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Hong Kong street food

Hong Kong street food
Discover the stories behind Hong Kong’s street food culture, from egg waffles and fish balls to stinky tofu and dai pai dong classics
highlights from
100 Top Tables 2025 Restaurant Directory
100 Top Tables 2025 Restaurant Directory
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Review | A Taste of Home is a wonderful, bittersweet tribute to Hong Kong’s food culture

Rousing, tear-jerking and laugh-out-loud hilarious, Windmill Grass Theatre’s new production is peak Hong Kong food nostalgia.

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Instead of relying on imported labour, the city must take a proactive approach to reclaim its status as a food and drink industry pioneer.

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Food and Drinks

Hong Kong’s best cheap eats: from Tam Jai to French toast

Hong Kong’s street food and local favourites range from succulent char siu to claypot rice – here’s where to get them for HK$200 or less.

Hoko Milk Tea’s Hong Kong French toast and milk tea. Photo: Hoko
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Editorial | Hong Kong should support its hawkers, not let them disappear

As an integral part of Hong Kong’s culinary culture, hawkers shouldn’t have to choose between retirement and the future of their business.

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Video | Hidden gems: tours unveil vanishing Hong Kong attractions

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Ma Li as businesswoman Zang Jianhe in a still from ‎The Dumpling Queen (category IIB; Cantonese, Mandarin) directed by Andrew Lau. Kara Wai and Ben Yuen co-star. Photo: Handout
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On the Menu | Is 90-minute wait to eat worth it? For food made with love and care, yes

Waiting for food can be a joy when it is made with love, as it is at Yue Hing in Hong Kong, where patience is rewarded with a humble meal.

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Hong Kong’s two-dish rice, but make it fancy

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Canadian artist Kitty Wong recalls eating at Hong Kong cafes and reading the fashion comic Miss 13 Dots as a child. It inspires her art, some of which is on show in her exhibition Hong Kong Baby Girl.

Canadian artist Kitty Wong with some of her work, inspired by nostalgia for the Hong Kong food and fashion of her childhood, currently on show in the city. Photo: Kitty Wong
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Reflections | After scandal over Hong Kong fermented bean curd, where tofu comes from

Tofu was in Hong Kong headlines recently, but where does it come from? According to a widely quoted origin story, an emperor’s grandson in China 2,000 years ago created soy milk, and from it bean curd.

Fermented tofu (bean curd). Photo: Tom Wang
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How ‘2-dish-rice’ meals went from Hong Kong workers’ staple to culinary classic

Food culture academic says dining restrictions amid Covid-19 pandemic helped to normalise shops offering affordable choice of Cantonese favourites as an option for everyone.

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Dumplings dive, a lychee lounges: Hong Kong artist offers food for thought

Everyday food items reproduced faithfully in oil paints but placed in settings you wouldn’t expect – in a dragon boat, on a street – mark still-life artist Chang Ya-chin’s work, on show in Hong Kong.

Detail from Chang Ya-chin’s “Lychee on a swing”. Photo: Chang Ya Chin/Kiang Malingue
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Video | The last of Hong Kong’s dai pai dong street food rebels

Distinct, delectable, but disappearing: streetside hawker stands in Hong Kong known as dai pai dongs and the classic comfort food they serve are an iconic part of the city’s history

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Video | The last of Hong Kong’s dai pai dong street food rebels

Distinct, delectable, but disappearing: streetside hawker stands in Hong Kong known as dai pai dongs, and the classic comfort food they serve are an iconic part of the city’s history, offering up a striking contrast to the modern polished skyscrapers that throng the city skyline. While many have closed down over the years, others have adapted to the times. From the classic food stands to cooked food centres to mushroom pavilions nestled in public housing estates known as dung gu ting, this episode of Hong Kong Authentic explores the history behind the famed food stalls and the families that run them.

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‘I’m not a fine-dining person’: a Hongkonger’s top eats in the city

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Toast with ham and scrambled egg, a plate of char siu spaghetti and a drink by the Australia Dairy Company in Jordan. It is one of Charlz Ng’s favourite places to eat in Hong Kong. The gym, restaurant and bar owner shares other places he likes to eat in the city with the Post.
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Hong Kong’s street hawkers are dwindling, ageing and fading out of sight

Only about 300 hawkers have mobile carts as city authorities have stopped issuing new licences.

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Au Yuk-hoo, 81, sells socks and stockings in Causeway Bay. Photo: Xiaomei Chen
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Chequered waffles, a Hong Kong favourite, and 9 of the best places for them

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Hong Kong’s best Chiu Chow fish balls and egg waffles – food blogger’s picks

Long-time food blogger Gary Suen reveals where to get the city’s best Chiu Chow fish balls and egg waffles, and the restaurant he thinks offers Hong Kong’s finest dishes.

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Where a foodie dentist eats in Hong Kong, from fine dining to fish balls

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Fish ball noodles from On Lee Noodle in Shau Kei Wan, Hong Kong. Photo: SCMP
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Chestnuts roasting in an open wok: Hong Kong hawker on a winter staple

‘So golden and beautiful,’ says hawker Kobus Tsang as he plucks a roast chestnut from his cart. Chestnut vendors are a winter staple in Hong Kong, but their numbers are dwindling.

Roast chestnuts ready for sale on a hawker cart operated by Kobus Tsang and his mother, Chi Lee Tsang. A common sight in winter, chestnut hawker carts are dwindling in number in Hong Kong amid official measures to discourage street hawking. Photo: Kylie Knott
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Mass transit exposure puts spotlight on iconic Hong Kong egg tart and its origins

A bakery worker carrying unprotected tray-loads of Hong Kong’s iconic egg tart on the city’s busy mass transit rail system prompts social media storm and reignites mystery over the dessert’s origins.

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On the Menu | Hong Kong’s best loved local restaurants to visit before its too late

After losing the likes of Tung Po Kitchen, Lin Heung Tea House and Happy Cake Shop in recent months, here are some other favourite local Hong Kong eateries that deserve more love.

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