Hong Kong Street Food Extravaganza!!

This blog is from a trip I took a few months ago to Hong Kong…sorry for the delay! It will be featured in the upcoming edition of Asia Trend Magazine, so check it out next month if you are in Central Florida!

With all the recent buzz on street food, I thought it would be a good time to post this up!

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In Hong Kong, street food can be found on almost every corner. Some notable foods include skewered beef, curry fish balls, (even 7-11 sells fish balls by their cashier registers in Hong Kong!), stuffed peppers and mushrooms, and dim sum on a stick. Street side food vendors are called gaai bin dong (traditional Chinese: ???; literally “street side stalls”).

Egg Puffs (also called as Gei Dan Jai, Egg Waffles, Eggettes or in Chinese ???) is a famous Hong Kong style waffle usually made and sold by street hawkers and eaten warm on the street. They are best served fresh from the iron. These eggettes are crispy on the outside and taste like little, airy waffle bites. Egg, sugar and evaporated milk are used to make egg puff giving them a sweet flavor. They are made from a sweet batter that is cooked on a hot griddle, a special frying pan with small round “wells”. The egg batter is poured over the special frying pan and heated; the small ovals of eggettes are thus formed. If you’re in Hong Kong, you can pick some up at Lee Ken Egg Waffles located at (next to McDonald’s) at 78 Nathan Road, Jordan (heading towards Tsim Tsa Tsui).

Eggette waffles in Hong Kong, Jordan

Bak kwa, Sweet pork jerky meat is another popular street food in Hong Kong. The most popular is Bee Cheng Hiang ???, based out of Singapore but with dozens of shops located throughout Hong Kong. Bak kwa is smoked and roasted strips of pork with a consistency similar to jerky. It is often given as gifts during holidays and is a popular snack to eat on the streets. My favorite was the Gourmet Fusion style which was sweet and had the consistency of a Asian bacon. You can buy some online by visiting http://www.bch.com.sg/

see how they glisten!

sweet pork jerky always #winning.

In Hong Kong, stinky tofu or chòu dòufu, is a popular street food item. Stinky tofu is made through a fermentation process that lasts months long, resulting in a smell not unlike rotting flesh or the body odor of a man who hasn’t showered in a few years. You wonder what would compel someone hundreds of years ago to come up with this stuff, maybe it was out of a perverse foodie curiousity or desperation.

My first experience with this pungent fried tofu was on the northern end of Sai Yeung Choi Street ????, the popular electronics store street, in Mongkok at the corner with Dundas street across from Starbucks. I could tell something was wrong about two blocks away from the stinky tofu stall when people started to crinkle their noses and frown, pinching themselves on the nose to hold out the stench. I began to smell something rotting near by. To be honest the tofu, dashed with a little bit of hoisin sauce, tasted not unlike some fried tofu cubes that I enjoy at home. I actually would enjoy it if not for the smell of body odor exuding from the small cubes.

you’ll know from the smell, its stinky tofu!

Stinky tofu! with some sweet and spicy hoisin sauce

Tastes great! smells, not so great.

For dessert, some popular items are the tong but lut (sweet glutinous rice balls topped with ground peanuts and white sesame) and for summer time, mango pomelo sago soup. This dessert is made with fresh mango fruit, sweet sago cream, sour pomelo fruit and mango juice Honey Moon Dessert was one of the more prevalent places that could be found throughout Hong Kong where you can get some of these desserts. Visit http://www.honeymoon-dessert.com/en_us/

Tong but lut – sweet glutinous rice balls with sesame seeds and peanuts

Mango Pomelo Sago soup

Watch this video on Hong Kong Street Food Stalls

Have you been to Hong Kong before? What was your favorite street food items?
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