A Layover in Hong Kong

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I had a 12 hour layover in Hong Kong on my way to Cambodia.

I had been to the city before and had hit a few of the main tourist attractions so I wanted to do something else and thought a food tour would be fun! Who am I kidding, I jut used that as an excuse to make my focus of the layover about food. My main priority would be to eat dumplings—and a lot of them.

I started Googling to look for some blogs to get an idea of where I should go. I found Hello Hong Kong which offers a food tour that lasted about four hours. Perfect! Although not perfect—they only run on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays and I of course was there on a Thursday—so I was SOL. I decided instead to do my kind of copy cat version. While I enjoyed my version and it was a bit cheaper I strongly suggest if you can do this tour to do it. Not having to find my way around in the humidity, possibly to have made friends, and to have dinning guest would have been a great addition.

I landed in HK ready to go! I checked my luggage at the “left luggage” center in the airport for about $10 USD and took the train into the center. My first stop was Lin Heung Kui Tea House and an easy first stop because it was about a 10 minute walk from where the train stops. You walk up the stairs to a room full of tables filled with people and carts clattering around the room. All are community tables so you can sit anywhere; kind of. I attempted to sit in multiple different spots before they directed me to where they wanted me to sit. I sat and had amazing dumplings and sipped on my tea while trying to stop profusely sweating. Hong Kong is so humid and hot. As carts rolled around I pointed to orders I wanted and sometimes also got some items I didn’t want. For example a trip wrapped item. At first I thought it was a duck embryo inside and thought well this is going to be an interesting 7 am meal, but the part I thought was a duck head ended up being a mushroom with cooked chicken. It was delicious.

I left full but no too full—I knew I had more stops. I walked around in the Central District and then slowly made my way to Lan Fong Yuen with the intentions of getting just milk tea. Then I sat down and got sucked into getting kaya toast and a pineapple bun. Kaya toast is pretty much a fancier version of french toast. It is kaya (coconut jam) on classic white toast with sugar and then like french toast it is dipped in eggs and coconut milk and then fried in a pan with pandan which gives off a vanilla flavor. It is served with honey to drizzle on top. It was light and heavenly.

I was moving along quickly. One thing I find is that traveling alone I get things done fast. I had time to relax and not eat. I decided it was time to do some shopping. I wanted to get a bamboo steamer. I wanted to get one from Tak Chong Sum Kee Bamboo Steamer Company in the Western District, which is one of the only original family owned bamboo steamer makers left in the city because a lot of companies left in 1997. Bamboo is great for steamers because bamboo is antibacterial but it also pulls in the moisture so droplets of water do not drop in on the food that is steaming. My plan was to walk to the shop because I had time and wanted to walk off some food, but like I mentioned earlier it was SO HOT. I took a $3 taxi.

I was in the area to check out the iconic elevators in Hong Kong that weren’t the ones in Central so I hoped on the Sai Ying Pun elevator and took a much needed no exertion ride to the top. The then took the metro back to Central. It was easy; this is the truth, if I figured it out anyone can!

Final stop was Mak’s Noodles for some wonton noodle soup at the Michelin rated restaurant. At this point the food had settled and I was full. I ordered the noodles with wonton and it was delicious. So rich and it had a very distinct flavor of the soup that was more a dried fish flavor versus umami. The noodles are thin and still have a bite to them and the dumplings are plump and dense. Amazing, but I was  struggling so hard. Each bite was work to fit more in. I shamefully couldn’t finish my bowl.

There were two more stops officially on my copy cat food tour tour but I couldn’t eat more. I am so sad to say I missed the egg tart at Tai Cheong Bakery and Joy Hing to try char sui aka BBQ pork. HOW COULD I MISS THE EGG TART!

I sat full and content on the train as I headed back to the airport. Though I missed a few stops it was a perfect layover.

I don’t want to read your post, what should I know?

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