Top 10 Hong Kong Street Food

What Aussies call Yum Cha means ‘having tea’ in Cantonese. For Hong Kong, Yum Cha is most commonly breakfast and brunch with a full table of delicious Dim Sum – snack-sized dishes ranging from deep-fried yummies to hot, steamed goodies, accompanied by a warm pot of Chinese tea.

There are usually over 80 dishes to choose from, and any decent Dim Sum place will have a menu of at least 20 to 30 items, including a great variety of dumplings, buns, puffs, tarts, rolls and many more! All in small servings for diversified enjoyment, typically presented by waiters with roll-carts making rounds in the restaurant.

Must-try highlights are Char Siu Bao barbecue pork bun, Foong Jao steamed chicken feet with black bean sauce, Lo Mai Kai chicken rice dumpling, Lo Bak Go pan-fried turnip cake, Siu Mai pork dumpling, Cheong Fun pork and shrimp noodle rolls, Har Gao shrimp dumpling, Char Siu So barbecue pork puffs, Ja Har Gok deep-fried shrimp balls, Chun Guin spring roll, and Ma Lai Go fluffy brown sugar sponge cakes – just to name a few.

Yum Cha is friends and family time, so never enjoy your Dim Sum alone!

Apart from these, Hong Kong streets and markets are also filled with vendors selling a variety of local quick snacks. So be sure to go for a walk and discover their many flavours on your next trip!

Speaking of tea, Hong-Kongers not only drink Chinese tea but also Western black tea with milk: a practice influenced by British colonial rule. What makes Hong Kong milk tea different is its rich, smooth texture and sweet, creamy taste. The secret is running hot water through crushed tea-leaves packed in a sackcloth bag filter that looks like a pantyhose and mixing the tea with evaporated or condensed milk. Which is why another name for it is Si Mut Nai Cha or ‘silk stocking’ milk tea.

You can achieve a similar smoothness at home with our special recipe, though it’s not a regular Hong Kong café practice.

Hot milk tea is typically served in a ceramic cup or a tall cylindrical glass, but also with ice-cubes for a chilled, refreshing afternoon drink.

Literally means ‘little chicken eggs’; egg waffle is a popular roundish snack served hot. Eggy leavened batter baked in a special griddle pan with small round cells, on charcoal fire or electrical stoves, resulting in golden honeycombed lumpy waffles that are crispy on the outside with a soft, cake-like filling.

Urban legend says it’s created because eggs were a luxury during post-World War II years, and street hawkers made the most of their eggs by working them into a batter with sugar, flour, butter and evaporated milk.

Egg waffles today also come in different flavours such as green tea, chocolate, cheese and sweet potato.

Boiled soybean milk blended with gypsum powder, then left to cool and solidify into a white, silky pudding. Traditionally made by hand, this jelly-like treat is considered a Hong Kong heritage that is healthy, yummy, and wholly organic with high fibre content. 

Usually served warm in a bowl.

Sweet, smooth baked egg custard with a crispy outer crust, egg tarts are a café must-have pastry dessert introduced to Hong Kong by Guangzhou chefs since 1940; though first reinvented from the English custard and Portuguese pastel de nata since 1927 at the Zhenguang Restaurant in Guangzhou.

Besides the traditional golden custard, Hong Kong-style egg tarts today also come in many flavoured variants: milk, honey, ginger, chocolate, green tea, etc. Served hot from the oven.

Named “Pineapple Bun” yet without any actual pineapples. Instead, this dough pastry gets its yellowy colour from the baked egg-yolk top crust, giving it a pineapple-like texture. Best enjoyed fresh from the oven, the Bo Lo Bao is soft, sweet and filling on it's own, but you can also have this yummy bun with a piece of stuffed butter or custard for extra flavour.

Thick milk bread slices dipped in egg batter, pan-fried to perfect crispy brown and served hot with butter and condensed milk or syrup. Even CNN named the Hong Kong French Toast one of the world’s 50 Most Delicious Foods.

Originally introduced by Brit colonials, and since reinvented for maximum flavour, Hong Kong cafés had also added fillings to their French Toast; including custard, sesame, taro, kaya, cheese and even beef satay!

You’ll see these reddish, mouth-watering whole birds hanging at the front of street diners. Hong Kong Roast Goose or Siu Ngoh is a local favourite, as common as Hainan chicken rice is to Malaysia and Singapore.

Traditional soy sauce, rice wine and oyster sauce marinade add to its succulent colour, with skin roasted to crispy perfection, a flavourful layer of fat beneath and amazingly tender meat. Order one and the chef will chop it down to chunks, served with rice and plum sauce. You’ll have to queue for it, as these specialty diners are usually crowded, but the unforgettable taste is always worth the wait.

Wanton noodles is a satisfying comfort food originated from Guangzhou. Thin, eggy noodles with bouncy shrimp and minced pork dumplings in hot, clear soup, garnished with leafy veggie or garlic chives.

The wantons are handmade with thin dumpling skin. Noodles cooked till blanched, rinsed in cool water, then dipped and served in the steamy light brown broth made from dried flounder. Each bowl usually comes with three to four wantons. It may look simple, but the fulfilling taste is sure to surprise you.

Few cultures make instant noodles into a signature breakfast dish quite like Hong Kong; adding sliced luncheon meat, sunny-side egg and veggies, thus naming it Chan Dan Min or “egg and meat meal noodles”.

But instead of using the MSG satchels for soup, each restaurant usually has its own broth recipe, making every Chan Dan Min experience unique. Some might even have a dry variant, with the noodles served in a sauce.