Motormouth From Ipoh – Asian Food & Travel Blog

The last post on Hong Kong was way back in June, so you may want to go for a refresher course by reading Wan Chai’s famous Kam Fung Cafe …. Perhaps the full Hong Kong-Macau 2011 series?

Craving for a Ketchup-y Experience? Fresh tomatoes and lean beef slices in a tangy, tomato-based broth with the Nissin noodles. Options include macaroni (their signature, but they ran out of that), or your noodles with chicken wing, or other meat.

Sing Heung Yuen is by far, the best example of Hong Kong style ‘dai pai dong’. Hawker stalls in its most ‘primitive’ form, only shaded by canopies or sometimes none, steel or wooden tables and chairs placed in a cramped layout, and strangers sharing the same table yet not speaking to each other while slurping on their favourite bowl of noodles.

To the uninitiated, this is best described as an ‘al fresco’ cafe best for a light bite. Unlike European cafe culture where lingering for long is the norm, at ‘dai pai dong’ like this, this practice is frowned upon. Lest you enjoy to be stared right through you for overstaying your welcome.

Familiar? If you’re an avid follower of Hong Kong’s TVB dramas, you might have seen this place being used for filming, since this is in the heart of Central of Hong Kong island, not in the rural suburbs.

Best if you sit down, don’t ponder for too long on the menu (or lack thereof, since everything’s in Chinese!), order whatever your neighbouring table’s having, eat up in the most rushed fashion (at say, 10 minutes for everything?), then leave.

The full story after the jump, and best time to come if you want to skip the snaking queue ….

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This post is but one part of the whole Hong Kong/Macau 2011 series …

Petite, almost-gone-in-two-bites egg tarts @ Kam Fung Cafe in Wan Chai. This cafe is famous for their egg tarts, chicken pies and milk tea. Slightly out of the way, in the Wan Chai district on the Hong Kong island.

And thus, this sudden idea was hatched from a haphazardly planned Repulse Bay-Stanley excursion. (More on that in a future post). We were on board a bus going towards Central from Repulse Bay, then while travelling on Queen’s Road East; we passed by Wan Chai District.

Now if you ask any of the local folks about Kam Fung Cafe, and chances are they will tell you that either the milk tea here is so much better than Lan Fong Yuen (the other milk tea champ) and the other one in Yuen Long, or the detractors will shake their heads in disagreement.

So how did we find the highly sought-after ‘nai cha’ (Cantonese for milk tea) here?

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For the full series (and do get ready some napkins and coffee to keep those eye lids open); hop over to : Motormouth in Hong Kong/Macau 2011.

Honolulu Coffee Shop serves a commendable range of pastries and beverages to perk up your day, no matter if it’s breakfast, brunch, lunch or best of all … tea time. And there we were for a good cup of Hong Kong style milk tea (fresh milk instead of the Malaysian style of teh tarik with condensed milk), paired with irresistible egg tarts and more.

Hong Kong’s ‘char chaan teng’ (typical cafes spanning every nook and corner of the city on steroids) never ceases to amaze me. Though you can mentally prepare for what’s on the menu (polo bao, milk tea, egg tarts, macaroni in soup, Nissin noodle soup, etc), yet every outlet serves a signature creation that’s no doubt the crowd puller that keeps the hungry gluttons back again and again.

In this case? Honolulu Coffee Shop (Openrice’s page) takes pride in their flaky egg tarts (as opposed to Tai Cheong‘s buttery short pastry version; the new review to come in a later post), and various buns/breads to cater to the smaller appetites. Read on to gather my thoughts on this cafe with a branch in Wan Chai and this on Stanley Street in the heart of Central, Hong Kong ….

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Today’s a Saturday gone wrong. Somewhat. The incessant travelling and crazy weather started to take its toll on me. Not to mention this viral bug roaming around the office. So let’s do a pictorial, shorter post (finally?) on one of the BEST ‘char chaan teng’ (Hong Kong style of cafe) in Mong Kok in Hong Kong.

Polo Bao (Pineapple Bun; literally) contains NO pineapple, but the resemblance comes from the sugar-crusted top with a significant crunch. At Kam Wah Cafe; they do them BEST.

Since I wrote extensively about them in my 2008 post; from not one but TWO breakfast sessions at the buzzing, quintessentially-Hong Kong, yet friendly cafe on Bute Street in Mong Kok, I guess I don’t have to go all out and sing praises for their famous Polo Bao.

But read on for the various types of Polo Bao they offer, and how the staff here are generally more pleasant, attentive and minus the usual attitude anticipated in busy eateries in Hong Kong …..

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For the full series on this Hong Kong trip, jump to this link.

Rich, creamy and golden scrambled eggs from Australia Dairy Company @ Parkes Street, Jordan, Hong Kong. Not just any other eggs, this is legendary.

Jumping back to the Hong Kong posts (alternating between all the others, if you don’t mind), let’s see how we finally made it to Australia Dairy Company; the #1 eatery on the Openrice‘s good food list.  Back in 2008, we missed this as the shop was closed for some reason. Did not feel that it was a huge miss, until we were back and read up on the massive number of rave reviews on the net.

Then I shot myself in the thigh and vowed to return. With a vengeance.

And we did. Early in the morning on a weekday in fact, only to face an immensely packed environment; so much so that we had to literally squeeze behind a pillar, and seated side by side facing the wall while ‘relishing‘ the priceless Hong Kong’s ‘char chaan teng‘ atmosphere …..

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