Hong Kong Eats & Iconic Foods

Hong Kong Eats & Iconic Foods

• August 05, 2014

Hong Kong is a place I consider my second home. A buzzing city full of neon lights and amazing food. HK harbour at night is one of the most beautiful places in the world. The view makes me tingle with excitement every time, and nowhere else brings back nostalgia quite like HK's night view.

Hong Kong harbour by day:

We spent many childhood summers here, whenever my parents could afford it and I would get insanely excited from the moment we got into the taxi to the airport to boarding the plane. I'd stay up for the whole duration of the 11hr flight, not wanting to miss a minute of it.

And because we used to go during the summer holidays, we'd get off the plane and be hit with extreme humidity (that normally caused a nose bleed!) and that musky-damp smell unique to HK. Then the food that followed for the rest of the summer were the best. Fish balls on sticks, fresh egg tarts and pineapple buns, dim sum, Calbee crisps and extra large sized yakults.

HK is such a diverse city and not only will you find great Chinese food, you’ll also easily find English, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Malaysian, Indian, Italian, Spanish, Turkish and a whole load more. Eating is so easy in HK and many eateries stay open well into the night or open at the crack of dawn.

I do have favourite places to go and I want to share them all with you, but first, here's a tour of typical HK eats, some of which are absolutely iconic. I'll cover HK Street Food on another post. Stay with me if you're ready for a long read...

Lots of different flavoured drinks, +C is a relatively new one that I really like.

Vending machines everywhere for Vita drinks.

HK style milk tea. This is a must try when visiting HK, but start with the iced version if you're a beginner. Hot milk tea is a little strong for those not used to its taste.

Iced HK style milk tea. Best ones are found in the 'cafes'.

Another iconic must eat, and perfect with a HK milk tea; the egg tart! Gorgeous flaky pastry with a sweet egg custard centre. In canto, that's dan tat.

A 'milk' version of the egg tart. Not everywhere sells it though.

Was so excited to see one of these! Pineapple bun topping on a sponge cake. Tradionally, the pineapple topping goes on top of a sweet bun, so this is a modern hybrid.

Words can't quite describe how good fluffy thick white toast with butter and sweet condensed milk is. You just gotta try it for yourself.

This version is called a condensed milk 'chuy chuy' meaning crunchy crunchy. Like the original toast version but with extra crunch.

French toast with golden syrup and butter is HK cafe menu staple.

A typical breakfast set at the cafe. This one was at Australian Dairy Company which does the best scrambled eggs ever. 

Fluffy scrambled eggs sandwiched between fluffy white bread is one of those simple pleasures in life that is anything but simple.

'Homestyle' fried vermicelli consists of ham, celery/cabbage & carrots. So simple, yet so addictive.

Yin-yang stir fried noodles is a mix of vermicelli and egg noodles. Great for when you just can't decide which noodle to have.

Stir fried dolly noodles (instant noodles) is one of the great modern day inventions.

Rice steamed with spare ribs and chicken claws in blackbean sauce. If you're not squeamish, this is a real old school dish at dim sum that must be ordered!

Same again.

Steamed rice rolls (jai cheung fun) with no filling, topped with sweet hoi sin sauce, peanut butter sauce, sweet soya sauce and sesame. They vary from place to place, the best ones are so smooth they literally glide down your throat.

Fried fish skin. Good beer snack. Or if you're a Hong Konger, for dunking in with your wonton soup...

Wonton soup

Fish cake slices (and fishballs) are staples be it in soup, noodles, curry sauce and stir fries.

Typical brunch at a cafe. This was in the food court on the 4th floor in Tai Po Market.

Shrimp roe on shrimp flavoured egg noodles. The bounce of the noodles and fragrance of the roe is so good. Also found in the food court at Tai Po Market.

Good morning from HK. Plain rice rolls with congee and iced HK style tea for breakfast.

Different breakfast for next day. Soup vermicelli with pork, preserved mustard green (jar choi) and a chicken wing. More rice roll and congee as well as deep fried dough sticks, perfect for dipping into the congee.

As well as dough sticks, this is the other accompaniment to congee; soya sauce fried noodle. 

Roast pork (char siu) and soya chicken on rice. Great working weekday lunch! 

Combi special with rice. My combi was red sausage, roast pork, roast duck, roast crispy pork belly & a salted egg. Yum.

Roast duck on soup rice noodles. This thicker noodle is called 'may sin'.

$14 for iced tea, $24 for an afternoon set. I'll have an afternoon set please! HK makes you fat. Fact.

Steamed spare ribs with blackbean sauce on rice. Hot honey and lemon drink.

Digging in at dinner.

Pork chop bun. Macau special found in HK.

7-Eleven snacking. I love mangoes.

Houjicha latte and cappuccino from McCafe. McCafe drinks in HK are outstanding. Avoid the cakes and desserts though...

An absolute favourite HK dessert of mine. Called 'yeung chi gum lo', consisting of mango, sago and pomelo.

Snow shaved cotton ice. This one was Hokkaido milk flavour. So much nicer than the usual shaved ice & syrup. For the cotton type, they first freeze the flavoured shake before softly shaving the ice block. This way you get flavour in your cotton ice and it melts on your tongue with a texture of snow rather than ice.

Sweet glutinous balls with chopped peanuts, sesame, coconut and brown sugar. 

Sweet glutinous balls in a sweet soup. With or without fillings.

This was new! Custard filled balls in a purple rice sweet soup.

Sweet potato in a sweet gingery soup.

Tofu fa, sweet bean curd dessert similar to a jelly/pudding, as mentioned here.

Hokkaido milk pudding. So so good, Hokkaido milk has a really intense milk taste in a good way.

Same again.

Panna cotta with egg.

Assortment of cakes from western style bakeries.

Mexico bun. Similar to the pineapple bun in theory but made with cream is has a more delicate crunch.

Gong so beng. Not quite sure how to describe this other than a moist doughy version of baby rusks! Gong so beng has seen many people through less-well off periods in life and brings back much nostalgia. Personally, I'm lucky to have only eaten these out of pleasure, whereas my parents remember eating these because this was the only thing they could afford. It's survived many years of change in this modern world, yet can still be found in old style bakeries & old style convenience stores around HK. I bought mine at Kee Tsui.

This may have been seasonal as I can no longer find them *sad face*. Sweet potato, glazed syrup and sesame flavoured biscuit sticks. I prefer Pretz over Pocky.

My two favourite Asian fruits as pastilles!

Melty vanilla cookies with a layer of white chocolate sandwiched in between. 

Chewy Japanese sweets imported into HK.

Many of the snack in HK are imported from Japan, and Meltykiss is no different.

Dragon beard candy. This is an iconic HK sweet. I found this in the local supermarkets.

These were pretty good!

Chilli chipsticks.

The mango filled marshmallows are the best.

A trip to HK is never complete without a food haul!

Many of the iconic foods featured on this post can be easily found in the Mong Kok area.