Journey to Nowhere

You may have heard of Hong Kong style milk tea, which uses evaporated milk to give the tea a very smooth and creamy taste. But you may not know that the evaporated milk used here is mostly imported from Holland. According to a report, 70% of the local restaurants use Black & White evaporated milk, a brand from Holland.  

As a daily drink for many of the Hong Kong people, the tea is offered in almost all the Hong Kong restaurants.

Kam Fung restaurant, at No. 41, Spring Garden Road, Wanchai, is one of the local restaurants that are famous for making top quality Hong Kong style milk tea. Both hot milk tea and cold milk tea are reputedly delicious. Their chicken pies and egg tarts, the restaurant’s signature snacks, are also popular. So the best time to visit is afternoon, for afternoon tea.

Kam Fung is a typical local restaurant so be prepared to be seated at a table with others in a packed and small place. And be warned that the restaurant does not have a good reputation for service.

There is raving review about this small restaurant in North Point on Hong Kong Island. It specializes in food like marinated goose meat, noodle, chicken feet, etc. They sound very local right? I dare you to try. But not to worry what to order because the restaurant is full of posters advertising the interviews they gave to the media. Just point to the dishes on the poster and you will not be disappointed.

Since the restaurant was recently rated one star by Michelin, it has been packed all the time. There are also complaints of bad service from customers.  So do expect queues and not comfortable seating and probably not very good service.

Address:
Hung’s Delicacies
Shop 4, G/F, Ng Fai Building, 89-94 Wharf Road

You can view photos and comments (mostly in Chinese) of the restaurant here.

If you a fan of chocolate cakes and chocolate ice cream, and you happen to visit Hong Kong, try this shop called Awfully Chocolate. It has two shops in Hong Kong:

1) Shop 15 G/F 2-4 Hysan Ave (the shop’s entrance is at Sun Wui Rd), Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

2) Shop B & C, G/F, 39 – 41, Caine Road, Hong Kong

It sells only three types of chocolate cake (Chocolate Banana, All Chocolate and Rum & Cherry Chocolate), as well as chocolate ice cream.

They sell a whole cake only, not a piece. A whole cake costs about HK$200. If you are a real lover of chocolate, the chocolate banana cake may not be for you. It is a bit light in chocolate. Go for the All Chocolate Cake.

The chocolate ice cream of the shop has won the heart of many of the young in this city. When I was in the shop, at least six youths were licking on the ice cream, and a mum was bringing a kid into the shop.

Awfully Chocolate has shops also in Singapore, Shanghai, Beijing, Dalian, Taipei and Jakarta.

If you are visiting Hong Kong, try the annual festive food mooncakes in celebration of the Moon Festival (or Mid-Autumn Festival) which fall on 3 October this year. It is the custom here that moon cakes are sold well before the festival. So from now until 3 October, you have plenty of opportunity to have a sampling. Don’t miss the new style mooncakes made with ice cream with all sorts of fillings, which are Hong Kong’s invention.

The bakery that creates the new style mooncakes is called Taipan , whose branches are located across HK, including inside the MTR stations. Because they are so popular, now many bakeries also sell the non-traditional mooncakes, with creation of all sorts of flavors. But coming to new style mooncakes, Taipan is still the leading brand.

As for the traditional mooncakes, try Maxim’s cake shops which are ubiquitous, and can be found inside almost every MTR station, or Kee Wah Bakery , or WingWah.

The convenience store 7-Eleven is practically at every street corner in Hong Kong. With some of them gearing up to offer local popular hot food and drink, travelers to the city may find it easier to have a taste of local fare.

The 7 Cafe, as the hot food counter in 7-Eleven is called, is the idea of Dairy Farm, which owns half of the 1000 7-Eleven stores across Hong Kong (the rest is franchise).

The 7-Eleven on the busy Tong Chong Street in Quarry Bay, in the eastern part of Hong Kong Island, is among the first that have 7 Cafes, which sell such popular local snack and drink as curried fish balls, siu mai (made of dough, but in the name of a famous Cantonese dim sum), milk tea and egg tarts, as well as breafast, lunch and afternoon tea from a big food counter.

Not every 7-Eleven has, or will have a 7 Cafe, though. But count on those in high-traffic locations, such as Causeway Bay, Central, Mongkok, to have one in future.

According to Dairy Farm, future 7 Cafes would occupy 1,000 square foot of space – that is fairly big compared to the tiny hot food counter you can occasionally find at a small number of existing 7-Eleven shops.

Despite the convenience, there is no guarantee that the fare offered at 7 Cafes are just as good as those offered at some of the traditional street food vendors. But Dairy Farm said they have hired a 5 star hotel executive chef to look after the cafe business.

You may have heard of Hong Kong’s Soho area in Central which is packed with international food restaurants and bars. Another gathering place of restaurants and bars which is less talked about and is smaller in scale is in Tsim Sha Tsui east.

Take the star ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui. After getting off the boat, walk along the harbour front, until you are well past the Avenue of Stars. You will then see a flyover that takes you to the opposite side of the road. Here, you will find a row of restaurants and bars, parallel to the Salisbury Road, and with breathtaking harbour view, especially after dark.

The plus of this place is, it is not as crowded as Soho and there is a splendid harbour view to enjoy.  But the minus point is its lack of choice in dining and drinking. After all, there are only about 10 restaurants in the area.

Among the restaurants there is only one Chinese restaurant – a famous Shanghainese food eatery Xiao Nan Guo (Little Southern State, No.66 Mody Road). The restaurant, based in China, is highly regarded in Shanghai and has established its presence in Hong Kong since 2000. It now has four stores in Hong Kong.

To get to the area, you can also take MTR and get off at Tsim Sha Tsui East station. Take exit P1.