Crocodile soup, stir-fried peacock and a glass of Bordeaux are taking over from the salty baked chicken that grandma used to make - at least in some restaurants favoured by the upwardly mobile.
Anthropologists who have spent years of all-consuming research on Chinese food say fatter pay cheques and overseas travel have given diners the courage to try something new. And with more than 20,000 restaurants in the SAR, the choice is limitless, if sometimes bizarre.
'People have more money and don't want to go to the same old restaurants for yim kuk gai [salty baked chicken].
'As they understand more about different cultures, they will try new foods,' said Chinese University of Hong Kong assistant professor Sidney Cheung Chin-hung, who will be speaking at next week's international symposium on Chinese food.
Like the invention in 1953 of the instant noodle which revolutionised eating in Japan, Cantonese food based on Haka recipes is being left behind by nouvelle Cantonese cuisine developed in the 1980s among sandwich-class office workers in Tsim Sha Tsui, Mr Cheung said.
'More than two decades ago, people travelled to the United States or Japan and would only eat Chinese food. Now they're more willing to try spicy food in Southeast Asia or raw fish in Japan.' Wine consumption is a prime example of change. In 1995, Hong Kong and China bought 752,900 litres of wine from Bordeaux. The figure for the first six months of this year was more than three million litres.
