The Best of Hong Kong 1: Food

As promised, here's the start of my series on the best and worst things about Hong Kong! And what better way then to start off writing about food? Since this is such a large topic, I'll just breeze through it with some of my favorite things.

I love food. I love cooking. I love reading food blogs and food magazines. For a food lover such as myself, Hong Kong is a great place to be. It's probably one of the most international cities in Asia so it has all kinds of restaurants as well as imported food for poor, craving expats like me. I mean, you can get peanut-butter and blue cheese and stuffing here! I definitely still miss food (especially Mexican food!) but at least there are a lot of other foods I can console myself with.

Dim Sum is one of the most popular things to eat here. Usually you go with a group of people to a dim sum restaurant and order a lot of different dishes. Or if you're a Hong Kong person, you order a LOT of different dishes. All of the food is served in round, wooden boxes that they stack into these gigantic towers. You also drink a lot of Chinese tea (I prefer Jasmine).

This is one of my favorites. I don't really know what it's called, but it is a kind of dumpling with pork inside. Yum yum.

These are also very delicious. I call this a dumpling shrimp wrap. Again, I don't know the names of things (Canto-speakers always order) but it's delicious! The vegetables are very good too, but they're so slippery! My chopstick skills have gotten pretty decent, but not as far as picking up slippery vegetables. I usually embarrass myself by dropping them, which is always fun.

This is a sesame dessert filled with lotus paste. Really delicious.

This is a different version of the sesame balls. They're awesome because you bite into them and they deflate. :D

Then there's random little dishes that I get at hole-in-the-wall places. Some are quite traditional. Some are just tasty. Either way, I'm not complaining.

This is cold bean curd with orange sugar on it. It reminds me of Cream of Wheat.

Here's some tasty fried rice I got at Cheung Chau (Island). The shrimp is the best I'd ever had.

Lemon chicken! I got this at a little place in Stanley Market.

On to drinks. They have some awesome drinks around here (although I do miss the cheap, delicious Thai smoothies).

Picture credit: Lillian

This is the drink stand on the corner. When it's hot I usually get an iced caramel coffee or a chocolate banana smoothie. When it's cold, usually caramel hot chocolate.

Picture credit: Lillian

The one on the left is milk tea! I have come to LOVE milk tea. It has a very strange taste, but it's so good. Especially iced. This particular version is Taiwanese so it has the colored glutinous balls in the bottom. They're chewy.

Desserts are also super delicious. I don't have too many pictures of desserts, but believe me, there are so many wonderful kinds! They have a kind of really thin shaved ice cream that is served with marshmallows and chocolate sticks. There's lots of kinds of almond or sesame soups that are popular in the winter.

See? Doesn't that make your mouth water? Mine certainly was. Although it is called Summer and I was eating it in December.

And of course, there are all sorts of odd foods that are here. I have tried many, many strange things and have liked most of them. Don't be afraid of something that looks weird! It might be good!

This is me eating a duck foot! It wasn't wonderful, but it wasn't terrible. Kind of bland and rubbery. But hey, it's an experience!

There are lots of things I didn't include, like hotpot and street dishes and other kinds of ethnic food. But this is already too long, so goodbye!