This is a typical traditional Chinese dessert, many of which can be eaten like a soup. It is pleasantly sweet and relatively light. It can be served cold or hot, depending on the season.
Sweet red bean soup. Photo credit: discoverhongkong.com
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This is a typical traditional Chinese dessert, many of which can be eaten like a soup. It is pleasantly sweet and relatively light. It can be served cold or hot, depending on the season.
Sweet red bean soup. Photo credit: discoverhongkong.com
Although they’re called the ‘three treasures’, there are actually more than three varieties. Freshly minced dace is stuffed into sliced eggplants, green peppers, tofu puffs, smoked red sausage or mushrooms, and then grilled on a griddle. Enjoy with soy sauce or chilli oil.
Enjoy three stuffed treasures on your food tour. Photo credit: discoverhongkong.com
Nothing is wasted in Chinese cuisine and that can be seen in the local love of beef offal. Slow-cooked beef smooth tripe, small intestines, large intestines, honeycomb tripe, lungs and more are served with chu hou sauce and refreshingly sweet turnip in a take away bowl.
A bowl of beef offal. Photo credit: discoverhongkong.com
Don’t be put off by the name or pungent aroma because the flavour of stinky tofu is actually quite mild. Chunks of crispy, fermented tofu that have been deep-fried before being slathered with your choice of sauce (usually chilli or hoisin), this is one of the city’s most popular street stall foods.
Deep fried stinky tofu. Photo credit: discoverhongkong.com
Almost every Hongkonger has a favourite fish ball vendor. Bouncy and fluffy, the best Hong Kong-style fish balls are made with freshly ground fish paste, hand-beaten and slammed to springy perfection. It’s commonly enjoyed on a stick with spicy curry sauce.
Fish balls, one of local favourite snacks. Photo credit: discoverhongkong.com
Originating in Shunde, Guangdong province, this traditional pastry is made by steaming a dough mixture of rice flour, white sugar, water and yeast. It is sweet with some sour notes and has a soft and spongy texture.
Local snack delight. Photo credit: discoverhongkong.com
Often translated as ‘sticky rice pudding’, put chai ko is typically made of rice flour and red beans. These ingredients are put in a small china bowl. When the pudding sets, it can be removed from the bowl on a small stick and eaten like a popsicle. Modern innovations of this traditional snack have introduced new flavours such as pumpkin and green tea.
Sticky rice pudding or put chai ko. Photo credit: discoverhongkong.com
Sweetened egg batter grilled in a mould to make puffs. Crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside. These days it comes in a range of flavours, including chocolate, strawberry and coconut.
Local snack delight. Photo credit: discoverhongkong.com
A pastry-crust filled with egg custard and baked. This popular Hong Kong snack probably originates from English custard cakes. Some are made with cookie dough while others have a flaky pastry.
A must try snack in Hong Kong. Photo credit: disoverhongkong.com
A bun filled with sweet winter melon paste. Legend has it that when the winter-melon puffs made by a woman in Guangdong province were highly praised in public, her husband proudly declared that they were his wife’s cakes. The name ‘wife cake’ stuck. In Hong Kong, back when the New Territories was a day trip away from the urban areas, it was de rigeur for visitors to Yuen Long to buy wife cakes to take home. Today, they can be easily purchased at Chinese bakery shops citywide.
Freshly baked wife cakes. Photo credit: discoverhongkong.com