Classic Hong Kong restaurants: Ho Wah Cafe, Wan Chai

"We started off as a tea cart on Mallory Street, exactly where our cafe is now. Customers used to have to sit on benches in front of the stall," says Ho Cheuk-man, owner of Ho Wah Cafe, a 61-year-old cha chaan teng in Wan Chai.

When a new building was erected in the early 1970s, they took over the shop right behind the cart and could finally seat more than a few diners at once. Still, it's hardly as lush as the name, Ho Wah, which means luxury, suggests. "I'm not sure why they named it that actually," says Ho, who started working at the cafe in 1995 when he immigrated to Hong Kong from Jiangmen, Guangzhou. Ho inherited the business from his father in 2003, after he had inherited it from a cousin.

"The staff told me that there used to be a lot of different dai pai dongs on this street selling noodles, fruit and roasted sweet potatoes. Most have gone now, but sometimes, if you come at night, you'll still see some of them," Ho says.

He sees the change as natural. "If people stop coming, it means you need to change," he says.

And that is exactly what he did when he took over the reins. The menu was expanded from the originally bare-bones menu of toast and beverages. Items such as the egg salad bun and beef with scrambled eggs on toast were added to classics like the "no hard-to-find milk and egg" (a drink made from condensed milk, evaporated milk, hot water and an egg) and kaya toast. Unlike the Southeast Asian version of the coconut jam, Ho Wah's kaya contains only egg yolks and sugar. "We don't add coconut because Cantonese people find the flavour too strong," says Ho.

A perennial favourite at Ho Wah is, of course, the milk tea. "We mix two brands of tea leaves, but I can't say there's anything particularly special or complicated to it," he says. "When people come for your milk tea, it's not always about it tasting better than anyone else's, it's just about the flavours they're used to - and our regulars like our tastes."