Chinatown Eats: Pan-fried Pork Patty

Pork patty on rice at The Boss Bakery and Restaurant

Yesterday we went to Vancouver's Chinatown for lunch, and our go-to is The Boss Bakery and Restaurant on Main Street. The cha chaan teng offers lunch specials, featuring a rotating menu with 12 dishes with portion sizes that are impossible to finish in one sitting.

Sometimes the menu has pan-fried pork patty with rice and this signature dish is delicious.

However, one needs to be patient, as it takes a long time to cook.

Typically these pork patties are steamed, but here it's carefully pan-fried, and because it's very thick, it takes a while to cook through.

A good pork patty doesn't use ground meat -- it should be pork butt or shoulder with some fat, otherwise the texture will be too tough. Then the pork needs to be sliced thinly into strips, and then the strips carefully diced into small pieces. This is what gives the pork patty a meaty texture.

The diced pork is mixed with cornstarch, oyster sauce, some chicken boullion and white pepper for flavour and then formed into a patty.

For steamed pork patties, some are also seasoned with finely diced water chestnuts or preserved mustard greens before the mixture is placed in a shallow dish and then steamed for about 15 minutes.

In the case of The Boss, the thick pork patty is steamed and then fried to add a bit of char, and then served on a large mound of white rice, garnished with thin ginger slivers and scallions, and one broccoli floret. A small dish of sweet soy sauce is included for extra flavour.

The result? Tender, and very meaty patty that goes well with rice. Bring a food container to carry leftovers home!

Nostalgic Tomato-Flavoured Lunch

Straight from the oven, baked fish fillets in tomato sauce

Today we headed to Vancouver's Chinatown and to our usual eatery for lunch -- The Boss Bakery & Restaurant.

It's categorised as a cha chaan teng, with its extensive menu filled with all kinds of dishes from Hong Kong-style borscht soup to pork chops with cream sauce to fried rice. Wash the meal down with yuen yeung (mixture of coffee and tea), milk tea or Horlick's, and finish with egg tarts or cocktail bun.

I ordered the baked fish fillet with tomato sauce, a stainless steel shallow round pan filled with rice mixed with bits of scrambled egg, a few spinach leaves and two small fish fillets that are smothered in a kind of Campbell Soup-flavoured tomato sauce and baked.

Because it's in the oven for a while, it is a test of your patience, while everyone else at the table is already tucking into their plates of food.

Finally it arrives, piping hot, but after blowing a spoonful to cool it down a bit, it's comforting to eat, a reminder of when I was a kid and after school made Campbell's Soup from a can and added instant noodles. But this version is healthier with the fish and spinach.

No way can I finish this serving -- the portions at The Boss are huge and we always bring food containers to bring them home.

The Boss Bakery & Restaurant

532 Main Street

Vancouver, BC

604 683 3860

Delicious Gluten-Free Bites at Saan Saan Cafe

The other day I took my friend visiting from Toronto to eat in Vancouver's Chinatown. Well on the edge of Chinatown, dodging the homeless people along the way. 

Saan Saan Cafe has been open for over a year and it's a gluten-free cha chaan teng offering savoury and sweet items along with drinks from Hong Kong-style milk tea and yuenyeung (coffee and tea), to cocktails from Friday to Sunday.

The cafe is housed in a building that owner Eric Siu's multi-generational family lived in since 1950 when his grandparents moved in with his father and aunt.

After family members moved out, the building, which was constructed in 1904, fell into disrepair. Siu and his two siblings discussed for years what to do with the space and decided to turn it into a cafe.

It's extremely helpful that Siu is a practicing architect, though he says there was a lot more work that needed to be done, from replacing old pipes and installing new electrical wires.

The end result is a high-ceilinged space that is very welcoming and comfortable. The washrooms are also nicely decorated!

It's also helpful that Siu's siblings, Sarena is a registered dietician, and Jamie is a food scientist, to develop gluten-free items for the cafe.

The focus on gluten-free food is due to Siu's sensitivity which has resulted in him not being able to eat a lot of Chinese food in conventional restaurants; Saan Saan Cafe allows him and others to eat food they used to enjoy, or introduce it to friends or partners with celiac disease or other gluten sensitivities.

They started offering baked goods, like black sesame caramel, and pineapple coconut cookie, a mash-up between bolo bao and cocktail buns, and char siu triangle puffs. 

