Hong Kong Food and Travel Guide

Updated

Hong Kong packs more flavour per square mile than almost anywhere on earth. Cantonese cooking, British colonial habits and immigrant cooks have collided here for a century, and the result is a city that eats well from sunrise to long past midnight.

What to Eat

Start with yum cha ("drink tea"), the morning ritual of sipping tea while picking at dim sum: steamed shrimp dumplings (har gow), pork-and-shrimp siu mai, barbecue-pork buns (char siu bao) and silky rice rolls (cheung fun). For lunch, find a noodle shop serving wonton noodles (wonton mein) — springy egg noodles in a clear prawn-shell broth with plump shrimp wontons.

Roast-meat shops hang glossy char siu (honey-glazed barbecue pork) and roast goose (siu ngo) in the window; order it over rice for one of the city's great cheap meals. In the evening, claypot rice and freshly steamed fish reward anyone who wanders into a neighbourhood diner.

Then there's the cha chaan teng, Hong Kong's beloved fast diners. The greatest hits: silky milk tea (naai cha) brewed through a cloth "stocking", a warm pineapple bun (bo lo bao) split around a cold slab of butter, crisp-shelled egg tarts (daan tat), and thick toast with condensed milk.

Where to Eat

  • Central — old-school dim sum halls and tea houses beside glossy new restaurants.
  • Sham Shui Po — the city's best-value street eats, knife-cut noodles and dessert shops.
  • Mong Kok — dense, neon-lit, packed with curry fishballs and skewers.
  • Temple Street Night Market — open-air dai pai dong stalls serving clams, spicy crab and cold beer.

Practical Tips

At a cha chaan teng you share tables, order fast, and a set (toast + egg + drink) is cheapest. Many dim sum halls still roll trolleys past your table — point at what you want and they stamp your card. Get an Octopus card for trains, trams, buses and even convenience stores. And take the Star Ferry across the harbour at least once; it's the cheapest great view in town.

Many local menus are Chinese-only or handwritten, so photographing one to translate makes it easy to order exactly what you want.