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Originating in Shunde, Guangdong province, this traditional pastry is made by steaming a dough mixture of rice flour, white sugar, water and yeast. It is sweet with some sour notes and has a soft and spongy texture.
Local snack delight. Photo credit: discoverhongkong.com
Often translated as ‘sticky rice pudding’, put chai ko is typically made of rice flour and red beans. These ingredients are put in a small china bowl. When the pudding sets, it can be removed from the bowl on a small stick and eaten like a popsicle. Modern innovations of this traditional snack have introduced new flavours such as pumpkin and green tea.
Sticky rice pudding or put chai ko. Photo credit: discoverhongkong.com
Sweetened egg batter grilled in a mould to make puffs. Crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside. These days it comes in a range of flavours, including chocolate, strawberry and coconut.
Local snack delight. Photo credit: discoverhongkong.com
A pastry-crust filled with egg custard and baked. This popular Hong Kong snack probably originates from English custard cakes. Some are made with cookie dough while others have a flaky pastry.
A must try snack in Hong Kong. Photo credit: disoverhongkong.com
A bun filled with sweet winter melon paste. Legend has it that when the winter-melon puffs made by a woman in Guangdong province were highly praised in public, her husband proudly declared that they were his wife’s cakes. The name ‘wife cake’ stuck. In Hong Kong, back when the New Territories was a day trip away from the urban areas, it was de rigeur for visitors to Yuen Long to buy wife cakes to take home. Today, they can be easily purchased at Chinese bakery shops citywide.
Freshly baked wife cakes. Photo credit: discoverhongkong.com
Traditionally, pineapple bun contained no pineapple and earned its name because its chequered top resembles the skin of a pineapple. The top half of the bun is made from cookie-type dough, while the bottom is made from Chinese-style bread dough, which tends to be softer and sweeter than Western bread. Many vendors insert a cold pat of butter into a warm pineapple bun.
Delicious pineapple bun with butter. Photo credit: discoverhongkong.com
Chinese tea culture features strongly in Hong Kong but the local milk tea is a more recent concoction, having only come on the scene in the 1950s. Various blends of Sri Lankan black tea are infused with evaporated or condensed milk. It is called Stocking Milk Tea because it is percolated in a stocking-like filter. The brew is smooth and creamy in texture.
A cup of Hong Kong Milk Tea. Photo credit: discoverhongkong.com
The local passion for this beverage cannot be understated: it drives the consumption of hundreds of millions cups of milk tea every year, has inspired competitions to find the best vendors and turned the beverage into an icon of Hong Kong’s food scene.
Dim sum means ‘touch your heart’ and with as many as 150 items on a restaurant menu, and 2,000 in the entire range, it is a challenge to not find something you love. As Cantonese people tend to avoid fried foods early in the day, steamed dishes dominate most dim sum menus. There are also snack-sized portions of pan-fried, deep-fried, and baked foods served in bamboo containers, which are designed to be eaten communally and washed down with tea. Hence, going for dim sum is known as yum cha, which literally means ‘drinking tea.’ Usually a brunch or lunch affair, it is a common form of family, co-worker and other group get-together.
Hong Kong Dim Sum locally known as Yum Cha. Photo credit: discoverhongkong.com
Today, dim sum restaurants come in all shapes and sizes, from traditional to innovative. Start with one of the large mid-priced eateries where in the midst of boisterous conversations you will see multiple generations gather around the table for a no-nonsense family feed and office workers enjoying a short but effective break from the daily grind. When you enter, let the waiter know how many people are in your group, be seated, decide on what type of tea you want, order your dim sum, and enjoy a quintessential Hong Kong experience!
What to order?
If you are new to dim sum, here are some of the classics:
Steamed shrimp dumpling
Shrimp wrapped in a thinly rolled piece of translucent wheat dough. Often, the dumpling will include a small amount of finely chopped bamboo shoots and pork.
Siu Mai
A type of Chinese dumpling. The typical Cantonese dim sum variant consists of ground pork, whole or chopped shrimp, shiitake mushrooms, green onions and ginger, wrapped in thin wheat dough, seasoned with Chinese rice wine, soy sauce and sesame oil, and garnished with a dollop of crab roe.
Barbecued pork bun
Tender, sweet, slow-roasted pork tenderloin, usually seasoned in oyster sauce, and encased in a fine, soft bun.
Cheung Fan
A thin roll of rice flour, filled with shrimp, beef, sweet barbecued pork or other ingredients. It is usually steamed and served with soy sauce.
Spring rolls
A variety of vegetable and sometimes meat ingredients are rolled inside a sheet of thin dough and deep fried.
Deep-fried shrimp dumpling
Shrimp, sometimes with pork fat, wrapped in dough and deep fried. Crispy exterior, juicy filling!
Barbecued pork pastry
Sweet, barbecued pork in a thin, flaky pastry.
It is impossible to miss this cuisine in Hong Kong because after the highly seasoned meats are roasted on spits over an open fire or in a rotisserie oven, they are hung inside the restaurant and visible from the street. You’ll see siu mei hanging in fast-food chains, high-end restaurants and supermarkets. It is a sight — and taste — that is ubiquitous wherever there are Chinese communities.
Chinese barbecue restaurants usually have highly flexible menus that allow you to pair your roast meats with rice, noodles or rice noodles. Combo plates enable solo diners to sample several meats in one meal.
Known as siu mei, restaurants serving Chinese barbecued meats are your window into traditional Chinese roasts. Photo credit: discoverhongkong.com
What to order:
Get your Chinese barbecue expedition off on the right track with these recommendations:
Barbecued pork
In Chinese this is called char siu, which translates as ‘fork burned’. It refers to seasoned boneless pork, barbecued over an open fire or covered oven on forks. The pork is seasoned with honey, spices, fermented tofu and rice wine. Malt sugar provides its characteristic glaze
Barbecued goose
Seasoned goose, roasted in a charcoal oven until the meat is tender and the skin crispy, then sliced and served with plum sauce. Roast goose prepared in travel-safe packaging, known as ‘airplane roast goose’, is a popular souvenir.
Roast pork
Roast pork comes in two types. Siu yuk has its origins in village celebrations, when a whole pig would be slaughtered and cooked. This variety of roast usually involves cooking a 10 to 20 kg seasoned pig in a charcoal oven until the skin becomes crispy while the meat remains tender. A large fork is used to place the pig’s carcass in the oven, while hot water is applied to it to cause the skin to tighten.
The second type is a roast suckling pig. This is a two to six month-old pig, roasted at high temperature in a charcoal oven until meat is tender and skin is crispy. This is a banquet favourite and usually the first dish to be served. You can order it in restaurants too.