A few months ago they introduced a savoury menu and I finally tried them the other day.

We sampled the soy sauce chicken, which is pretty straight forward, some chopped chicken on a bed of rice. The chicken is tender, and has lots of flavour in every bite. It's a substantial portion which is good to share.

Another is curry fish balls which are usually made with gluten to give them their bouncy "QQ" texture. Here they are homemade and have more of a meatball texture. But with the delicious curry sauce and gluten-free, it's still decent and the sauce is a good way to finish off the rice in the first dish.

Our favourite has to be the prawn toast, a thick meaty chopped shrimp filling in between white bread that has been deep-fried and then sliced in half. It's slightly crunchy on the outside, and firm and slightly bouncy in the middle, and the sweetness of the prawns come through.

I had a glass of refreshing Ribena lime soda, my friend had the iced Hong Kong milk tea.

We were full by the time we finished everything and got some cookies (brown butter hojicha chocolate and pineapple coconut) to go.

Saan Saan Cafe

227 Main Street

Vancouver, BC

Jimmy O. Yang the Greatest Influencer for HK

Yang is enjoying the view and raking in the dough in HK

The Hong Kong Tourism Board pretty much hit the jackpot when it invited Chinese-American comedian and actor Jimmy O. Yang to come to the city to perform and see the sights.

People were madly scrambling for tickets to his five shows -- at the Hong Kong Coliseum in Hung Hom -- but the website kept crashing but somehow all the seats were snapped up.

Only Cantopop stars get to perform at the Coliseum, but Yang was the exception -- as he was invited by HKTB and by extension, the Hong Kong government.

He had five sold out shows in the Coliseum

While he was in his hometown, Yang visited the sights, like Man Mo Temple, and hung out in cha chaan tengs, ate stinky tofu on the street, showed viewers how to eat chicken feet, got a chop made in the lane in Sheung Wan, and even went to Chow Sang Sang's original Castle Peak Road store where he checked out their gold necklaces and apparently bought some bling bling.

"I spent my childhood in Hong Kong and have always felt the city's unique vibrancy. It's a place where tradition and innovation merge, allowing you to traverse between a century of culture and natural beauty in a single day. Every journey is full of surprises, revealing Hong Kong's diverse urban landscape," he said.

Sounds more like that's what the HKTB wrote his script.

Which makes us more curious about how much he was paid to perform and visit some requisite places to promote Hong Kong as a cool travel destination. From his video it looks like he stayed at The Peninsula...

Yang visited Man Mo Temple

With over 2.46 million fans following Yang on Instagram, the HKTB certainly got a lot of eyeballs on Hong Kong and it's a natural fit really. 

But since they figured it out, does he know he lost a lot of Hong Kong fans' respect after selling out?

The tourism board invited 650 KOLs or "key opinion leaders" in the first quarter of 2025, more than the total for all of last year. But that's not all. There will be another campaign called "Seeing is Believing", where Hong Kong will invite more than 100 international influencers in July and August.

Bringing in KOLs seems to be working. In the first four months of this year, Hong Kong welcomed 16 million international visitors, a 10 percent increase from the same period last year.

Hong Kong Struggles to Retain Mainland Visitors

Not many visitors come to celebrate Chinese New Year in HK

It's the second day of the Lunar New Year in Hong Kong, but despite the festivities, including the fireworks display, the tourism industry is finding it challenging. Hotels are reporting about 90 percent occupancy, which sounds promising, but visitors are having shorter visits, and mainland tourists aren't spending much money in the city.

Travel Industry Council chairman Tommy Tam Kwong-shun had said 1.45 million mainland tourists were expected to visit Hong Kong between January 28 and February 4, about 15 percent more than last year. 

But some skeptics pointed out many mainlanders are from just across the border, and the convenience of transportation networks have motivated them to make day trips than book hotels.

Mainlanders prefer to eat cheaply, no shopping

"Since the multiple-entry scheme serves only Shenzhen residents for now, visitors probably won't choose to stay overnight," said Jack Cheung Ki-tang, director of CTS HK Metropark Hotels Management.

He noted the average spending for those who stayed overnight in Hong Kong was around HK$1,300 (US$167) per night, with an average of two nights per trip, less than the three nights in previous years.

Cheung also noted mainland visitors preferred eating at cha chaan tengs or noodle shops, indicating they did not want to spend money at full-service restaurants or order room service.

