【港妳知】Hong Kong food: 40 dishes we can't live without【Part 1】

【港妳知】公眾平臺為你提供最地道的香港資訊

Hong Kongers have a passion reserved just for Hong Kong food that eclipses their love for politics, shopping, gambling, and even -- gasp -- stocks.

This city is home to some of the most food-obsessed people in the world and produces an alarming array of food items ranging from the stubbornly traditional to unself-conscious fusion foods, each more drool-worthy than the next.

Here are a selection of 40 Hong Kong food items that make us rather not live than live without:

1. Hong Kong-style French toast

Unlike its more restrained Sunday brunch counterpart, Hong Kong-style French toast is for when you're stressed out and looking for a warm, deep-fried hug.

It's two pieces of toast slathered with peanut butter or kaya jam, soaked in egg batter, fried in butter and served with still more butter and lots of syrup. Too much of this will send you to an early grave, but it's the perfect comfort-food combination of simple flavours and textures: sweet and savoury, soft and crispy.

Try it at Lan Fong Yuen, 6 Gage Street, Central, tel [phone].

2. Scrambled egg sandwich

On paper, an egg sandwich doesn't sound very noteworthy. After all, it's just fried egg in between two pieces of soft white bread.

No big deal, right?

Ah, but that would ignore the genius of a good Hong Kong line cook, who can somehow turn an egg into a fluffy, finely-layered gem of stomach-warming goodness. A classic egg sandwich should be plump, full of eggy flavour and light, not greasy.

Most people swear by the Australia Dairy Company, 47 Parkes Street, Jordan, tel [phone],Australia Dairy Company Appreciation Group Facebook page, but our favourite is the Kwong Sing Café, 10 San Shing Avenue, Sheung Shui, tel [phone].

3. Stinky tofu

No doubt you will have heard or read about the stench emanating from one of the strangest foods to come out of this part of the world.

But nothing can really prepare you for the stink. Smelly tofu, like durian, is one of Asia's most iconic "weird foods."

The stench is a result of fermentation of the tofu and it is such an overpowering smell you'll be hard-pressed to shake it off for months to come. But Hong Kongers really love that stink. Well, most Hong Kongers.
Follow your nose to Delicious Food, shop 10, G/F, 30-32 Nullah Road, Prince Edward, tel [phone].

4. Hong Kong style-cheeseburgers

Dirt-cheap, kitschy and consistently delicious, Denmark Cake Shop’s Hong Kong-style cheeseburgers are reminiscent of the good old days pre-McD domination.

The rundown eatery’s HK$9 burgers don’t fit the burger archetype, but it’s just as good, if not better: it’s palm-sized, minimalist (ketchup, home-made mayo, half a slice of processed cheese) and is encased in a slightly sweet Hong Kong-style butter roll.

The patty is heavily seasoned and moist, attracting lines of schoolchildren since the shop opened in 1972.

Denmark Cake Shop, G/F, 106 Leighton Road, Causeway Bay, tel [phone].

5. Sweet tofu soup

Sweet tofu soup is one of those deceptively simple Hong Kong food dishes whose potential for satisfaction far outweighs the complexity of its ingredients.

One of the best places to try it is Kin Hing, a lean-to stall in the countryside of Lamma Island that is run by an elderly couple who serves nothing but "dau fu faa."

It's smooth and soft, doused in a lightly sweet syrup and sprinkled with yellow sugar; the sharp sweetness of the sugar complements the musty soya flavour of the tofu.
To get there, walk from Yung Shue Wan towards Hung Shing Yeh "Powerplant" Beach.

6. 『Pineapple' bun

The boh loh baau (literally meaning "pineapple bun") is the holy grail of what may generously be termed the Hong Kong school of baking.

It's firm on the outside, soft on the inside and topped by crunchy, sugary pastry. Popular enough to have been exported around the world -- step into a Chinese bakery in Toronto, Taipei or Tianjin and you're likely to find one -- it's ubiquitous in Hong Kong.

It's the perfect complement to milk tea, especially if you have it with butter, a variation known as boh loh yaau.

Try it at two Mongkok cafés that are known for their buns: Kam Wah, 47 Bute Street, Mongkok, tel [phone] and Hong Lin, 143 Tung Choi Street, Mongkok, tel [phone].

7. Chicken feet

So it looks awful, but once you get over that, what is there not to love about chicken feet?

Just like head cheese or coq au vin, Cantonese-style chicken feet is a perfect marriage of thrift and culinary genius. Euphemized as "phoenix talons" in Chinese, the chicken feet are typically deep fried then stewed in a blackbean sauce.

