The Four Places You Have to Eat While In Hong Kong

Having lived in Hong Kong for over five years, naturally I have a list of my favorite restaurants that define the Hong Kong experience. So many people traveling to Hong Kong ask me for recommendations that I felt I should write this post. Also if you see on social media that I am currently traveling in Hong Kong, chances are that I am at one of these places during meal time. Here goes, in order of awesomeness:

Sichuan Hot Pot: Meghan’s Kitchen

This is not only my favorite restaurant in Hong Kong, but quite possibly my favorite restaurant anywhere. I’ve went there for several of my birthday dinners (including my 40th), and taken countless customers, friends, family, and colleagues over the years.

Meghan’s kitchen was referred to me many years ago by a local work colleague of my wife. It is a Sichuan Hot Pot place, which is a spicy (but you can get the non-spicy version) boiling soup that you place the raw food into and cook communal. Kind of like Chinese fondue, just with food, not cheese.

You order lots of dumplings and veggies and cook them in the hot pot.

The end result is pure magic.

Tell Miranda “See-Tie-Fun” sent you.

Reservations required

Website: http://www.meganskitchen.com/

Address: 5/F, Lucky Centre,165–171 Wan Chai Road, Wan Chai

MTR: Wan Chai

Korean BBQ: Hon Wo Korean Restaurant

In Causeway Bay is a very local Korean BBQ place, Hon Wo Korean Restaurant. You pay about $250HK for two hours of all you can eat Korean BBQ. You get a group together and take all the raw food from an all you can eat bar and sit at your table and grill away. Your options are beef, chicken, fish, pork, vegetables, tofu, and a variety of exotic Asian things.

A great place to take a group.

What makes this place special is that they have so many options for creating your own sauce to cook the food with. You can make it as spicy or non-spicy as you want. (My sous-chef JM usually makes it 5 alarm.)

My specialty is spicy pork.

Save some room for ice cream for dessert. (Also all you can eat…)

I usually skip lunch in preparation for having dinner here.

Reservations required

Website: http://www.openrice.com/en/hongkong/restaurant/causeway-bay-hon-wo-korean-restaurant/113363

Address: 1/F, Pearl City, 22–36 Paterson Street, Causeway Bay

MTR: Causeway Bay

Xiao Long Bao: Crystal Jade

A favorite of local Hong Kong Chinese is a Shanghaiese dish: Xiao Long Bao. This is the dumpling to end all dumplings: a pork soup dumpling where the pork and the soup are both inside of the dumpling.

They are served in a bamboo steam tray and are very hot. There are three rookie mistakes:

  1. Ordering too few (not made in the photo below)
  2. Picking up the Xiao Long Bao with too tight of a grip with your chopsticks and breaking the dumpling, sending the boiling pork soup all over the place (and worse yet onto the other dumplings!)
  3. Just popping the Xiao Long Bao into your mouth when it is too hot. One technique is to bite a hole into the top of the dumpling and suck the soup out, then eat the dumpling (along with soy sauce and ginger.)

Crystal Jade is a Hong Kong favorite and there are many locations around the city. If you go at lunch, you will experience the typical Hong Kong crazy lunch lines. You are given a ticket and have to wait for a table. At some locations at lunch or dinner time it is not uncommon to have to wait almost an hour. I’ll go grab my ticket at 11:30–11:45 and tell my lunch date to arrive at noon and still have to wait 15–20 minutes.

Website: http://hk.crystaljade.com/

Address: Various

MTR: Various

Hong Kong Style Clay Pot: New Clay Pot (not official translation)

This is about as local as it gets.

Only during winter time, if you take the MTR to Shau Kei Wan and look around, you will see a lot of clay pots in store windows. As you walk deeper into town, you will find a variety of Clay Pot restaurants. Dishes here are typically chicken, fish, or beef over rice with an egg on top baked in clay pot in an open oven.

The restaurants are very local and are usually a dingy table with plastic lawn chairs. While the menus are all in Chinese and the staff will have limited English, you should have no problem getting what you want. My recommendation is a beer accompanied by a beef and rice clay pot.

Website: http://www.opensnap.com/zh-hk/hongkong/p-新翠雅茶餐廳-筲箕灣-港式-p201300666

Address: Shop No. 8–9 underground Shau Kei Wan Shau Kei Wan Main Street East Building 40A Dongxing

MTR: Shau Kei Wan