Cheap Eats in Sai Ying Pun

Large clams steamed with vermicelli and spring onions on top

I met up with my ex-colleagues for dinner the other day. One of them arranged for us to eat at a dai pai dong in a government-run cooked food centre and the food we ate was fantastic, perfect for a casual group of people.

The restaurant is called Daisy's and it's a no-frills place where diners sit on plastic chairs around a round table with flimsy plastic on top. But the food is top notch.

Another round of the crispy deboned chicken 

One of the highlights was the deboned -- yes deboned -- crispy chicken. The skin was so crunchy, while the meat was tender and juicy. Another was giant clams topped with vermicelli and spring onions. Some people were hesitant about eating the large orange reproductive gland, claiming it tasted mealy. But it's part of the scallop!

Other dishes included an omelette with preserved vegetable, Chinese kale stir-fried with garlic, prawns stir-fried in salted egg yolk, another salted egg yolk with squid, string beans stir-fried with minced pork and chillis, and fish with tofu in a claypot.

In general all the dishes were pretty good and including several bottles of Tsing Tao, the meal came to HK$250 per person.

We had the added entertainment of playing with two cats who wore tops to keep warm! In general they are quite friendly.

One cat mans the stall Daisy's

My former colleague likes Daisy's, not only because it's across from where he lives, but also because it is gay-friendly, pointing out a rainbow sign in a corner of the restaurant.

Daisy's

Centre Street Market between First and Second Street

Sai Ying Pun

2547 5899

Whatsapp +852 6891 1362

Wok Hei at a Hong Kong Dai Pai Dong

Two chefs cooking with wok hei at dai pai dong Oi Man Sang

In Chinese cooking, particularly Cantonese, people talk about how good a dish is by the "wok hei", literally "the breath of the wok".

It involves intense heat or fire, that heats up the wok so much that ingredients are cooked and caramelised in less than a minute, resulting in a slight char or hint of smokiness that adds another layer to the flavour of the dish.

Baked casserole, stir fried beef ribs, razor clams

Most Chinese restaurants in Hong Kong have wok stations to create wok hei, but may not be able to get that intense heat that can be found in dai pai dongs, or open-air food stall. One of them is Oi Man Sang in the Sham Shui Po area, more specifically around Prince Edward district.

Dai pai dong literally means "big license stall", and they began proliferating after World War II. But decades later in a bid to clean up the streets for hygienic reasons, the government restricted the number of dai pai dongs, relocating many of them in government-run cooked food markets. 

The numbers of dai pai dongs dwindled further when the authorities only allowed owners to pass on the license to family members. 

Which brings us to Oi Man Sang, which has been around since 1956, making it one of the oldest in Hong Kong. 

Typhoon shelter crab with garlic and spices

Typically there is a massive line of people waiting for tables -- no reservations are taken -- and diners are literally eating on the sidewalk while the mobile kitchen is on the street, with two big gas burners fuelled by kerosene. As chef Lucas Sin likes to say, they use jet fuel to cook.

This was my first time to Oi Man Sang and was excited to try the food that I had read and heard so much about. We got a table set up on the sidewalk, metres away from the open-air kitchen and watched two chefs deftly manipulate the woks as they were heated up by the roaring fire underneath.

Another good thing about eating here is that there is no corkage, so we brought a bottle of sake to try with the food. 

The first dish to arrive at the table was baked fish intestines with liver in egg casserole, and here it was topped with thin slices of you tiao or savoury Chinese doughnut for a contrasting texture. This was done well, fluffy from the eggs combined with the offal.

Stir-fried cabbage with minced pork and shrimp

Next was stir-fried small razor clams, which you don't see often. The narrow strips of sweet clam meat were about two to three inches long, cooked with a tiny bit of spice, and roughly chopped onion and peppers.

We also ordered stir-fried beef ribs, very tender and attached to the bone, together with onion and peppers again, and typhoon shelter crab, which is cooked with a lot of minced garlic and spices. The meat itself was sweet, though quite messy to eat.

A favourite was stir-fried cabbage with minced pork and dried shrimps in a clay pot. The cabbage soaked up the salty flavours, and in the sizzling pot stayed warm for quite a while. 

Stir-fried prawns is considered a popular dish, though again a bit messy to eat, though the prawns were very large, meaty and sweet.

While most of these dishes demonstrated wok hei, perhaps the only dish that was disappointing with the yeung chow fried rice; the individual rice while plump, were not cooked well enough in the wok to have the wok hei flavour.

