Fears force changes to menus

Bird flu has forced chicken off the menu at many restaurants well-known for their poultry dishes.

'A speciality is fried chicken but consumption has dropped by about half,' a spokesman for the Sun Tong Lok Seafood Restaurant chain said.

'If people are too scared to eat chicken, we recommend other dishes like pigeon or beef and pork. People are also eating more vegetables and seafood.' Kowloon City's Taiwan Chicken Farm restaurant assistant manager Yuen Kwok-wah said: 'Fewer people are ordering chicken dishes and more are eating pork and vegetables.' Federation of Hong Kong Restaurant Owners vice-president Yeung Koon-yat estimated a 20 per cent drop in overall chicken consumption at restaurants in the past two weeks.

'If people want to eat chicken, they will go to more expensive restaurants as they are likely to be cleaner,' he said.

The Agriculture and Fisheries Department said the price of local chickens had dropped from $15.20 a kilogram to $11.40 in the past week and the price of imported chickens had dropped from $14.30 to $10.08.