A Trip Down Memory Lane with Noodles

This shop apparently has better quality noodles

My mom's formative years were spent on a farm in Kam Tin in the New Territories. She has told me many times how after school she and her siblings had to help inoculate lots of baby chicks before dinner and then do her homework.

On the weekends, a big treat was being able to go into town -- in this case Yuen Long -- and watch a movie, and then have a bowl of noodles at Ho To Tai.

Plump wontons with egg noodles in soup

The noodle shop was opened in 1946, and still retains its old school look, with the menu of 16 items written outside the shop complete with a phone number with five digits! Today there are eight.

The interior still has a lot of tiles on the walls, uncomfortable tables and chairs, and glass Coke bottles for drinks. Customers can also buy boxes of dried noodles to make at home.

When we came back this time, our relatives told us the Ho To Tai business had split up between two families, one taking the Yuen Long shop, the other set up the next station over in Long Ping, and the latter's noodles were supposedly better.

So we made a pilgrimage to that place, a quiet district that didn't have a giant shiny imposing shopping mall like Yoho Mall in Yuen Long.

Less than a 10-minute walk from the station we found Ho To Tai and it wasn't busy.

Tender beef brisket with radish

The menu is pretty straight forward and the three of us, my aunt, mom and I ordered several things to share: wonton noodles, noodles with dried shrimp roe generously sprinkled on top, beef brisket with radish, a plate of vegetables, and deep-fried dace fish balls with a briny sauce.

The noodles weren't extra thin and springy like those at Mak's Noodles, but they were comforting to eat, simple and delicious. The beef brisket was very tender, and the dace fish balls were bouncy and flavourful.

It was a simple dinner, and while my aunt and mom ate, they began reminiscing about their childhoods; they are nine years apart in age, so their experiences growing up were different. But it was fun listening to them talk about commuting to school, going to the wet market to buy food for their elder brother to cook, or boarding at school with five other girls in a room.

They had much tougher childhoods than me, though they seemed to find joy in their experiences, or grateful for the discipline drilled into them, or just accepted that this was the way life was back then.

Deep-fried dace fish balls with a briny sauce

After we finished eating, we paid the bill at the cashier, where the were yellow and orangey-red boxes piled high. The yellow ones were shrimp noodles at HK$70, but the latter were more expensive at HK$98! When we asked why, the staff explained it was because they were totally covered in shrimp roe compared to the former.

We only wanted to give the best to my uncle so the HK$98 box it was!

It took us about an hour to get to Long Ping and another to get back, but it was a nostalgic trip worth spending the time.

Ho To Tai

G/F, Fook On Building

67 Yuen Long On Ning Road, Yuen Long (Long Ping MTR station)

The other noodle shop is at

G/F, 67 Fau Tsoi Street, Yuen Long (Yuen Long MTR station)