The cartilage softens to a melt-in-the-mouth consistency and great practice is needed to spit out the little bones in that dainty manner perfected by grandmas in dim sum restaurants across town.

Lei Garden skips the deep-frying and stews their chicken feet in abalone sauce, resulting in a wholesome, more texturized Hong Kong food treat.

Multiple locations, see website for details www.leigarden.hk.

8. Miniature wife cakes

As much as we love traditional Chinese pastries, their heavy combination of lard and sweet pastes made from various beans and roots don't exactly make for easy snacking.

Luckily, Hang Heung has come up with a solution to that problem: miniature wife cakes. Wife cakes have a flaky skin made from pork lard and a firm, chewy filling made with almond paste and winter melon.

The combination of the pastry and mellow winter melon sweetness makes them particularly tasty, while their bite size makes them particularly digestible.

Hang Heung, 64 Castle Peak Road, Yuen Long, tel [phone]

9. Ginger milk curd

Spicy, creamy, soupy -- this is wintertime dessert at its best (though it's good in the summer too). Made by gently simmering sweetened milk and then mixing it with fresh ginger juice, which causes the milk to curdle, 'geung tsap dun nai' has a soft pudding-like texture not unlike tofu.

The local branches of Macau's Yee Shun Milk Companymake a mean version of this timeless Cantonese treat.

Yee Shun, 506 Lockhart Road, Causeway Bay, tel [phone], and various other locations.

10. Five-layer roast pork

A great piece of siu yuk should have a top layer of crackling skin, then alternating slivers of fat with moist meat, and a final salty-spiced layer at the bottom.

Euphemised as five-layer meat, the morsels are served with sharp yellow mustard to cap off an overwhelming experience of textures and flavors all rendered from a humble slice of pork belly.

Lei Garden's siu yuk hits the spot every time. Multiple location, see website for details www.leigarden.hk.

11. Indonesian satay

When they're brought to your table on a miniature charcoal grill, the Shatin Inn's fatty, tender satay skewers sizzle in a very satisfying way.

But it's the experience of eating them outdoors in a time-warp restaurant that makes them especially worthwhile.

The Inn is a roadside restaurant that dates back to the days when going to Shatin meant a big journey over the mountains and out to the country. Though it's now surrounded by roads, it retains a homey, rural atmosphere.

The Shatin Inn, 7.5 Miles, Tai Po Road, Tai Wai, tel [phone].

12. Meat mountain

Steamed meat cake -- a mishmash of ground pork, mushrooms, water chestnuts and preserved vegetables, seasoned with simple soy sauce and sesame oil -- is a staple of Cantonese home cooking.

At Man Seng, the staple is transformed into something more remarkable: a veritable meat mountain. With feats of culinary magic known only to the cooks (don't bother asking for details -- trade secret), the half-foot-high pile of meat is somehow tender, succulent and evenly cooked.

Man Seng, 16 Wun Sha Street, Tai Hang, tel [phone].

13. Cantonese preserved sausage

Some Chinese sausages can be heavy on the salt and spices, but Cantonese laap cheung is a perfectly well-proportioned mix of slightly-sweet pork fat and meat. Rose water and rice wine gives it a pungent edge and soy sauce serves as a salty counterpart to the sweetness.

Cook it with rice, vegetables, eggs or just about anything.

Freshly-dried lap cheung are available in the winter at Wo Hing Preserved Meat, 368 Queens Road Central, Sheung Wan, tel [phone]. Frozen-foods specialist DCH (various locations) carries tasty Canadian lap cheung all year round. Or just drop into any of the stores that have sausages on display on Sheung Wan's "dried seafood street."

14. Trendy hot pot

Hot pot is truly a social event and a Hong Kong food tradition, especially for families looking for an excuse to get together on a chilly winter night.

And as a true testament to the innovation and picky palates of Hong Kongers, there's no shortage of new things to try.

Megan's Kitchen is one of the latest trend-setting hot pot restaurants famous for their rainbow meatballs in different flavours and colors, where the surprise is inside, like Kinder eggs. Our favorite is Megan's pork balls with a mango centre. Soup base is another divisive issue at the dinner table: from a simple vegetable base to congee and soymilk base to Megan's tom yum koong 「cappuccino」 soup base.

Megan’s Kitchen, 5/F, Lok Kei Centre, 165-171 Wan Chai Road, Wan Chai, tel [phone],www.meganskitchen.com.