Large meaty prawns served at Oi Man Sang

Nevertheless, we were quite satisfied with our dinner. I ventured over to the kitchen to take a look and indeed the two chefs there cooked dishes in seconds thanks to the intense fire on the stove. 

At one point there was a lot of banging -- the fire was so hot that it had warped the wok and the chef had to hammer it back into shape!

The evening we went there weren't many people waiting in line, which some attribute to not many tourists coming. We hope Oi Man Sang and other dai pai dongs continue their tradition for years to come, though who in the next generation is willing to work with such heat day in, day out?

Oi Man Sang

Shop B-C, G/F, 1 Shek Kip Mei Street, Sham Shui Po

+852 2393 9315

Delicious Budget Thai Eats in Yuen Long

Whetting the appetite with pomelo and prawn salad

When I was in Hong Kong, a foodie friend was keen to take me to a dai pai dong in Sham Shui Po called Oi Man Sang. Customers have to queue for a table, but many believe it's worth it, as the place is known for cooking fresh seafood. We were all looking forward to it -- until we found out it would be closed on Qing Ming, or grave-sweeping day, one of the few holidays the staff get off.

Braised beef in a tart soupy sauce

So, we had the second-best thing -- a Thai restaurant in Yuen Long, about a 20-minute walk from Yoho Mall II in the New Territories. 

My friend drove us there along with his cousin and her husband, along with another chef acquaintance to Thailand East. When we got there it's a large compound, with people eating outside and inside, and parking at the back.

We were shown to a indoor area and upstairs where practically all the tables were filled. While the place served Thai dishes like green papaya salad and skewers, they also had claypot rice -- very Cantonese, and soy sauce chicken.

To start the pomelo and shrimp salad was delicious, large chunks of the citrus fruit together with plump shrimp, cherry tomatoes and peanuts, with a light soy dressing that was seasoned with fried garlic chips. Soon came the pork and beef skewers dipped in a thick peanut sauce.

Claypot rice with Chinese sausages was spot on

In a large stainless steel bowl was a giant beef bone, seasoned with garlic and coriander. The bits of beef fell off the bone easily and the slightly tart soup was delicious. I could have eaten the soup on its own and be fully satiated.

Next came two piping hot claypot rice, and they had the crispy rice at the bottom. The first had Chinese sausages, including one with offal and pork belly, the other with small pork ribs. Both were delicious and just depended on which flavour your were more partial to. How a Thai restaurant prepared spot on claypot rice I don't know, but practically every table had at least one.

A pre-ordered baked soy chicken arrived sitting up on a mini stake with a bowl at the bottom to catch the drippings. It seemed disconcerting at first to see a headless chicken sort of standing upright, but we took pictures anyway. After the photo session it was whisked back to the kitchen for the chef to expertly chop into pieces.

Roasted chicken was tender, hardly dry

For vegetables, water spinach with a touch of chillis was just right, along with more fried rice with pork belly and scrambled eggs on top. 

By this point we were pretty full, but wait there's dessert! We had the standard black sticky rice with mango and coconut milk, and a plate of taro-flavoured jellies with small cups of coconut milk jelly. 

Together with good conversation mostly about food, and talking about what we ate, it was a very enjoyable evening at a restaurant on the side of the road. For five people the bill came to around HK$1,300 including drinks, about HK$260 per person. Practically Shenzhen prices! No wonder the place was packed!

Black sticky rice with mango and coconut milk

Thailand East

G/F, 1 Tung Shing Lei

Yuen Long

9790 6118

Night Market Stalls Due to Power Supply

Struggling "night vibes" in Wan Chai from power issues

"Night Vibes Hong Kong" has kicked off in a bid to get more people out in the evenings and spending their hard-earned money, but so far it's been a struggle for vendors thanks to not enough power supply.

There are some 90 vendors, 44 of which are selling food and drinks along the Wan Chai Promenade, but on the first day there were issues with the unstable electricity supply. As a result vendors had trouble heating up food or taking electronic payments.

The night market meant to evoke dai pai dongs

One was Singaporean skewer shop Satay Pop. "They told us it would be fixed at 3pm, then it was 6pm, and now, it's still nothing," said owner Anson Lau.

Another was Christopher Prezemyski, owner of Bistro Concepts, which has several eateries in Sai Ying Pun, and at Wan Chai he was selling lobster rolls, sushi, tacos and pulled pork sliders with alcoholic drinks.

