At 3pm, most restaurants are winding down after the lunchtime rush. But in a quiet corner of Sha Tin, the pace is just picking up at the Hsin Kuang restaurant - almost all the tables at the centre of the banquet hall are filled.
Barely touched plates of dim sum and fruit attest, however, that the patrons' interest isn't in food. Instead, their attention is focused on the 3,000 sq ft dance floor in the middle.
As the slower strains of a rumba number are replaced by a lively swing tune, Ada Tang Yee-man puts down a half-eaten shrimp dumpling.
'It's a foxtrot, my favourite. They only play two foxtrot songs the whole afternoon. I can't miss it,' she says, before striking out on the dance floor with her partner.
Once dominated by society tai-tais who could afford expensive instructors, ballroom dance is no longer the prohibitive pursuit it was during its heyday in the 1960s and 70s. But it has only been in the past decade that ballroom dancing, including Latin dances such as the tango and salsa, took off as a pastime for ordinary folk.
Classes and dance studios have sprouted up across the city, from exclusive operations in Central to everyday venues in North Point, Sha Tin and Tuen Mun. Reality TV shows modelled after the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing, which matches celebrities with professionals, have helped fuel the craze - among them, Taiwan's Let's Dance and Let's Shake It from the mainland.