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Henry Quach
Henry Quach

Opinion | Head to your favourite restaurants, bars and cafes before they close for good – there might not be a next time

  • Smell and taste have the amazing capacity to bring you back to a specific time or place and is perhaps the closest we can get to time travel
  • The closure of Mido Cafe and Happy Cake Shop means the end of such nostalgia trips for many Hongkongers – if you’ve been meaning to revisit a restaurant, go now

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Whenever a restaurant like Mido Cafe in Kowloon closes, a part of Hong Kong history disappears – as do the smells and tastes that will only survive in the memories of a certain few.
Henry Quach

A few months ago, I was walking the streets of Yau Ma Tei in Kowloon and passed by Mido Cafe, one of Hong Kong’s oldest traditional cafes. But I didn’t stop. I was in a rush and thought, “Another time”. Now it has closed, possibly forever. There will not be “another time” – for me, and for many others.

I grew up in France, where I was more used to the smells and tastes of boulangeries (bakeries) than cha chaan teng. I haven’t had the chance to go back since the pandemic began, but whenever I pass by a bakery, the intoxicating smell of freshly baked viennoiseries transports me back to the streets of Paris – an inadvertent moment that unlocks memories of home, and a sense of comfort.

I can imagine that, had I grown up in Hong Kong, the smell of a freshly baked pineapple bun or the first sip of a strong milk tea from a place such as Mido Cafe would provide the same stimulus along with flashbacks to childhood and a time that is no more.

Smell and taste have a special ability to trigger memories because they hit right in the centre of our brain – the amygdala – responsible for memory and arousal. They have the amazing capacity to bring you back to a specific time or place; it’s perhaps the closest we can get to time travel.

The smell of freshly baked viennoiseries transports writer Henry Quach back to the streets of Paris. Photo: Shutterstock
The smell of freshly baked viennoiseries transports writer Henry Quach back to the streets of Paris. Photo: Shutterstock

In Marcel Proust’s 1913 novel In Search of Lost Time, the narrator experiences recollections of his past thanks to the taste of a madeleine cake. The famous Proust effect, however, doesn’t have to come from a madeleine – it can be anything, and happen anywhere, anytime.

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