"The only issue is, I still don't have power, which is actually a little disappointing. We only have basic power for the fridge, but for our hot foods, it's still not working."

He was unable to reheat or steam some of his food offerings as he had prepared to cook with electricity, though the government had allowed vendors to cook with an open fire, in a bid to evoke a dai pai dong atmosphere...

It seems like the Hong Kong government hadn't thought out the logistics of having 90 vendors and the amount of power needed in an area that only has a few spotlights along the harbourfront. 

Government officials hope this helps revive HK

To add insult to injury, vendors were shocked when they were told not to run their businesses on the evening of October 1 when a National Day fireworks display will finally be put on after a five-year absence.

On that day the open-air market will be open from 10am to 4pm and then the vendors will have to close for crowd control measures.

They said the move was "ridiculous". One vendor said it was ironic that the night market was to entice people to come out, and that the market and the fireworks complemented each other.

With the night market closed that night, vendors would be forced to watch the fireworks as people walked past their "closed" stalls.

It's quite amazing that Hongkongers are willing to take a chance on setting up stalls like this and encountering so many issues. Is it because they are desperate to make a buck or they see the potential in a government-run initiative?

Getting HK Priorities Straight

Diners are flocking to Tung Po Kitchen for the last hurrah

The famous or infamous Tung Po Kitchen is closing today (September 2 Hong Kong time) after 30 years. It's a dai pai dong in the Java Road Municipal Services Building, in other words, the North Point wet market. 

It took over a big area of  the cooked food area of the wet market, its owner Robby Cheung a charismatic frontman, who entertained guests by opening beer bottles with a chopstick, and joined them in drinking beers in ceramic bowls, along with singing and dancing.

Owner Robby Cheung (left) is a lively character

The Hong Kong Food and Environmental Hygiene Department cracked down on the eatery, saying that in an investigation since May 2021, Tung Po was suspected of having illegal subleases by four tenants, and in fact they did not operate as sole proprietors, and therefore in breach of their tenancy agreements.

Tung Po tried to appeal, but it was rejected and now must close.

I have eaten there twice, the first time with a group of colleagues and enjoyed the delicious claypot dishes like braised tofu or vermicelli with melon and dried shrimp, as well as claypot rice, along with steamed razor clams, and clams stirfried with black bean sauce.

The second time I went with YTSL and I ordered braised eggplant with minced pork. I should have waited for it to cool down and managed to burn my throat -- very painful! I left the next day for New York and even went to the hospital emergency to get it checked out. All I could do was keep gargling some green medicated liquid to keep my throat clean. The only thing I could eat pain-free was ice cream for a few days. 

Seafood dishes well known, lotus-wrapped rice

So while I don't miss the greasy floors and plastic stools, it is infuriating to see the government has suddenly decided to enforce laws now, when Tung Po had been violating it for years.

The same goes for illegal kaito ferry boats, some of which, it has been discovered, are operating without licenses. Some are rented out for outings by customers, others service outlying islands and transport people to and from Hong Kong Island mostly in the evenings.

Apparently the Marine Department conducted over 45 special patrols between 2017 and 2020 and says the number of inspections has to be stepped up to crack down on illegal kaito services.

Does this sudden crackdown on services and businesses using colonial laws have to do with the fact that a former cop is now Hong Kong's leader?

HK can't splurge on BioNTech jabs for kids?

People have complained that groups of police officers are on the prowl for any groups of more than four people on the street together to fine them HK$5,000 each, while four robbers got away with over HK$10 million in luxury watches after robbing a Causeway Bay shop.

What kind of law and order is happening in Hong Kong these days?

Meanwhile the government doesn't seem to value its next generation and won't procure BioNTech vaccines for children six months to three years old because it's "too pricey". Children can only get Sinovac shots.

On Thursday the number of Covid-19 cases jumped to 10,586, the first time since late March when the cases hit over 10,000. 

The percentage of vaccinations in children aged six months to three years is only at 11.7 percent of the total age group, and health officials are urging parents to get their children jabbed as school starts.

Over HK$330M for quarantine camps in Lantau

But why are these kids being treated different from adults, who get to choose between Sinovac and BioNTech?

It's not surprising some parents are cautious about vaccinations and having a choice would motivate them to get their children inoculated.

Meanwhile the government spent HK$330 million on three Covid-19 quarantine camps near Disneyland, and over HK$500 million on PCR tests since July 1 this year.