According to Immigration Department numbers, 79,895 mainland visitor trips were made into Hong Kong on the first day of the Lunar New Year, while locals made 330,633 trips out of the city.

While many Hongkongers stay in the city to celebrate the new year with family, a lot of them prefer to use the several days' holiday to go abroad, either to the mainland to visit relatives, or travel regionally to places like Thailand, Vietnam, and of course, Japan.

Hong Kong-style Diner in Paris

Have a pineapple bun, char siu and milk tea in Paris

The Hong Kong Tourism Board is doing something eye-catching for the right reasons.

At the Art Basel fair in Paris, there's a cha chaan teng pop-up serving Hong Kong-style milk tea, char siu, pineapple buns, mango pudding, and egg tarts. 

"It is exciting to see many visitors coming to the cha chaan teng and enjoy a variety of authentic Hong Kong delicacies. We look forward to continuing to showcase Hong Kong's unique experiences in different ways at Art Basel exhibitions around the world," said Tourism Board executive director Dane Cheng Ting-yat.

The cha chaan teng is sponsored by the HKTB

The one in Paris is not the first time the HKTB has set up a pop-up cha chaan teng -- earlier this year one was installed at the 24th Biennale of Sydney, an international festival of contemporary art held every two years.

In December a cha chaan teng will be set up at Art Basel Miami Beach from December 6-8.

The HKTB is not only trying to promote Hong Kong as a destination to attendees, but also that the city will be hosting Art Basel again from March 28-30 next year.

This cha chaan teng concept is a good soft power initiative... but what Hongkongers really want to know is, how's the food?

Taste of Hong Kong at Cha Kee

Pineapple bun with iced milk tea from Cha Kee

Many people recommended I check out a cha chaan teng called Cha Kee in Richmond, so I finally did -- twice.

Opened in December 2022, it's tucked away in the corner of the first floor of a shopping mall called President Plaza, across from Aberdeen Centre in Richmond. 

Buttery scrambled egg sandwich

It seems just about everyone sitting in the food court are eating dishes like scrambled eggs with white bread toast, satay beef with instant noodles, and sipping cups of milk tea.

Other dishes include pork chop rice noodle, French toast, BBQ pork spaghetti, Hong Kong style Swiss sauce chicken wings, and curry fish balls. 

The first time I went, I had just eaten breakfast so I tried an iced milk tea and the pineapple bun. Each person gets a circular vibrating pager, even me with a simple order.

My pineapple bun arrived warm with a tall glass of iced milk tea. The pineapple bun was fluffy, with a crumbly cookie top, and was delicious, washed down with a very caffeinated milk tea. I was buzzing for pretty much the rest of the day.

I went again the other day with a friend where we were able to try more items. She had a bowl of macaroni with uneven slices of pork liver, which came with a side of scrambled eggs and white toast that she washed down with a cup of hot milk tea.

She invited me to have a few bites of the pork liver and I heartily tried some. Liver is an acquired taste and here it wasn't seasoned, but just kind of boiled in the thinly-laced chicken soup with a lot of macaroni. 

Meanwhile another friend had recommended the scrambled egg sandwich and I did not come away disappointed. In between two slices of toasted white bread slathered with a generous amount of butter was a big portion of scrambled eggs that were pillowy soft.

Slices of liver in macaroni soup

I can easily see how biting into this sandwich is the edible version of a big hug for people missing Hong Kong diner food in Vancouver.  

After finishing the scrambled egg sandwich I was actually quite full, even though I only had a small cup of iced milk tea. Food courts are where cheap and cheerful food is at!

Cha Kee

8181 Cambie Road

Richmond

Cha Chaan Teng Offers Taste of Home

A giant fluffy pineapple bun that's made on the premises

Hongkongers missing the taste of home can now to go to Ho Yuen Cafe, opened by the second-generation owner. The mural on the wall has Lion Rock in the centre, flanked by Hong Kong on the left and Vancouver on the right.

Over 60 years ago her father opened Ho Yuen, a cha chaan teng in Tsz Wan Shan, but in the 1980s the family immigrated to Vancouver and so he shut Ho Yuen. However, in Vancouver he opened two other Ho Yuen businesses in Richmond and Coquitlam. 

The interior is bright and cheery with Lion Rock

By 1996 her father retired, and the family returned to Hong Kong where she worked in marketing in the fitness industry. She met her husband, a personal trainer and they had a son.

