Feast or FamineOpportunistic eating: pandemic has spoiled the fun of spontaneously satisfying your greed
- The days of being spontaneous and enjoying some ‘opportunistic eating’ may be gone for now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still eat out when you like
- Just be adaptable, plan around the lockdown measures and start going for ‘dunch’ – a cross between dinner and lunch
I have a term for snacks or meals that I eat outside what most people consider “normal” lunch or dinner hours: opportunistic eating.
Usually, it’s a spur-of-the-moment light meal that I eat just because the opportunity presents itself, such as when I’m walking by a normally packed noodle shop in Hong Kong, such as Yat Lok or Kau Kee, and I see that, for whatever reason, there’s no queue. I pop in, eat a bowl of roast goose noodles or beef brisket noodles, then continue on my merry way.
It’s very rarely hunger that compels me to go in: it’s greed, plus the fact that I avoid waiting in line whenever possible.
This kind of opportunistic eating usually takes place in the afternoon, after I’ve had lunch, but with some time to go before dinner – although on one occasion, my girlfriends and I finished a multi-course sushi omakase lunch, then immediately afterwards ate a roast goose noodle snack at Yat Lok – just because there was no queue. I’ll admit that was excessive.
Lately, though, this opportunistic eating is becoming more serious. Because Hong Kong is still in its fourth wave of the coronavirus, restaurants have to close for in-person dining between 6pm and 5am, so they’ve extended their lunch hours. Instead of having the last order at 2.30pm so they can close around 3.30pm, many restaurants now serve lunch from around 11.30am to 6pm.