Singapore Getaways

Address: 429 Lockhart Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong, China
Tel: +852 2834 6268
Opening Hours: 6pm till late
Location: Google Maps of Under the Bridge Spicy Crab

Delicious! Go early before the crowds start pouring in. We showed up around 6pm and it was nice and quiet. Apparently Hong Kong doesn’t eat dinner that early. My friends who had previously gone at 10pm said the wait was very long. We ordered the Mildly Spicy. Anything more would’ve been too spicy to enjoy the crab.

There are several stores along the same road. I’ve read that they are the same. It is something I noticed in Hong Kong shops – when they cannot expand to the shop nextdoor so they often expand to several shops along the same road. The walls are plastered with pics of celebs, including the Muscles of Brussels himself, Jean Claude Van Damme.

Must try:
- Crab
- Giant pissing prawns (trivia: they are reared individually in 1 L water bottles)
- Roasted pigeon

Cost of Damage: Not cheap, expect about SGD $50 per person.

Value: Damn worth it. This is the sort of meal people dream of flying to Hong Kong to have.

Address: 82 Stanley Street, Central, Hong Kong, China
Tel: +852 2551 5564
Opening Hours: I went there at 10am it was open.
Location: Google Maps of Wai Kee Congee Shop

Delicious porridge here. I went there for breakfast 3 times out of the week I was in Hong Kong. I had the pig’s blood congee. This was especially delicious for me since some fool banned tasty blood products in Singapore. I like to mash the cubes up into small pieces and get a bit in each spoonful. For those of you wondering what blood cubes taste like, think of a meat flavoured soya bean curd. Yu tiao (fried dough stick) was great on the first and second visit but only meh on the third. No idea what the you tiao wrapped in chee cheong fun is called, but it was tasty!

Also known as Topless Men Porridge, but that’s a story for another time.

Must try:
- Porridge (I loved pig’s blood, also tried century egg it was tasty)
- Yu tiao (fried dough stick)

Cost of Damage: About SGD $2-3 per bowl, about $1 for each yu tiao.

Value: Awesome value!

If you are in the area, go to Wai Kee Congee Shop for breakfast in the morning, walk around the SOHO area and look at artsy stuff, have an early lunch at Yung Kee Restaurant then visit Honolulu Cafe for delicious egg tarts. They are all within a 10 minute walk of each other.

Further Reading:

The Undisputed Porridge & Yu Tiaw in Hong Kong - A good porridge is when the rice is cooked till it breaks down & it gets so mixed with the water that it becomes brothy. That is what I call REAL porridge. And that’s what we had in Hong Kong at an old shop called Wai Kee. via Greg & Nee on the Go

Hong Kong Diaries – Wai Kee Congee Shop (威记粥店) - What I love most about travelling is eating like the locals, or finding that hole-in-the-wall place which serves up authentic, tasty and affordable local cuisine. So one of such places I visit repeatedly in Hong Kong is this porridge/congee stall in Stanley Market. via Angela Leow Gray

Address: 40 Wellington Street, Central, Hong Kong, China
Tel: +852 2522 1624
Opening Hours: 11 AM – 11:30 PM
Location: Google Maps of Yung Kee Restaurant in Hong Kong

The most famous roast goose in Hong Kong, and possibly the world! I initially did not plan to come to Yung Kee after less-than-stellar experiences of my friends, but as luck would have it, this historic roast goose shop is just down the road from Wai Kee Congee and a Hong Kong institution in itself.

I usually detest eating century eggs as an appetizer. I avoid them because the flavours pretty much go to war in my mouth between the pickled ginger’s vinegar pikemen and the century egg’s ammonia cavalry. Then my teeth come mashing down and destroying their armies. Rawr rawr like the sandworm in Dune. Back to the point, however, the century egg appetizer was delicious. Despite my reservations about the soft century egg yolk, the textures and flavours came together surprisingly well. This eye-opening experience was worth the trip to Yung Kee.

