Hong Kong Eating Out

Guided China tour - Hong Kong Eating Out I had once promised my friends who visited Hong Kong with me for 7 nights stay, that we will have 3 meals a day, and each of our meal will be different cuisines. At the end of our Hong Kong tour, we all agreed that there are still some cuisines which we haven’t yet tried! Hong Kong is the land famous for food and drink. You can rest assure that you will find food to eat 24 hours a day every day. Whether a sit down meal or a fast food, you will find that the choice are endless. Once you mentioned about food in Hong Kong it will always associate with ‘Dim Sum’, a variety of meat and vegetable in small bite size portions of dumplings or buns, served in steaming bamboo baskets. And the fresh seafood which you can choose it live from the glass tank and tell the chef how you like to cook them. Over the years of transformation from a small fishing village to one of the major city in the world, you will find that Hong Kong is housing from local Chinese traditional restaurants to worldwide western restaurant chains covering every corner of the world’s food cuisines cook by famous chefs worldwide. Hong Kong’s best local eating places called ‘Dai Pai Dongs’, mainly situated inside the housing estate indoor or open air food bazaar area. Everything is designed to the beer friendly, eatery plates up including various stir-fried, roasted, streamed and braised dishes with different kind of seafood, meat and vegetable. All the dishes are served with rice and noodle with great selection of spices and flavours. You only pay less than half of what you are paying to the restaurants in the tourist area. In the past, western tourist advice to take extra precautions to eat in such places, but nowadays, due to the hygiene rules and regulation, great deal of improvement has introduced and making such eating places are much safer than before. Another type of eating places in Hong Kong is the small family run noodle shops and café restaurants in every part of the cities along the main street areas. Noodle shops are serving all kinds of meat and vegetable noodle soup including offal, and delightful of meat with rice or fried noodle served in a plate. Café restaurants offering Chinese food menu plus western food menu like spaghetti dishes, steak or chops with fries etc. Again these kind of eating places are usually economical in prices and are a kind of place you just eat your meal and leave, because they need the volume turnover of customers to be able to afford to cover their low cost meal. The standards of hygiene usually are good and safe for everyone to use it as eat and go job! Over the past 10 years, there are more and more Japanese and Korean styles of fast food chain restaurants introduce in Hong Kong and usually they are situated in main shopping area in most cities, suitable to all local and foreign tourists. The restaurant chains ensure all their staffs offering great customer services and care with their attention to ensure order taken and food serving in short period of time. Once again the pricing are based on high volume turnover of customers. Most of the large restaurants from Chinese banqueting restaurants hosting 200 – 300 seating, or Indian Restaurants, Japanese, Korean, Vietnam, Shanghainese, to western restaurants like Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, American, German and yet more are usually situated within the commercial buildings which part of the hotel or shopping mall or purpose built commercial building specialising for restaurants and bars. Therefore, customers need to experience and understand how to look for those restaurants from various buildings in different town and cities. Usually you will be able to read their notice board or signs on the ground floor from the building. Those eating places are usually more expensive than the other kinds of restaurant mentioned as above, but you can relax and take your time spend in the restaurants without worrying about others need your table. The top end of the restaurant chain are situated within the hotel, there are lots of choices including ever popular and wide choices of buffet restaurants. Smart dress code and advance reservation always required for those places. You will find that these restaurants are always within a nice surrounding with great deal of care and attention on services, but down go with the cost! But it is always good value for money especially for special occasion. The other fast food chains like Pizza Huts, Pizza Express, McDonalds, Wagamana, Burger King etc are everywhere in Hong Kong. One of the most famous seafood restaurant and also as tourist attraction is the ‘Jumbo’ Seafood Floating Restaurant in Aberdeen on the south shore of Hong Kong Island. Because they are mainly for the tourists, therefore, you must expect the cost for your meal can be quite high! Lastly if you want to venture out for fresh seafood at very reasonable prices, you must try out to other outer islands of Hong Kong by taking island ferry to the island of your choice. There are few to choose from and ferry journey usually take approx 1 hour and fare are so inexpensive like £3-£5 per person return. At the fishing village, there are many places keeping all kind of seafood in water tanks with great variety of fish and shell fish, many you have never seen it before or the size compare in Europe like Oyster, Mussels and clams are much bigger. The arrangement is you just have to select and purchase the seafood and choose a restaurant to provide you with cooking and drinking facility. The seafood seller will take your purchases to the chosen restaurant, so that you can enjoy the delightful fresh seafood meal there. Drinking places also widely available from local bars, pubs in local areas, or inside the hotels plus discos and nightclub are everywhere. You will find that drinks can be expensive especially for imported beer and bottle wine. Therefore, you need to be prepared to pay UK prices if not higher. Wine will be considerably higher with quite a wide range of selections to choose from. The most famous watering holes in Central district of Hong Kong Island called ‘Lan Kwai Fong’. For all foreign tourists if you never been to this place, you haven’t drink properly in Hong Kong. ‘Lan Kwai Fong’ consists of few streets connected together with plentiful of bars and live music Venus for drinkers and parties goers. The area open all day but main action usually start from 9 pm onward specially weekend start Friday night and continue until early hours in the morning like 3-4 am. We are saying to the westerners that if you have missed a western friend in Hong Kong, just spend couple of nights in ‘Lan Kwai Fong’, you will stand a very good chance to find your friend there. Drinkers need to be aware to bring a big wallet with you!