For some, Hong Kong is a paradise for shopping at the various big name flagstores - from Channel to Louis Vuitton - as well as boutique stores that can be found everywhere on the streets. For others, Hong Kong is the place where East meets West, and so experiencing the city's scenic spots as well as its two amusement parks Hong Kong Disneyland and Hong Kong Ocean Park is a priority. [Special coverage]
However, for many food enthusiasts like myself, Hong Kong is a place where you can satisfy your appetite for local and fusion food.
Different from other destinations in the world, in Hong Kong, you can find not only authentic Western cuisine, from French to Spanish dishes, but also cheap and yummy street food and local Cha Chaan Teng (tea restaurant) dishes like macaroni, milk tea and instant noodles. A lunch for less than HK$80 ($10) at one of these restaurants will leave you feeling deeply satisfied.
A frequent visitor to Hong Kong in recent years, I'm eager to share some of my favorite dishes that I have nearly every time I head to the city. The most important thing to keep in mind is that these dishes are also a favorite of locals and not just something put on menus for tourists.
Representative dish
If you asked me to choose one dish to represent Hong Kong, I would have to choose wonton noodles, which many people tend to look down on.
You may wonder how a small bowl of common wontons and noodles can stand out among the many delicious dishes one can have in Hong Kong.
Well the truth is that making a bowl of wonton noodles isn't as easy as it looks. A bowl of wonton noodles is usually served with steaming hot soup with shrimp wontons and garnished with chives, instead of the leafy vegetables that many Chinese mainland restaurants use.
As a veteran wonton noodle lover, I have sampled the wonton noodles served at countless restaurants throughout the Chinese mainland, as well as in Singapore.
A bowl of wonton noodles must meet three requirements to truly be considered worthy in my eyes.
First of all, the wontons must be made of real prawns with a little bit of minced pork thrown in. -Second, the noodles must be smooth and thin and feel a bit crisp when you bite into them - the secret to this lies in adding eggs to the dough that the noodles are made from. Third, shrimp eggs must be added to a broth made from dried flounder.
Almost every street restaurant in Hong Kong serves wonton noodles. For me, I prefer to the Michelin-starred Ho Hung Kee restaurant located in Causeway Bay, the Chee Kei restaurant chain which has branches covering Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, as well as the time-honored Mak's Noodle and Mak Man Kee Noodle Shop.
