Hong Kong tea restaurants' popular treats

Editor's note: To understand China, sit down to eat. Food is the indestructible bond that holds the whole social fabric together and it is also one of the last strong visages of community and culture.

Everyone goes to Hong Kong for dim sum, but there is another popular food phenomenon that is unique to the former British colony in that it adroitly combines West and East and totally mirrors grassroots palate demands.

In many ways, the special administrative region's neighborhood teashops are a lot more reflective of its culinary evolutions than shrimp dumplings and roast pork buns.

A Hong Kong chacanting, or tea restaurant, can be a hole in the wall along a quiet side street or a two-floor eatery with a bustling takeout counter on the ground level, but it serves a common purpose - a place where the community can grab a quick and economical breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Many years ago, when I worked in Causeway Bay, I lived in a charming neighborhood two bus stops away from my office. Fifty meters from my apartment was a tea restaurant. It was a regular pit stop for taxi drivers, and there was always a red-and-white fleet parked outside on the road despite the double yellow lines. That was testimony enough.

There would be a volunteer lookout for the occasional traffic police officer on a huge, white bike, and if they appeared the restaurant would suddenly empty as the taxis disappeared. Fifteen minutes later, the drivers would be back to finish their meals. The owner never worried about unpaid bills.

It would open early in the morning to serve up breakfast and would not close until way past midnight, catering to the supper crowd.

More often than not, breakfast offered sets from A to D - classic combinations of a drink, hot dish, and bread or a sandwich. The drink may be hot coffee or tea, or yuanyang, a mixture of coffee and tea. In summer, diners may opt for iced coffee or tea, or a brew of watercress syrup and honey. If you were suffering a bout of sniffles, you could order hot cola with lots of lemon. I don't know who invented this concoction, but it seems to work in instantly clearing the sinuses.

The hot dish may be instant noodles in soup served with an egg, sunny side up, and a couple of slices of ham or luncheon meat. It could be macaroni soup with chicken or beef slices, or it could be a bowl of plain rice congee topped with salted pulled pork and chopped pickled century eggs.

The bread options may be French toast, thickly cut and coated with egg and fried, topped with a small square of melting butter and drizzled with condensed milk. It sounds absolutely decadent but this must be one of the most popular dishes in Hong Kong chacanting. My son thrived on this during his kindergarten years.

There are also soft buttery buns stuffed with slices of cheese, and sandwiches toasted and filled with scrambled eggs, luncheon meat, ham slices or frankfurters split open and fried.

Breakfast is the fortifying meal, and a chacanting tries its best to send out workers replete and energized.

As the line cooks flip the last orders of French toast on the grill, the kitchen is already preparing lunch.

More often than not, the lunch menu has a selection of steamed dishes that will go well with hot rice. Pork ribs steamed with black bean sauce, grass carp bellies steamed on top of fried bean curd puffs and salted vegetables, chicken pieces with chunks of shiitake mushrooms, tender beef tendons in a spicy tomato sauce, pork tripe and liver with dried salted meicai vegetables and lots of ginger, and roast duck in a mild coconut curry.

The best, freshest and most delicious ingredients from the morning markets are prepared for lunch, and every platter comes straight from the huge bamboo steamers to the table accompanied by a heaped plate of rice.

For busy commuters and harried white-collared workers, this is fast food at its best, and often the closest thing to mom's cooking.

Once the lunch rush is over, the kitchen settles to prepare for afternoon tea. Custard tarts with the lightest, flakiest pastry and creamy filling, "pineapple" buns with its characteristic crisscrossed pate sucree topping, more sandwiches and more French toast are lined up on the counters waiting for the men and women who come for tea.

This is the hour of "silk stocking tea", a satisfying thick brew that comes served with lashings of evaporated milk and served hot or cold. The name comes from the cloth filter from which the tea is strained, used so often that it is stained the color of a pair of nylons.

Not too long after tea, the dinner menu appears, featuring a new batch of steamed delights, augmented by a variety of stir-fried dishes.

Jiejie chicken is popular, with chicken pieces sizzled in a clay pot with whole shallots, garlic and fresh chestnuts when they are in season. Or it could be mustard greens stewed with pieces of roast pork, or a steamed minced-meat patty topped with a fillet of salted fish or a salted duck egg yolk. Again the dishes come with a heaped bowl of rice or two.

For jaded appetites, the chacanting also offers spaghetti or macaroni topped with tomato sauce and stir-fried beef or chicken. A favorite order is thick rice noodles stir-fried with tender beef slices and black bean sauce topped with green vegetables.

Dinner is served until late, and sometimes two sets of customers mingle as the late shift workers drop by for supper, which may be yet another bowl of instant noodles topped with egg and ham, and washed down with a refreshing glass of iced lemon tea.

Hong Kong's tea restaurants have made their way into Chinatowns across Europe, the United States and Australia. Most important of all, the chacanting is now recognized as uniquely Hong Kong in major cities all over the Chinese mainland.

Who would have thought the neighborhood hole in the wall would have wandered so far?

paulined@chinadaily.com.cn

Classic chacanting offerings

French toast

Saidorsi is how you say it in Cantonese. Thick pieces of bread are dipped into egg and fried until the edges are just crisp. Sometimes, you can ask for the bread to be split and smeared with peanut butter. The hot toast is always topped with a square of butter and lots of condensed milk.

Pineapple buns

Porlorbao has no pineapples. It is a soft, buttery bun topped with a crunchy sugar dough topping that has been scored like the skin of a pineapple. Some versions have custard filling. Always eat it with a large napkin to catch all the crumbs.

Custard tarts

Buttery pastry is light as air and flaky. The sweet custard is baked until a light, golden skin forms, but the filling inside is always creamy and heavenly. Best eaten hot.

Silk stocking tea

Black tea dust is brewed in boiling water and filtered through a cloth bag to get the basic brew. Drunk hot or cold with milk, or topped with generous slices of lemon and ice.

Yuanyang

Coffee or tea? Have both in the same cup or glass. It is a uniquely Hong Kong solution for those who cannot make up their minds.

Hot cola with lemon

A winter favorite. Cola is boiled with slices of lemon and served hot in a glass. Reputed to clear up clogged sinuses, colds and coughs. You have got to believe it.

Red bean ice

Dollops of sweet red-bean paste are topped with coconut milk and shaved ice. A favorite summer cooler, and sometimes cubes of black grass jelly are added.

Luncheon meat and egg noodles

Chandanmien is a classic. Fried luncheon meat, a fried egg and some token strands of green vegetables are the toppings for a bowl of instant noodles.

Stir-fried beef noodles

The ultimate test for a short-order cook. The thick rice noodles must be slightly charred but fragrant, the beef slices very tender and the bean sprouts cooked but still crunchy. It's all about the spirit of the wok.