I was asked by a food writer friend in the Philippines to give him a quote for an article he was writing. He wanted to know if I could think of anything positive that’s come out of the coronavirus lockdown. It’s hard to say something positive about a virus that has killed so many people, put so many out of work, closed so many businesses and plunged so many economies into free-fall. Still, ever the optimist, I was able to think of one small thing that I realise won’t matter to everyone: that people in Hong Kong have found a new appreciation for the city’s restaurants. Because we can’t travel, we eat at restaurants closer to home. Since the start of the year, I’ve cancelled long-planned trips to Malaysia , Japan, Brussels and France – and that’s not including any of the more spontaneous trips I probably would have taken. We can’t even go to Macau right now – normally an hour’s ferry ride away – without undergoing a two-week quarantine when we get there, and another quarantine when we return. In more normal times, many of us in Hong Kong travel a lot – it’s the easiest thing in the world to hop on a plane and be, a few hours later, in another country. During any long weekend, you could count on business areas being far less busy thanks to people leaving the city on short breaks. Now, more than ever, we can be grateful for Hong Kong’s international food scene. We have excellent Japanese, Korean, French, Italian, Indian, Sri Lankan, Thai and regional Chinese food, for example. We even have cuisines from much further afield, such as Peruvian, Venezuelan and Argentinian. If you don’t mind going to humble “back of shop” places (some of which may be illegal) and venturing into areas like Chungking Mansions , there are many more cuisines to explore. Of course, it’s not exactly the same as being abroad. I miss exploring the streets of Tokyo as I try to find my way to a tiny sushi-ya that I am only able to get into through the intervention of a friend (some places don’t allow first-time guests to book), or eating at my friends’ restaurants in Fukuoka, Bangkok and Taipei. Sometimes, it’s the rarity factor that makes an experience so special – the fact that it’s only open to “other” people makes you want to eat there even more. But honestly, I’m not going to complain about having too much choice or too many opportunities to eat, because the opposite almost doesn’t bear contemplating. Whenever I post on Instagram about meals I have enjoyed (usually accompanied by the hashtags #supporthongkongrestaurants and #eatoutmore) I almost always get a reply from someone in a place still under lockdown: “Wish I could eat out, it’s been three months since I’ve been to a restaurant!” For them, there’s no end in sight to their wait to eat out.