Classic Hong Kong restaurants: Lok Hau Fook, Kowloon City
This Kowloon City favourite began serving Chiu Chow dishes in 1954. The area has changed, but the food hasn't, writes Janice Leung Hayes
It's been a long time since Li Chung-man, owner of restaurant Lok Hau Fook, a Chiu Chow restaurant in Kowloon City, has seen his two-storey restaurant full. "In the 1990s, three things happened: the old airport closed, manufacturing businesses cleared out of Kowloon for the mainland and the economy went bust, so business people stopped having monthly dinners at our restaurant."
Back then, it was an impromptu clubhouse for staff from factories and offices in neighbouring San Po Kong, and from Kwun Tong. "All the bosses came to eat and talk business," says Li. Others came from Kowloon Walled City.
"They were big spenders despite what you might think - they didn't have to pay tax. They really ordered shark's fin as a topping for rice," he says, referring to the popular Cantonese saying that means someone is making a lot of money.
Li's family opened Lok Hau Fook in 1954, with Li taking over in 1977. Both the decor and the menu have remained largely unchanged. With garish pink tablecloths, walls plastered with fluorescent cards with dish names written on them in large Chinese characters, and a dusty red and gold dragon mural, the restaurant has a gritty, nostalgic charm.
"The decor is considered retro now, and [Canto-pop star] Eason [Chan] came to film a music video. There aren't many restaurants that look like ours, so if filmmakers need to create a scene set in the 1980s or earlier, they come to us," Li says.
The restaurant is famous for its luxurious, special-occasion dishes like goose cooked in lo sui (spiced soy sauce poaching liquid), steamed crabs served cold, and shark's fin soup that is thicker than its Cantonese counterparts.