She decided to go back to her cha chaan teng roots and in 2014 she revived the Ho Yuen brand by opening in Wong Tai Sin, and later Ho Yuen Bakery.

When Hong Kong invited tenders for food trucks, Ho Yuen Express was born and it was a baptism by fire, spending HK$1 million on the food truck and modifying it, and then quickly learning how some locations like Disneyland were better than others, like Kwun Tong.

In 2020 she moved back to Vancouver because of her special-needs son. And in the last few years she took her time looking at locations to open Ho Yuen Cafe.

The location is not high traffic at all -- it's in an industrial area near a park where people walk their dogs. Nevertheless, the bright cafe has large windows and a big kitchen where staff make everything in-house from the char siu to cookie-base egg tarts and pineapple buns. 

Satay beef noodles is another signature item here

One of the signature items is the pineapple bun which is really large and fluffy, complete with a giant slab of butter inside, and a cup of hot milk tea to wash it down.

If that's not enough carbs, a bowl of satay beef with instant noodles is delicious. The noodles have slices of tenderised beef and it's not too spicy, and the soup is comforting.

The owner is already thinking of expanding the brand down the west coast to Seattle and California, and it will be interesting to see if she can spread the culture of cha chaan tengs in North America.

Ho Yuen Cafe

113 - 1750 West 75th Avenue

Vancouver

Chinatown Festival Ends with Stabbings

The stabbings occurred near this stage at Keefer and Columbia

"Light Up Chinatown" was meant to be an open invitation for people to come to the neighbourhood and patronise the shops and restaurants in the run up to the Mid-Autumn Festival at the end of this month.

However, just as the two-day event was wrapping up, before 6pm, a 64-year-old man suddenly stabbed three people near the stage at the intersection of Keefer and Columbia streets.

The victims, a couple in their 60s and a young woman in her 20s were given immediate care and sent to hospital, while the police -- who were providing security for the event -- interviewed witnesses for a description of the assailant and soon after arrested the man, Blair Evan Donnelly nearby in the Downtown Eastside.

Police arrested the attacker, no known motive

It turns out he was on a day pass from a local psychiatric facility. In 2006 he had killed his 16-year-old daughter in Kitimat. He was charged with second-degree murder, but was found not guilty in January 2008 because of a mental disorder and was sent to Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Coquitlam.

Yesterday he was charged with three counts of aggravated assault.

It was shocking to hear the news and that the perpetrator has a mental illness. 

Carol Lee, the chair of the Vancouver Chinatown Foundation was around 20 feet away from where the attacks happened and was devastated by the horrific incident.

"I think if you were close by, it's a traumatic thing to see somebody at a community event, just an innocent bystander, getting stabbed," she said.

Lee broke down during the press conference, describing the attacks as feeling "very personal. We've worked very hard to put this festival and the community together to celebrate all the progress that we have made."

Lee in tears during press conference

Revitalising and making Chinatown safe has been a priority for Mayor Ken Sim, who said in a press release that the "senseless violence is heartbreaking."

"We will not allow this senseless act of violence to disrupt celebrations of all that makes our city great, and we will work each and every day to ensure Vancouver is a place where people can live, work, and thrive in a safe environment."

To that end it was a surprise to see a lot of police officers in Chinatown today. At lunchtime, four of them patronised the same cha chaan teng as us, with two police cars parked in front. Afterwards we saw two cops patrolling the streets.

It was reassuring to see them around to give a sense of security... though they need to be around more often to really give people peace of mind and feel safe in the area.

Hearing Chris Patten's Thoughts on HK

Patten (left) and Vines have a good chat over dim sum

Green Bean Media was started by former Hong Kong journalists who have migrated to the UK and want to keep reporting on news about their hometown.

They have followed people making the big move to the UK as well as developments in the 47 defendants charged in allegedly subverting the state for organising primaries, and Cantonese food.

Their latest video has garnered a lot of attention because it's an interview with Chris Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong. One might assume members of Green Bean Media were terrified of interviewing him themselves so they rounded up fellow exile journalist Steve Vines to do it.

The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoA8iMymy8c&t=561s

And they aptly arranged to have the video interview in a cha chaan teng in London. The small cafe pulled out all the stops, giving "Fat Pang" the opportunity to eat some HK-style food, including his favourite egg tarts.

Patten's book on HK

Personally doing food interviews, it seems rude to eat while someone is asking me questions, but Patten seems very happy to dig into the dishes even as Vines is asking him something! 

