Wining and Dining in Hong Kong

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No one has ever contradicted the guestimate that there are more than 5,000 restaurant listed in the colony’s telephone directories. Hong Kong is like Paris, where conversation invariably involves the current merits and demerits of restaurants. Restaurants in Hong Kong tend to be extensions of one’s living room, places where friends and families gather for celebrations and anniversary feasts. In Hong Kong’s , the first eating rule is to be adventurous and get out of your hotel and sample some of the best Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Singaporean, Malayan, Indonesian, Filipino, Thai, Indian and Vietnamese foods in the world.

Hong Kong is a colony largely influenced by Cantonese cooking . Some of the extreme Cantonese cooking includes monkey’s brain (eaten directly from the freshly killed monkey’s skull), bear’s paw, snake, dog, pigeon, frogs, sparrows, live baby mice (good for ulcers) and lizards. Other delicacies that tourists might like to try which are served in Cantonese restaurants and other restaurants in Hong Kong includes :

• Steam fish, the fish is steamed whole with fresh ginger and spring onions and sprinkled with a little soy and sesame oil.
• Gold Coin Chicken, livers of chicken skewed between pieces of pork fat and red-roasted until the fat becomes crisp and the liver soft and succulent. This delicacy is then eaten with wafers of orange-flavoured bread.
• Monk Jumping Over the Wall, a winter specialty is a double-boiled soup with a blend of abalone, chicken, ham, mushrooms and herbs that is so irresistible that monks are said to break their vows of vegetarianism if its fragrance is within smelling distance.
• Laap Cheong, is a casserole of chicken and Chinese smoked pork sausages. These sausages are sold in pairs and usually are served steamed on a bed of rice.
• Frogs or "Field Chickens", the best course is deep-fried with crushed almonds and served with sweet and sour sauce.
• Beijing (Peking) Duck, the duck is prepared by roasting it over an open charcoal fire and slowly basting it with syrup until the skin is crispy brown. The duck and sauce which is a mild, sweetish soya bean paste mixed with spring onions and cucumber are placed on a waferthin wheat tortilla that looks like a thin, dry rolled crepe or pancake. This concoction is then rolled up and eaten with the fingers.
• Mongolian hotpot is a winter food, served between November and March. The key preparation utensil for hotpot eating is a chafing dish with a small charcoal burning stove built-in underneath and a chimney rising through its centre. A trough around this dish contains soup stock to which is added vegetables, cabbage and herbs. When the soup stock begin to boil, the entire stove is set into a hole cut in the centre of the table. Wafer-thins slices of various meats or fishes, previously ordered are served raw, and to be cooked by yourself in a small wire baskets dipped in this hotpot’s bubbling broth. A spicy sauce prepared to your taste by the waiter, adds to the taste treat.
• Szechuan smoked duck, the duck is marinated in rice wine and steamed for two hours, smoked over a charcoal fire sprinkled with camphor wood chips and red tea leaves, fried briefly to crisp the skin and finally served with lotus leaf pancakes.
• Szechuan sour pepper soup, is prepared with bean curd, chicken’s blood and shredded bamboo shoots seasoned with chillies, peppercorns and vinegar.
• Bird’s Nest Soup, the dried saliva lining the edible swiftlets’s nest provides the magic for this soup.
• Drunken Chicken, a delicacy flavoured with Shao Hsing yellow rice wine and eaten cold with garnish of coriander leaves.
• Lion’s Head Casserole, which is an excellent dish of meatballs cooked with black mushrooms and bamboo shoots.
• Beggar’s Chicken, is served encased in a mud pack that is cracked open with a hammer. In the centre of this mud pack is a delicately baked chicken which has been stewing in its juices for more than eight hours.
• Dim Sum is extremely popular with the Hong Kong Chinese population. Dim sum means "little heart" or "touching the heart" and it refers to food comes in small portions on equally small plates. The Dim Sum Savouries are served stacked on trolleys which are being wheeled from table to table.

There are no inflexible rules when it comes to ordering a Chinese meal. The main thing is to enjoy the food.