Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
HOW HONG KONGERS EAT
Many busy Hong Kongers take their breakfast and lunch at tea cafes. A full breakfast
at these places consists of buttered toast, fried eggs and spam, instant noodles and
a drink. The more health-conscious might opt for congee, with dim sum of rolled rice
sheets (chéung fán)and steamed dumplings with pork and shrimp (siù máai).
Lunch for office workers can mean a bowl of wonton noodles, a plate of rice with
Chinese barbecue or something more elaborate.
Afternoon tea is popular at the weekends. On weekdays it is the privilege of labour-
ers and ladies of leisure (tai-tais). Workers are said to vanish, Cinderella fashion, at
3.15pm sharp for their daily fix of egg tarts and milk tea. For tai-tais, tea could mean
scones with rose-petal jam with friends or a bowl of noodles at the hairdresser's.
Dinner is the biggest meal of the day. If prepared at home, what's on the table de-
pends on the traditions of the family, but usually there's soup, rice, vegies and a
meat or fish dish. Everyone has their own bowl of rice and/or soup, with the rest of
the dishes placed in the middle of the table for sharing. Dining out is also extremely
common, with many families eating out three to five times a week.
Dai Pai Dong
A dai pai dong () is a food stall, hawker-style or built into a rickety hut crammed with tables
and stools that sometimes spill out onto the pavement. After WWII the colonial government
issued food-stall licences to the families of injured or deceased civil servants. The licences
were big so the stalls came to be known as dai pai dong (meaning 'big licence stalls').
Dai pai dong can spring up anywhere: by the side of a slope, in an alley or under a tree.
That said, these vintage places for trillion-star dining are fast vanishing; most have now
been relocated to government-run, cooked-food centres.
The culinary repertoire of dai pai dong varies from stall to stall. One may specialise in
congee while its neighbour whips up seafood dishes that give restaurants a run for their
money. In places where there's a cluster of dai pai dong , you can order dishes from different
operators.
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