The 29-minute video focuses on Patten's thoughts about Hong Kong in his book called The Hong Kong Diaries, from his personal diaries he kept when he was governor from 1992 to 1997.

In it he says foreign secretary and ambassador to Beijing Percy Cradock believed Patten should not have caused so much trouble trying to fight for democracy for Hong Kong, that he should have just done his five years as governor and then left quietly.

"He wrote the Chinese leaders may be thuggish dictators, but they're men of their word," recalls Patten. "We know that they were thuggish dictators, but one thing we know for certain is that they weren't men of their word."

Patten remembers speaking to British and Hong Kong businessmen who believed the average person was not interested in democracy, only in making money, and yet these elites had foreign passports tucked in their back pockets. 

"It was always interesting when I looked at some of my critics just to think through what they would do if things went wrong," he says.

Cradock believed Chinese would keep their word

He adds some of them have since passed, but did not reveal any of their names in the interview, which he should have done for the record.

Meanwhile Vines shares a conversation he had with a friend back in Hong Kong, as they previously believed through crises like SARS and the economic downturn that the city would bounce back, but this time they didn't have this optimism anymore.

"I think the reason why he and you are more pessimistic now is what the Chinese Communist Party wants is Hong Kong without Hongkongers," Patten says. "Maybe you have a city but you don't have a thriving city, you don't have a city with any heart."

He talks about how young people from Hong Kong come up to him and ask if they should go back and Patten says he has no answer. While he has seen from history authoritarian states have disappeared at the snap of fingers, he doesn't know when that will happen in China. 

Vines mentions the BNO scheme, that has allowed over 140,000 Hongkongers to migrate to the UK with the possibility of settling there permanently.

Patten believes it is successful because people understand the plight of Hongkongers, and that they will be a boon to the UK economy.

Patten in Hong Kong on June 30, 1997 

The former governor cites the example of meeting one man in his late 20s who had just qualified to become a doctor and was on his way to a job interview with the local health authority in Oxford. 

"People from Hong Kong will make this a more successful country," he says. "They will be strong members of civil society."

He adds sardonically that perhaps the UK should thank the Chinese for giving them all these Hongkongers.

Vines' plight is also worth highlighting. He was a well known correspondent in Hong Kong, was the founding editor of the Eastern Express newspaper and Spike magazine, a commentator and interviewer on RTHK and author.

But after the national security law was implemented in July 2020, Vines began feeling the pressure of watching what he was saying and doing, even though he had written a book about the 2019 protests.

While he says in the video he found it unhealthy to be constantly watching his back, Vines did receive calls hinting it would be best if he left Hong Kong.

Within months he sold his food business and his flat in Sai Kung, packed up 34 years' worth of possessions and moved back to the UK in July 2021. 

Vines was well known commentator on RTHK

He is active in the Hong Kong community in the UK and says there isn't a day where he isn't talking to someone from the city or writing about it.

What comes through most in the interview is Patten's genuine love of Hong Kong and its people, and how he has carried the burden of wondering if he had done enough for them since 1997.

Which is why he is constantly advocating and doing whatever he can from his privileged perch, from writing to the Prime Minister about Jimmy Lai, to greeting migrants settling in their new home.

But once the interview is over, that good food can't go to waste, and Patten reaches over to pick up a slice of pork belly with his fingers.

Picture of the Day: Lunch at New Town Bakery

Hearty bowl of noodles with veggies and pork at New Town

Today I went down to Chinatown and for a bite to eat went to the well-known New Town Bakery and Restaurant for a quick lunch.

When I went inside there was a long line -- for baked goods to take away, and none for sitting down to eat. Only a few tables were occupied.

One of the mini lunch set specials was braised snow cabbage with pork and rice vermicelli (雪菜肉丝汤米) which includes a drink too for about CAD$13.50.

After waiting about 10 minutes the bowl of noodles arrived and I was pleasantly surprised to see so many extra vegetables in it! Not only were the pickled vegetables in there, but also thin strips of bak choy and carrots julienne along with strips of pork and rice vermicelli underneath.

It took a while to eat because the bowl was choc full of ingredients, and was so nice to eat something relatively healthy for a cha chaan teng.

As I was walking out the door, the takeaway line for the bakery had grown longer, snaking out the door for char siu baos, cocktail buns, egg tarts, almond cookies, and apple tarts! 

