Hong Kong Travel Guide
The Hong Kong Food Guide
How to eat your way through Hong Kong: dim sum etiquette and what to order, the cha chaan teng and its milk tea, roast meats and wonton noodles, street snacks, seafood and the night markets.
Hong Kong is one of the great food cities of the world, and the best of it is not expensive. Cantonese cooking, with its emphasis on fresh ingredients, precise technique and clean flavors, is the foundation, but the city has absorbed influences from every corner of China, from Britain and from Southeast Asia, and created dishes and institutions of its own. This guide explains what to eat and how, without a list of restaurants that will date: the best advice is to follow the queues of locals.
Dim sum. The essential Hong Kong meal, eaten from morning until mid-afternoon, is yum cha: tea and small dishes of dumplings, buns and rolls shared around the table. Order at least these: har gow, translucent shrimp dumplings with pleated skins; siu mai, open-topped pork and shrimp dumplings; char siu bao, fluffy steamed buns of barbecue pork, or the baked version with a sweet crust; cheung fun, slippery rice noodle rolls with shrimp or beef; lo mai gai, sticky rice steamed in a lotus leaf; and egg tarts or mango pudding for dessert. Old-style teahouses still use trolleys or let you pick from steamers, while most restaurants use a paper order sheet: tick what you want and hand it over. Etiquette is simple. Pour tea for others before yourself; tap two fingers on the table to say thank you when someone pours for you; and leave the teapot lid ajar when you want a refill. Weekends are busiest, as whole families gather, so go early or on a weekday. Dim sum ranges from cheap neighborhood places to Michelin-starred restaurants in luxury hotels, and both are worth trying.
Cha chaan teng. These diner-style cafes, born after the Second World War to serve Western-style food to local people at local prices, are the everyday heart of Hong Kong eating. Order Hong Kong milk tea, strong black tea strained through a cloth (the "silk stocking") and mixed with evaporated milk; yuenyeung, a mix of coffee and tea; a pineapple bun, which has no pineapple, just a crackly sweet crust, often served with a thick slab of cold butter; French toast, deep-fried and drizzled with syrup; macaroni soup with ham; and baked pork chop rice. Service is fast, tables are shared and the menus are long. It is the best breakfast in town.
Roast meats and noodles. Look for shop windows hung with glistening roast goose, char siu barbecue pork with its caramelized edges, crispy roast pork belly and soy sauce chicken, served over rice or noodles. Wonton noodles, with springy egg noodles and shrimp dumplings in a clear broth, are another Hong Kong signature, as is congee, the silky rice porridge eaten for breakfast or as a late-night snack. Beef brisket noodles and fish ball noodles are everyday comforts.
Street food. Street snacks are cheap and fun. Try egg waffles, puffy, bubble-shaped and crisp; curry fish balls on skewers; siu mai from a street cart, with soy and chilli sauce; stinky tofu, if you dare; and in winter, roasted chestnuts and sweet potatoes from street-corner braziers. Mong Kok, Sham Shui Po and the night markets are the best places to graze.
Seafood. Fresh seafood is a Hong Kong passion. On the outlying islands and in fishing towns like Sai Kung and Lei Yue Mun, you choose live fish, crab, prawns and shellfish from tanks and have them cooked to order, steamed with ginger and spring onion, stir-fried with black bean sauce or deep-fried with garlic and chilli. Cheung Chau and Lamma make a perfect seafood day out. Always confirm the price per weight before ordering.
Night markets and dai pai dong. The open-air dai pai dong food stalls that once filled the streets are now few and licensed, but their spirit lives on in Temple Street, where restaurants spill onto the street with plastic stools, charcoal clay-pot rice and cold beer. It is the best introduction to casual Hong Kong dining.
Sweets. Hong Kong desserts are distinctive: mango pomelo sago, a cold mango soup with pomelo and tapioca; egg tarts, the Cantonese kind with a short or flaky crust; sweet soups of red bean or black sesame; tofu pudding with ginger syrup; and the milk puddings of the dessert shops. Dessert shops stay open late and are packed in the evenings.
Fine dining. Hong Kong also has one of the world's great fine-dining scenes, with dozens of Michelin-starred restaurants serving Cantonese, French, Japanese and modern cuisines, many in the luxury hotels. A Cantonese tasting menu or a dim sum lunch in a hotel restaurant like the Peninsula's Spring Moon or the Mandarin Oriental's Man Wah is a splurge worth making once. Book well ahead for the top tables.
Tips. Many local restaurants have English menus or pictures; if not, point at what others are eating. Expect to share tables. A ten percent service charge is added in most sit-down restaurants, and tipping is not expected beyond that. Carry cash for small places, though mobile payments are increasingly common. And do not fill up at one place: in Hong Kong, the best way to eat is to graze from breakfast to midnight.
A one-day eating plan. Start with breakfast at a cha chaan teng: milk tea, a pineapple bun with butter and macaroni soup. Mid-morning, go for dim sum at a teahouse, arriving before the lunch rush. In the afternoon, snack on egg waffles and curry fish balls as you explore, and stop for a Hong Kong-style egg tart. For an early dinner, choose roast goose or char siu over rice, or wonton noodles at a specialist shop. Later, head to Temple Street for clay-pot rice and stir-fried clams with cold beer, and finish with mango pomelo sago at a dessert shop. It is a lot of food, but portions are small and the walking in between helps.
Dietary needs. Vegetarians will find good options at Buddhist vegetarian restaurants, including the canteen at Po Lin Monastery near the Big Buddha, and many dim sum places have vegetable dumplings, though stocks and sauces often contain meat or seafood. Those with allergies should carry a written card in Chinese explaining their needs, since shellfish, peanuts and sesame are common.