Great food that you shouldn't miss!

Sun Hang Yuen Kin Kee - 

eggs and beef sandwich, pineapple drink

Kwan Kee Store - cake and puddings (e.g. clay-pot pudding, sesame cake, sugar cake)

Wai Kee Noodle Cafe - noodles with pig livers and beef, toast with Kaya jam

Kung Woo - bean curd

 

Hup Yik Tai - rice rolls

Mr.Dessert

- Multiple Beans Sweet Soup, Black Glutinous Rice Sweet Soup, and Rice Dumplings with Beans Powder

Sham Shui Po Nowadays

Sham Shui Po is a collecting and distributing centre in Hong Kong. Geographically it is located in Kowloon Peninsular near Mongkok and Shek Kip Mei.

Sham Shui Po is sophisticated. It is combined by mixture. Different streets in Sham Shui Po have different themes. There is a whole street selling toys. It is a paradise to children. They are happy because they can be surrounded by their favourite thing in the world. For adult, it is their childhood. Even people in their fifties can find their favourite toys when they were kids. Another street is selling clothing and textile related stuff. It attracts a lot of students studying fashion design because average price is low in Sham Shui Po. They often buy cloth for doing assignments. Besides, there are even centres selling electronic and computer products. They are the Golden Computer Plaza and Golden Computer Arcade, as well as the Apliu Street. Therefore, Sham Shui Po is called the Hong Kong Akihabara.

This is the Apliu Street.

Old stuffs are sold in Sham Shui Po. You may find your treasure accidentally!

For our group, we will focus on the cuisine in Sham Shui Po. There are more than thirty popular restaurants in Sham Shui Po and most of them are listed in the Openrice.com, a famous food website in Hong Kong. Sham Shui Po acts as a food paradise. It attracts not only tourists but also local people. It is because they can enjoy cheap and delicious food. These food are not precious. They are just ordinary food like fish ball and shrimp seeds noodles. The most important point is, these food reflect Hong Kong Spirits: hard-working and never give up. Hong Kong spirits was established since 1980s. People worked hard to earn a living. Though life is tough, they never give up easily. Most restaurants are founded by ordinary people. With their perseverance and hard work, they become popular restaurants in Hong Kong.

These are my group mates. The background is a street selling clothings.

Grandmothers look after their lovely grandson while they are doing business.

History

The earliest historical record of Sham Shui Po can be dated back to Han dynasty, which has been proofed by the archeological discovery in Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb which is located in Cheung Sha Wan, Sham Shui Po District. According to the composition in the Han Tombs, pottery house models and bronze wares, it is clear that Sham Shui Po since then had already been under the influence of the Lingnan culture.

From 1842 to 1898, Sham Shui Po was the border region of British colony and Qing territory. After 1898, after Qing China leased the New Territories to British, Sham Shui Po became the important transit point from Hong Kong Island to the New Territories. Sham Shui Po Ferry Pier had provided one of the most important transportation services between Central and Kowloon Peninsula from 1924 to 1970s.

From 1941, Hong Kong was under the occupation of Japanese Army. Sham Shui Po became concentration camp where prisoners were imprisoned. The poor environment there had a very negative effect on people’s health. Infections were rampant and many of the prisoners dead since there is no efficient medical facilities.

After the second World War, Hong Kong economy started to take off. Sham Shui Po in this period was among the major manufacturing industrial centers, which attracted a large number of immigrants from mainland China to work and settle there. Sham Shui Po thus become a district with dense population. It was also in 1950s after the major fire in Shek Kip Mei, the colonial government launched the first public housing program in Hong Kong. Mei Ho House as the last remaining example of a “Mark II” Building in a single-block configuration is now preserved as historical remains from the earliest public housing project.

Since the 1980s, along with the economic transformation in Hong Kong, manufacturing industries were relocated to places with cheaper land rental rates and labor costs. Sham Shui Po thus lost its former splendor.

Tasty "Fast Food"

 Many kinds of food could be tried even if you stay in Sham Shui Po for only a few hours. The pace of food serving is very fast, just like what most busy Hong Kong people would pursue of ---- the “fast food” culture, which suits the lifestyle of Hong Kong people, especially in the urban areas.

Shuttling across the streets, we have tried various kinds of well-known food in the district. Stepped into a crowded cafe and squeezed to sit down in a corner, we were looking forward to the signature dish in Wai Kee Noodle Café, the Noodles with Pig Livers and Beef. The matching of pig livers and beef with the soup tasted good, which made the instant noodles unordinary. What surprised me was the addition of ginger into the noodles. I don’t like ginger but it’s really a great ingredient to remove the fishy taste of the livers in soup.

