Snake soup restaurant Ser Wong Fun marks 130 years serving an iconic Hong Kong dish
Famed for a speciality dish that’s not for the squeamish, the eatery founded in 1895 is branching out under owner Gigi Ng
The restaurant is offering a special eight-course anniversary menu, featuring dishes such as ribs glazed with lychees and plums, crispy crab claws with lemon dip, and the signature Tai See Snake Soup, simmered for 24 hours with five types of snake, chicken and pork bones, aged tangerine peel and sugar cane. There’s also the “Bitter Turns Sweet” bento box, comprised of morsels that cover the flavour spectrum of sweet, sour, bitter and spicy.
“I didn’t plan our 130th anniversary in a business sense. I did it more to commemorate my parents, my grandmother and my ancestors,” says Ng. “My mother passed away in August last year. She was the one who worked the longest in our family business – for 63 years – so I wanted to remember her this way.”
After studying industrial engineering in Toronto, Canada, Ng returned to Hong Kong, initially working as an engineering consultant before earning an MBA. In 2000, she took over the family restaurant with her mother when her father became ill, and has since devoted herself, and most of her waking hours, to preserving her family’s legacy.
“I think it’s fate,” she says. “I don’t have time to go out to eat, unless it’s [to network] within the F&B industry. My customers have practically become my friends. We are doing OK but, honestly, Central at night, it’s quiet.”
She laments that diners have become more thrifty, and her dishes are not cheap, given the restaurant’s location, in the heart of Central, and its niche speciality, with a bowl of five-snake soup priced at HK$140 (US$18) per bowl. As if on cue, a trio of South Korean tourists arrive at a nearby table, but after a quick glance at the menu, they leave.
Ng clearly revels in this exercise, which she takes to the next level at Four Seasons Fun Fong, a restaurant she opened in Sha Tin with Charles Choi King-ting, CEO of Tian Tian Catering Group. Its menu takes inspiration from the history of Ser Wong Fun but reimagines it in dishes targeted towards younger, social media-savvy customers, such as snake soup and uni mixian.