibrant and refreshing, with pops of acid from the pomelo. The nice and cozy coconut milk with black rice, taro, and taro rice balls is creamy and comforting, a comfortable dessert greatest loved on a cool night. Eat your manner by means of the menu, and also you’ll perceive why the queue persists night time after night time.

Fook Yuen

7 Fook Yuen St
North Level, Hong Kong
+852 3106 0129

No web site

Fook Yuen is a Chinese language dessert spot famend for his or her tong yuen. It’s tiny and cramped, with barely any room to sit down; nonetheless, folks queue for a style of the legendary dumplings, with some buying a field or two to prepare dinner at dwelling. Their tong yuen is pillowy mushy with simply the correct amount of chew, and each the sesame paste and peanut paste used to fill the dumplings are richly nutty and deeply aromatic, with small bits of nuts and seeds that present a satisfying crunch. 

Kai Kai Dessert

29 Ning Po Avenue
Jordan, Kowloon
+852 2384 3862

No web site

Kai Kai Dessert has been open since 1979, and serves up conventional Cantonese desserts like creamy walnut soup, taro soup with sago and lotus seeds, and aromatic almond soup. (Enjoyable reality: Chinese language almonds, referred to as hung yun, are literally apricot kernels. In case you ever spot “almond” on the menu of a Chinese language restaurant, likelihood is they’re truly referring to apricot kernels.) Since 2015, Kai Kai has been on Michelin’s Bib Gourmand record, making it much more fashionable amongst locals and vacationers. Through the years, I’ve eaten my manner by means of most of their menu, and my favourite dessert from them is the black sesame soup and walnut soup mixture, which lets you get pleasure from the very best of each worlds. Put together your self for brusque service, which is a norm in Hong Kong however could also be thought of impolite by vacationers.

Glad Bakery

66-68 Queen’s Highway East
Wan Chai, Hong Kong
+852 9490 0156

No web site

In July 2022, Glad Cake Store, which opened in 1977, introduced it was closing after their landlords determined to take the house again. Loyal prospects ready to say goodbye, and queued outdoors the mom-and-pop store for the bakery’s well-known horn-shaped cream puffs, egg tarts, and pineapple buns. Happily, Glad Cake Store returned in 2023 as Glad Bakery only a few doorways down from its unique location, and right now it sells most of the similar baked items it offered at its former spot. On my most up-to-date journey to Hong Kong, I used to be fortunate to go to when recent egg tarts had simply come out of the oven—they had been heat and barely candy with a crumbly cookie crust. Don’t skip their cream horns and the fluffy buns coated in salty-sweet pork floss.

Hanging in Hong Kong

It’s very straightforward to get round Hong Kong: The town is extraordinarily walkable, and an unlimited community of MTR subway stations, buses, trams, and minibuses makes it seamless to get from place to put. There’s a lot to do moreover consuming, too: Spend the morning mountaineering the Dragon’s Again, a preferred path in Shek O Nation Park, log on in Huge Wave Bay, or head as much as The Peak for a glimpse of town’s skyline. Or take a web page out of my guide and go on a meals crawl by means of totally different neighborhoods. Wherever you find yourself, one thing scrumptious awaits.