Sunday, September 28, 2008

All time favourite Hong Kong Food






Egg Tart
It is one of the favourite foods of last governor Chris Patten, one of the quintessential East-meets-West taste sensations that makes Hong Kong such a great place for food is its baked egg tart. In old days, locals worked in western restaurants learned how to cook western dishes and desserts. The Cantonese egg tart, called “ Daan Tart” is a local twist on the popular English custard tart but was modified with some Chinese way of baking cakes. They used lard to replace expensive butter for the preparation on the outer shells. They used egg instead of custard. The outer shells is either crumbly or puff pastry. The Daan Tart is served hot. The egg tart has become Hong Kong’s most popular delicacies. Now some of the traditional way still using lard for the preparation of the outer shell, So make sure you do not take so much because of its great taste!

Pineapple Bun
Bo Lo Baau is the Cantonese way to call these great Hong Kong’s inventions
There is no pineapple being used for making such bun, but the hard crunchy sugary top of the bun looks like surface of a Pine appple. That was why we call Pineapple Bun!
Imagine, the bun is crunch on top and soft on the inside. One common way of serving this bun is to slap a dollop of hard cold butter inside. Another great taste as another Hong Kong invention


Milk Tea
Hi Tea and tea with milk are two of the legacies of Colonial practice in Hong Kong. Unlike Chinese tea which is drunk straight. Hong Kong-style milk tea is made of several kinds of black Ceylon tealeaves with evaporated Milk served in cup of western style. Nam Heung Yuet tea house invented a special way of filtering the tiny tealeaves by using white sackcloth. Thus the tea will be tasted smoother. The mesh of this tea-making contraption resembles pantyhose. So later on we gave it a name of silk stocking milk tea. The milk tea is served in the local tea house and its preparation is closely guarded trade secret.

Wonton Noodles
In Cantonese we call Wonton Min, and some of the older shop call Sai Yung ( Small Wonton Noodle). This classis noodle was firstly introduced in the 1940’s by GuangZhou chef came to Hong Kong to set-up their own noodle shop. Cantonese-style wonton is pre-wrapped with fresh shrimp, pork, some of them may add with very litt;e portion of minced mushroom. The wrapping is a thin piece of flour made with a special technique and it will not separate and break when cooked. When we ear Wonton noodle, you should eat the noodle first, then Wonton and finish the soup. We can not alter the sequence. As if you eat Wonton first, the noodle will be soaked in the soup for too long and will be too soft and lose it texture.
It can be served dry in which case you should ask for Lo Min and the Wonton are placed on a bed of noodles. In my child age., a bowl of Wonton noodle with 4 pieces of Wonton was 30 cents, after 40 years, a Bowl of Wonton noodle with five Wonton is HKD16.00, that is 53.3 times more expensive that the one we used to eat when I was young. But I can see that some of the Wonton is no longer using Tai Di fish as the basic ingredient as for the soup... Time has changed ans people should maintain the good classic traditions.

Char Siu or Barbecue Pork with rice
Barbecue pork (Char Siu in Cantonese) is one of the most popular foods amongst roasted meats.
Char Siu is roasted by fork or literally the meat is attached to forks or skewers which h are then placed in a covered oven or directly over a fire. The Pork has to be marinated with a special blended mixture of spices, fermented tofu, soy source, sugar, salt, water, sherry and rice wine. Before they are put into oven, we have to apply a layer of honey on the surface.
It is usually go with plain rice and some Choi Sum (a kind of vegetable).

28 Sep 2008 2256

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello Paul,
其他地方的奶荼真的不及香港好喝嗎?
您介紹的食品固然充滿香港特色,但使我最懷念的是"掃街"的感覺!不知香港還有這樣的地方嗎?碗仔翅,魚肉湯,串燒,什果冰,椰子汁,牛什(雖然我已經戒了)...任我選擇,開心到不得了!
唉!很可惜那間頗有香港特色的"香港拼圖"結業了!
頃刻間,腦裡都是兒時吃過的味道.很感慨現在滿街都是食物問題,進入街市--魚,雞,豬,牛,菜,連水果也曾發生問題,不吃也罷?!
Rebecca

HK Snob said...

Can you send me the information of
"香港拼圖"?
I am interested in knowing more!
Paul

Anonymous said...

Hi Paul,
間舖都關門大吉了!旅發局的資料很過時!網上還有它的資料:
http://www.tohongkong.com/hongkongpuzzle.html
這裡是一個吃"環境"而不是太講究食物質素的地方.當年一家大細去,老爺都可叫碗魚蛋粉吃,又有紅彤彤的豬耳,生腸,炒蜆...,是個廉價自助餐的好去處!
Rebecca

HK Snob said...

Hi Rebecca
There is similar one in Sai yeung Choi Street, but I wonder if you have tried as they are of mass production, in-expensive (expenbsive does not indicates that they are good at all) and the environment is not very good?

Paul