 

I have heard that there is a worth-trying sandwich nearby, but I did not expect too much on it, because I thought “sandwich is sandwich”. Until it was placed on our table, I was amazed by the thick layer of fillings in between the two pieces of toast. Juicy scrambled eggs embedded with chopped beef, not the minced one, the sandwich was freshly made and I did enjoyed eating it. Yes, that is the Eggs and Beef Sandwich found in Sun Hang Yuen Kin Kee! You must try it at least once.

After having such heavy meals, we would like to try some light refreshments. We bought a dish of rice rolls in Hup Yik Tai. It was so new to me that we have to enjoy the dish standing in the back lane. I thought it was an ordinary dish as we could eat rice rolls elsewhere easily. However, after I ate the first piece of it, I realized it was different. It was very smooth, with strong rice fragrance and was found that the peanut source blended with oil, no wonder the taste was special.

Along the way, we have searched for much other classic and authentic food in the district, such as Kwan Kee’s cakes and puddings, Kung Woo’s bean curd and Lau Sum Kee’s Shrimp Roe Noodles. How they taste? Why they are so famous? Go to Sham Shui Po and find it out!

Story behind the food

Despite the savory taste of those food, every single dish has their own story behind. Due to the bad economic environment, inflation has caused great problems to the living of low income citizens.

 However, in the corner of the street, there is a shop selling Roasted pork rice for only $11 with healthy soup for the elderly. Mr. Hung, the owner of the Chinese Barbecue (also known as Siu Mei) shop, has continuously offered the roasted pork rice in half price to the needy in Shum Shui Po and his shop has become famous after being reported and interviewed by different media channels. Every day he sells about a thousand boxes of rice. Indeed, he is doing a great job to the residences around, but the price of doing it is to lose $1.5 per box of rice. “Including the order from the social welfare association, I would lose money whenever I sell every single box of rice. However, my dream is to let people using the lowest price to taste the best Siu Mei as in Chinese culture, satiating the hunger is the basic need of human.” The generous and thoughtful mind of Hung has touched the heart of two rehabilitated persons and they are now voluntarily helping the shop to deliver rice boxes to the social welfare association.

Sometimes, even if we are one of them, we normally think that Hong Kong people are so stingy and snobbish. What they only care is their own benefit and therefore nowadays Hong Kong has an extreme disparity between the rich and the poor. Nevertheless, there is still someone like the owner of the Siu Mei shop who seems ordinary but making a great impact to the society. Losing $1.5 per box of rice might be trivial when compared to the great amount donated from a wealthy philanthropist, however his genuine mind of helping the needy makes him great. He has used the most direct way to cope with the hardest problem that is faced by the citizens. Furthermore, his act could have aroused public the concern of poverty and changed people’s mind and will, just like those 2 rehabilitated persons. It’s all about quality, not quantity. Next time if you are planning to search for great cuisine in Sham Shui Po, please go and try the roasted pork rice and taste the underlying significance brought by this ordinary box of rice.

All for one, one for all

When I was a child, I often watched the TV programs of Hong Kong. One of the most frequent lines is “all for one, one for all”. It is said that helping and caring for each other are a part of Hong Kong spirit. When I visited Shem Shui Po, I felt this spirit.

The environment of these restaurants was not elegant but ordinary and warm. Some restaurants kept the prices of the food to satisfy the poor. It is unbelievable that you can still have a meal as cheap as 14 HKD in Hong Kong today! The restaurant in Hong Kong style, or Cha Can Ting in Cantonese, was crowded. The waiters kept exclaiming the orders and once entered, I smelled the food. I found that many of the customers and waiters actually knew each other, maybe neighbors. They said hello to each other. They even exchanged the information that which supermarket was on sale and discussed the news on the newspapers.

It was different from having lunch in a restaurant with professional service. Instead, I felt I was having lunch with a big family. In Lau Sum Kee Noodle, the waiters chatted with me. When I was thinking what to order, she pointed the bill with strength and said, “This one! You must try this one! It’s great!” And she even asked me where I came from because I spoke Cantonese with an accent. She soon praised my Cantonese with the thumbs up. Since they were still not too busy, she came back to me when I was eating and helloed at me. “It’s great, isn’t it? My suggestions are always right!” When I was leaving, she even waved goodbye to me. Once outside of the restaurant, I was sent into shivers by the cold wind with rains. An old aunt with an exaggerative colorful scarf said to me, “It’s so cold! You should wear more! When you are old, you will understand it!” The words made me feel much warmer.

I always believe that one can only be full when having something together with the concern and kindness of the cook and the warmth around. Finally, I was full.