How much do you know about food in Hong Kong?

Hong Kong's food culture is the intersection of eastern culture and western culture, and it has developed the eating habit of combining Chinese food (mainly Cantonese food) with western food, so it is known as "gourmet paradise". As a gathering place for people all over the world, Japanese food, Korean food, Taiwanese food, Vietnamese food, Thai food and Indian food are all common in Hong Kong. However, many foreigners have pointed out that although you can taste delicious food from all over the world in Hong Kong, these foods have actually changed in order to adapt to the eating habits of Hong Kong people, thus becoming less authentic. From another perspective, these foreign food cultures have also enriched the local food culture in Hong Kong.

Diet plays an important and interesting role in the cultural development of Hong Kong. Street food stalls such as big-name stalls and big-name stalls that accompanied the growth of Hong Kong people in those years, old-fashioned restaurants and restaurants, all kinds of authentic soy sauce, cakes and special foods have become the collective memory of Hong Kong people.

The rapid development of economy and society in the past century has brought new features to the food culture of Hong Kong people. Nowadays, the diet has developed from simple appetite to the pursuit of color, fragrance and beauty; The restaurant is also simple and humble, and even emphasizes gorgeous decoration; The changes in Hong Kong people's eating attitude and quality of life can be fully reflected from the authentic taste of dishes to the delicious food all over the world.

Local delicacies

Most families in Hong Kong use Chinese food as their home cooking. Most of them have kept their traditional dietary characteristics. In the Chinese community, there are mainly Guangfu people, Hakkas (especially the indigenous inhabitants of the New Territories), Chaoshan people and family members. Therefore, Cantonese cuisine, Hakka cuisine and Chaozhou cuisine are all local dishes. Potted dishes are the traditional dishes of indigenous people in the New Territories during festivals. Saigon City, Lamma Island, Liufushan and Lei Yue Mun are famous for their seafood. Traditional restaurants can be found in ancient fishing villages such as Cheung Chau and Tai Ao Li.

Lianxianglou was located in the middle of Sheung Wan before World War II. There were many Chinese teahouses and Erli teahouses serving snacks and tea in the middle of Sheung Wan, such as Sanyuan Building, Yanqionglin, Guannan Teahouse, Sanduo Teahouse, Yunlai Teahouse [1], Goldman Sachs Teahouse, Pingxiang Teahouse, Deyun Teahouse, Lianxianglou Teahouse and Lu Yu Teahouse in shek tong tsui. Because almost all the guests in the teahouse are men, the name of the teahouse often implies the traditional concept of "more men" and "getting men". In early years, teahouses were divided into balconies and ground halls. The scenery on the balcony is better. The price of tea is seven cents, that of the ground hall is three cents and six cents, and that of the Erli hall is of course two cents. In 1930s and 1940s, the competition in teahouses was fierce, and teahouses began to set up singing circles at night to perform Cantonese songs. Later, there were more than 30 teahouses with music circles such as Ruyi, Long Fu, Pingchun, Tianman, Daguan, Lianxiang and Goldman Sachs. [2] In those days, Goldman Sachs Teahouse invited Liang Ying, a female actress, to sing Cantonese opera, and invited a musician to accompany it. At that time, in addition to the teahouse, there were also banquet-oriented Chinese restaurants such as Xinghualou, Yongji Restaurant, Nanyuan, Xiyuan, Wen Yuan, Dasanyuan, Banquet Qionglin, Juxin Building, Huatan Building, Guan Hai Building and Li Tao Garden. The first restaurant in Hong Kong, Xinghualou, was opened in Shuikengkou, West Ring Road as early as 1846. 1900, more than 30 restaurants. At that time, Qiu Zeng, a patriotic poet in Taiwan Province, laughed and wrote poems with friends and talked about state affairs. [3] Because Hong Kong people like to drink morning tea, snacks are served in China Teahouse from about 5 am to noon every day. After the war, China restaurants also started to operate teahouse business, offering many new snacks. In the 1980s, the economy took off and nightlife in Hong Kong became more and more prosperous. In the 1990s, some restaurants began to provide night tea service.

For vegetarianism, ordinary temples, such as Baolian Temple, Yuanxuan College and Kannonji, will provide regular vegetarianism. Due to the inconvenient transportation in the early days, some businessmen began to run vegetarian restaurants. The first vegetarian restaurant in Hong Kong is a small vegetable garden, which was founded in 1935 and is located on Kendo Road, Hong Kong Island. Buddhist supplies, such as Buddhist scriptures, beads and wooden fish, are often sold in Zhai restaurants. Vegetarian restaurants will serve some vegetarian dishes that look like meat.

Hong Kong's typhoon shelter flavor has been famous all over the world since the world of Su, Si and Huang. A typhoon shelter used to be a shelter for ships. As a large number of Southeast Asian ingredients were imported through this place, some restaurants in Wan Chai took the opportunity to launch side dishes with typhoon shelter characteristics after the war. Seafood is generally the main dish, such as fried crabs in typhoon shelters. Spicy and rich is the characteristic of typhoon shelter dishes. Besides, Treasure Island, located in Aberdeen Typhoon Shelter, is also a very famous ocean restaurant, which has become one of the important tourist attractions in Hong Kong. With the rapid development of Hong Kong's economy, people's demand for delicious food is increasing, and high-end restaurants focusing on seafood have emerged, such as Ayi Abalone, Aon Abalone, Xintongle and Haidu Seafood Restaurant.