15. Beef brisket

The brisket is a much maligned part of the cow in Western cooking, but you'll find huge chunks of it being slowly stewed in giant pots of sauce in noodle shop windows all over Hong Kong until they're tender and soaked with juicy goodness.

Few of these places however, can live up to the reputation of Kau Kee, which sells its signature beef brisket cooked in either a clear broth or curry broth served with noodles. Or try On Lee in Shau Kei Wan on your day off -- the good stuff typically sells out by late afternoon.

Kau Kee, G/F, 21 Gough Street, Sheung Wan, tel [phone].
On Lee, Shop 4, G/F, Tung Wong House, 14-22 Shau Kei Wan Main Street East, Shau Kei Wan, tel [phone].

16. Egg tart

Like many classic Hong Kong food dishes, the origins of the egg tart are a bit murky, but it seems likely that they are yet another example of British tea time snacks -- custard tarts, in this case -- that were adapted to local Chinese tastes.

Since they became popular in the 1940s, two varieties of egg tarts have emerged: one with a flaky puff pasty shell and another with a sweet shortbread crust. Both are filled with a rich custard that is much eggier and less creamy than English custard tarts or Portuguese pastéis de nata.

Try the shortbread version at Tai Cheong Bakery, 35 Lyndhurst Terrace, Central, tel [phone], www.taicheongbakery.com and the flaky kind at Honolulu Coffee Shop, 176 Hennessy Road, Wan Chai, tel [phone], or bump into Chow Yun Fat at his favorite egg tart joint Hoover Cake Shop, 136 Nga Tsin Wai Road, Kowloon City, tel [phone].

17. Yung Kee's roast goose

Yung Kee has been around since the 1940s when it was a mere food stall near the ferry pier and has since grown to be the authority on Hong Kong roast goose.

Today, nine out of 10 people will recommend friends visiting Hong Kong to have a meal at Yung Kee for their 'siu ngoh.' The restaurant will even specially pack their goose as carry-on luggage for departing travelers. It isn't the cheapest by a long way and some may say that the most authentic roast duck is still to be found deep in the New Territories, but its an institution not to be missed.

If you're inclined, try the equally famous thousand-year egg with ginger, which is so reputable, other restaurants buy from Yung Kee to serve to their own customers.

Yung Kee Restaurant, 32 Wellington Street, Central, tel [phone] www.yungkee.com.hk

18. Thai food in Kowloon City

Kowloon City was once home to no man's land Kowloon Walled City but these days it is better known as a food mecca. Some of the best Hong Kong food is found here, particularly Thai food.

A small Thai community makes up Kowloon City's 'Little Thailand,' a proliferation of Thai restaurants, supermarkets and hole-in-the-wall noodle and satay joints.

A lot of the Thai food you find in Hong Kong is overpriced and friendly to expat-palates -- go for the real thing in Kowloon City.

We like Best of Thai Food Restaurant, 37 Fuk Lo Tsun Road, Kowloon City, tel [phone].

19. Roast pigeon

Pigeons are usually dismissed as rats with wings, but believe us, rats don't taste this good. Cantonese-style pigeon is typically braised in soy sauce, rice wine and star anise before being roasted to crispy perfection.

It's an earthy, deeply satisfying dish -- the Hong Kong answer to Peking duck.

Nostalgic dive Tai Ping Koon, 19 Mau Lam Street, Yau Ma Tei, tel [phone], various other locations, is known for its pigeon, and so are the restaurants in Tai Wai, including the reliable Shui Wah, 51 Tsuen Nam Road, Tai Wai, tel [phone].

20. Snake soup

Snake soup is said to cure any number of ailments. Forget about that.

The real reason to indulge in this Cantonese delicacy is because it's the perfect dish for cool weather.

There's something about the brothy mix of snake meat, mushrooms, ginger and pork that does an even better job of warming you up than chicken noodle soup.

The soup is usually served with fried bits of dough, slivers of kaffir lime leaf and chrysanthemum petals for aroma. And yes, snake really does taste like chicken.
Give it a go at Se Wong Yan, 80A, Woosung Street, Jordan, no phone.

Source:CNN Travel

【港妳知】公眾平臺為你提供最地道的香港資訊!(1)【港你知】介紹 - 可以回復"1" 。(2)對粵語(香港話)學習課程感興趣 - 可以回復"2"。(3)對粵語(香港話)名師感興趣 - 可以回復"3"

無論您有任何問題或者建議，直接在我們的微信中留言即可，我們會儘早回復。如果您有粵語學習，香港留學、旅遊等等相關的文章或者經驗想與我們分享，請發送郵件至 [e-mail] ，謝謝！