Hong Kong via Breakfast

Six mornings of mouth-watering deliciousness

“Why would anybody ever eat anything besides breakfast food?”

• Leslie Knope, Parks and Recreation

Hi, friends! I’m writing to you at about 3PM on a lazy Saturday in Hong Kong. You may be wondering: why are you in Hong Kong? There’s several answers to that question. The official one is business! Work brought my husband here, and I have some readers at a church in Hong Kong. A less official but compelling reason is that it is warm and lovely here, while London is still seeing itself out of winter (though I hear it’s getting a bit warmer now!). I’m not teaching this term, and so I can do my research and work basically anywhere, so why not somewhere warm?! But finally, and most importantly, some family live here, and a new niece just made her entrance into the world, so we had to come and celebrate her.

We’ve been having a lovely time, and amidst the loveliness, I’ve been hard at work on finishing the conclusion to my “woman book” (I must stop calling it this) and helping finalise some things for PloughStack’ s next issue: After Religion. So today, I thought I’d just write a simple update, with a focus on one of my favourite topics and something that has been a highlight on this particular trip: breakfast!

Hong Kong via Breakfast:

The breakfast options in Hong Kong are wonderful. I am a breakfast lover at anytime, but there’s something particularly wonderful about having breakfast after you’ve been woken up ravenously hungry by your jetlagging body. For this visit, we’re staying in Sai Wan, a neighbourhood with a lovely mixture of what you might call very “local” food (tea restaurants, noodle shops, roasted meats specialists) along with lots of trendy coffee shops. Food is much cheaper here, and eating out is sometimes cheaper than buying things to eat in the flat where we’re staying. So each morning, I’ve ventured out for a different breakfast. So far each and every day has been a mouth-watering success. Here’s what I’ve had:

Like PB&J but somehow worse for you.. but so tasty.

Morning one, tea restaurant, Sai Wan:

I wrote about tea restaurants during my last visit to Hong Kong. They are a quintessential Hong Kong experience, and the closest thing I can think to compare them to in the US is a diner. Their food is a mixture of cantonese cooking and baking, with colonial influences (Hong Kong was a colony of the United Kingdom until 1997). There are many set menu options (for shockingly cheap!), but this time round I had: macaroni soup with ham and a fried egg, toast (with peanut butter and condensed milk), and, of course, a milk tea. Milk tea is very strong black tea, traditionally brewed in a special way involving panty-hose and egg shells (?!), sweetened with evaporated and/or condensed milk. It’s rich, strong, and sweet. It can come hot or cold. I couldn’t decide which I wanted so I made my husband get cold while I got hot. I enjoyed both 😇 !