For breakfast, Hong Kong people in the city prefer morning tea. But for those who want to sell their labor, rice is the staple food of every meal. Their breakfast is mainly rice porridge, fried ghosts and Hong Kong's special fried food.

The custom of China people eating game in autumn and winter was once popular in Hongkong. Snake soup (especially Taishi five snake soup), civet cats, pangolins and sparrows were once common game. Later, many game was protected by law, and many people who wanted to eat went to Chinese mainland to eat.

Waijiangcai

With the Second World War and the Civil War, many immigrants from Chinese mainland Province flooded into Hongkong. Many of them are from Shanghai and Ningbo. These Shanghai cuisine, Ningbo cuisine and Anhui cuisine are collectively called Waijiang cuisine.

With the promotion of Shanghai people to Hong Kong's industry, Shanghai cuisine has gradually become popular, such as rice, soybean milk, Shanghai coarse fried, hairy crabs, crab races, ants climbing trees, high-energy red bean paste and so on. Famous Shanghai restaurants include Lao Zhengxing and Sanliujiu Shanghai Restaurant.

The characteristic of Hong Kong Sichuan cuisine is spicy. Although it was influenced by Asian countries in the use of pepper, it added new cooking methods, which made the fragrance worse. Nowadays, many Sichuan restaurants display the spicy degree of dishes on the menu to identify them.

Dapaidang

In the past, big-name stalls were very ordinary restaurants. However, due to strict hygiene regulations and the fact that the government no longer issues relevant business licenses (permits) to the public, big-name stalls in Hong Kong have faced the fate of extinction. Big-name stalls slowly moved the tea stalls into the room, combining the ice room with pineapple ice, assorted fruit ice and red bean ice, and gradually became today's tea restaurant. Tea restaurants mainly provide cheap food such as instant noodles, Wonton Noodles, rice noodles, fried eggs, fried dumplings and porridge, but some large tea restaurants will provide fried noodles, such as dry fried beef river, Fujian fried rice and Xingzhou fried rice. Some restaurants, such as Taixing Shaocha Restaurant, also operate barbecue business. When Japanese food became popular in Hong Kong, tea restaurants began to serve some Japanese cooked food. Bread and butter, toast, eggs, sausages, coffee and milk tea are served for breakfast. Although the names of these foods are the same in every tea restaurant, the real finished products will be slightly different in different tea restaurants.

Hot Tea, HK Style

During the colonial period, Hong Kong gradually absorbed British food culture, among which English afternoon tea gradually localized and became the main part of tea restaurants. The most famous is "milk tea with silk stockings". Silk milk tea is a fascinating cultural fusion, brewed with a variety of tea leaves, filtered with a silky cotton net, and added with light milk. Yuanyang is another special drink in Hong Kong-it is a mixture of light milk, red tea and coffee. In cake shops and tea restaurants, you can find egg tarts and pineapple cake, which are two kinds of Hong Kong special foods that blend Chinese and western cultures. After that, there are more innovative drinks, such as lemon coffee and lemon bean.

Jietou snack

Street snacks are also part of Hong Kong's food culture. Fish eggs, eggs, rice rolls, bowl wings, alms cakes, paparazzi powder, bean jelly, pork red, beef offal, Saqima, asparagus, crispy dough twists and scattered eggs are all very popular street snacks. Most street snacks come from Guangdong, but a few come from other provinces. For example, Saqima is a Manchu snack. Other salty and sweet snacks in Hong Kong are also full of traditional flavor, some of which are unique to Hong Kong. Old lady cakes and husband cakes in Yuen Long are also famous. Hakka teacups are more popular in outlying islands.

Chezaimian appeared in the 1950' s. Due to the influx of mainland refugees into Hong Kong, it was difficult to make a living, so mobile vendors appeared. In order to facilitate transportation, mobile vendors put all kitchen utensils and food on small wooden trolleys, hence the name Chezaimian. Because customers can choose noodles, ingredients and soup at will, and the price is affordable, they are welcomed by the public.

Hong Kong Style dessert

There are many choices for Hong Kong-style desserts, such as red bean paste, mung bean paste, sesame paste, almond paste and stewed milk. Western-style desserts include mango and cheesecake, sago with a combination of Chinese and western styles, and the most creative yangzhi manna and sago. They really have their own characteristics.

herbal tea

Because of the hot and humid weather in Hong Kong, herbal tea that can relieve summer heat and disinfect has become a common Chinese herbal medicine drink. For example: twenty-four flavors of spiced tea. As for preserved fruit, there are Jia Yingzi, hawthorn cake, plums, Pei-Mui Chan and airplane olives.

Private kitchen

After the financial turmoil in Hong Kong, the economy declined, and many people broke a new path in the catering industry. That's a private kitchen. China's private cuisine was originally a special dish that emphasized the taste of the host because of the constant pursuit of food by dignitaries after a stable life. Hong Kong people transplanted private kitchens from various provinces to Hong Kong and operated them in a relatively hidden way, with locations all over Hong Kong and Kowloon. For example: famous private kitchens, wedding banquets, lively colors and so on. Later, in addition to Sichuan private cuisine, Chaozhou private cuisine and Shunde private cuisine, there were also French private cuisine, Italian private cuisine, Japanese private cuisine and vegetarian private cuisine.