New Town really has its loyal customers, which is lovely to see.

New Town Bakery and Restaurant

148 East Pender Street

Vancouver, BC

604 689 7835

Hong Kong's Splashy Welcome

Were TVB dancers recruited to kick off the presentation?

Hong Kong's back, baby!

That's what the Hong Kong government wants the world to know.

Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu has just launched a HK$2 billion (US$255.2 million) campaign called "Hello Hong Kong" where 500,000 free airline tickets will be given away along with free welcome drinks at select bars and restaurants across the city. One would assume champagne and cocktails, not Hong Kong-style milk tea at a cha chaan teng...

Lee all smiles in launching HK$2B campaign

At the kick-off event held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, Dane Cheng Ting-yat, head of the Tourism Board, also boasted some 250 events will be held in the city, including Clockenflap, Rugby Sevens, and Art Basel.

The Tourism Board will also give away 1 million vouchers for welcome drinks, discounts on attractions as well as food and drinks and transportation. Do they mean Uber or the Star Ferry?

Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po also talked about Hong Kong entering a new development phase.

"We are actively returning to normalcy. Nothing can stop us from bouncing back... We eagerly welcome friends from around the world to come, see and experience for themselves the vibrancy and dynamics of our city."

He also says the government will provide accurate information about Hong Kong to the world as people overseas might have misunderstandings about the city.

"We will try our best to explain," Chan says, adding he wants visitors to come and "feel Hong Kong's loveable sides".

Where's the women in this stage?

Since when was the city cuddly?

More importantly how can the government erase the stark 2019 images of police with batons hitting protesters holding up umbrellas, and officers shooting rounds of teargas? With over 300,000 people leaving Hong Kong for the United Kingdom alone in the last two years, surely it's a sign they cannot live in their own hometown anymore, while some 1,300 political prisoners are still languishing in jail.

But this is the Chinese way of doing things -- moving on and pretending it never happened, wallpapering over the problem in the hopes no one remembers.

Will this flashy campaign actually work? It depends on who the government wants to target. There are those who have missed coming to Hong Kong for three years, while others have yet to discover the place.

Those who have recently visited tell me it feels different from before, but can't quite put their finger on it. They know the city has been hit hard by Covid-19, but don't really know or understand how the national security law has dismantled the city as they knew it before.

But hey -- no need to worry about that now, Hong Kong's back, baby!

How About RATs for Restaurants?

Tsang suggesting diners show RAT results at restaurants

There are now eight people who tested positive in a cluster from eating in a restaurant in Yuen Long. They had eaten breakfast at Peony Golden Court last Sunday.

Seven of them were triple jabbed, one had two doses, and they all had mild or no symptoms.

Based on this, an infectious diseases expert is suggesting to the government that people not only use the Leave Home Safe app to prove they are vaccinated, but also show a negative rapid antigen test in places where masks are exempted, like restaurants. 

People take off masks to eat in restaurants

On a program on RTHK, Joseph Tsang Kay-yan said taking masks off in places like restaurants involves risk of transmission. 

"We ask visitors to the hospitals to show their RAT result of the day of visit because we're very worried they may be asymptomatic patients. Children also need to do RAT before going to school in the morning," he said.

"I don't know if the government will, after what happened [in Peony Golden Court], require people to show a negative RAT result before entering the scheduled premises where they can take their masks off, in order to prevent such incidents from happening again."

How is Hong Kong supposed to inch towards normalcy if experts like Tsang are putting more roadblocks in front of the public? Students are going to school all day, or at least longer than most meals, so it's understandable that they should get a RAT.

But what if someone needs to get a quick bite at a cha chaan teng, or a coffee with someone in a cafe? Do they need to produce a RAT for a 15-20 minute visit?

Getting RAT every time they dine is tedious

Here in Vancouver I attended a dinner with 16 people sitting at one table. Granted we were the only customers left in the dining area for a very late meal, but still, we all sat together, and not two tables of eight with plastic barriers in between.

That said, the restaurant closed at 10pm and we were out of there half an hour later.

Nevertheless, people in Hong Kong are tired of the extreme caution. There is the possibility the Yuen Long cluster will grow larger, or that it won't. 

If RAT is required, then there will be more people fabricating results, or recycling old ones because they can't be bothered to test everyday. Why create more opportunities for loopholes?

At least everyone who is dining out these days is vaccinated, which is the most important thing.