For the bird itself, the goose skin was lovely, crisp with a nice layer of fat (yes, fat, delicious tasty animal fat) was great, but the meat a little on the tough side. A local Hong Kong lady we shared the table with recommended a better roast goose place, but said she still came to Yung Kee because it was convenient. The place she recommended was Sham Tseng Chan Kee Roast Goose somewhere near the airport. If you go, ta pao me some plz.

I probably wouldn’t come back to Yung Kee.

Must Try:
- Century egg
- Roast goose, come on that’s what they’re famous for
(these were the only 2 i tried)

Cost of Damage: About SGD $25 per person… maybe because my friend and I shared half a roast goose between 2 people, which according to Wikipedia, shouldserve up to 6 people.

Value: Not great value. But hey at least I had roast goose at Hong Kong’s most famous roast goose place!

If you are in the area, go to Wai Kee Congee Shop for breakfast in the morning, walk around the SOHO area and look at artsy stuff, have an early lunch at Yung Kee Restaurant then visit Honolulu Cafe for egg tarts. They are all within a 10 minute walk of each other.

Address: Several locations all around Hong Kong
Opening Hours: 24 hours woohoo
Location: Google Maps of Tsui Wah locations in Hong Kong

Tsui Wah won’t win any Michelin stars but you will get a good meal here for under SGD $15 at 5am in the morning after over-indulging at Lan Kwai Fong. I loved eating here – not only was the food consistently good and cheap, but it’s a great place to get into the whole “Woohoo I am in Hong Kong!” mood, with its traditional condensed milk on toast & Hong Kong milk tea.

One dish I really enjoyed was the ox tongue baked rice, which had generous servings of ox tongue cut into thick, tender slices instead of the usual paper thin slices we get in Singapore. I tried the “Swiss style” chicken wings but did not like them at all. Despite the name, there is nothing Swiss about the wings – the legend goes that a Westerner came across the dish “sweetened soya sauce chicken wings” in a restaurant, and asked a Chinese waiter what that was. The waiter, who did not speak perfect English, introduced the dish as Sweet Wing. The customer misinterpreted sweet as Swiss, and the name was used ever since. (source)

Due to it’s 24 hour opening hours and “Hong Kong-ness” of it, I think this will be my first stop when I get off the plane the next time I’m in Hong Kong (after I get my Hong Kong pre-paid data SIM, of course). As tempted as I am, I will refrain from ordering in my Peter Chao voice.

Must try:
- Condensed milk toast bread
- Hong Kong milk tea
- Ox tongue baked rice (my favourite)

Cost of Damage: About SGD $10 per main, add about SGD $5 for drinks & dessert.

Value: Good value, tasty food for the price.

Address: 33 Stanley St.,Central, Hong Kong, China
Tel: +852 2526 8063
Location: Google Maps of Honolulu Cafe in Hong Kong

There are two basic types of egg tarts in Hong Kong – one with flakey pastry and one with short pastry. Many popular egg tart shops in Hong Kong, including the famed Tai Cheong (made famous by Chris Patten), sell the buttery short pastry version.

Honolulu, however, does the flakey crust version – and does it exceptionally well. It supposedly boasts 192 layers, and has a silky smooth egg custard centre. The pastry is a result of blending lard with butter – damn shiok! The egg custard deftly avoided the common custard curse of being overly sugared, and the delicious egg flavour came through perfectly.

According to some online research I did before I visited, the best time to visit is around 3.30pm when they bake up a new batch of egg tarts. However, I went at 11am and 2pm on two separate weekdays and each time there were a fresh batch of egg tarts.

If you are in the area, go to Wai Kee Congee Shop for breakfast in the morning, walk around the SOHO area and look at artsy stuff, have an early lunch at Yung Kee Restaurant then visit Honolulu Cafe for desert. They are all within a 10 minute walk of each other.

Note: This is the entrance, I walked past it 3 or 4 times before realising this was the one. As I left, I saw more Singaporeans strolling past it wondering where the egg tart place was. I guess I’m not the only Singaporean who can’t read the big gold Chinese sign that says “HONOLULU CAFE” (does it say Honolulu Cafe?)