Hut Hunting
Forget dai pai dongs, June Ng finds even more rustic—and delicious—dining in the dwindling number of public housing estate food plazas, or “mushroom huts” as they’re known.
To the untrained eye, they may look like dai pai dongs, but the “dong gu ting”—literally translated as “mushroom pavilions” due to their pointy roofs—have been dutifully serving surprisingly tasty home-style comfort food to Hong Kongers since the 1970s. Found exclusively in older public housing estates, the mushroom hut is fast dwindling in numbers due to the proliferation of chain restaurants in the newer estates. So if you are looking for some real old-school Hong Kong dining, you’d better hop down to the nearest hut today.
Golden City Kitchen
Despite Hong Kong’s obsession with air-conditioning, the first air-conditioned mushroom hut didn’t show up until 1997. Found in Tai Wai, Golden City is famous for its relatively fancy dishes made from fresh, first-rate ingredients at a bargain price. Owner Mr. Lee used to be a butcher and he maintains his connections with suppliers to ensure he has the freshest supplies daily. He can also use his connections to get choice cuts of rarer ingredients—for example, the deep-fried fish chin is not something you can just get at the corner dai pai dong. Made from the jaws of a silver carp, it’s perfect with an ice-cold beer.
The grilled eel in honey sauce is also a carefully prepared dish—they use the middle parts of the eel, which are still nice and meaty but with fewer bones, grilled attentively because a second too long could ruin the dish.
Or go for the pigeon stuffed with sticky rice, a complex dish that requires the chef to de-bone a pigeon without tearing the skin before stir-frying the meat with sticky rice and dried scallops and shrimp, which is then stuffed back into the bird. Naturally, it takes some time to prepare so you need to order in advance. No wonder it’s become a hot spot for neighborhood banquets—a table of 12 recently racked up a $10,000 bill at the place.
9-12 Hin Keng Estate Cooked Food Plaza, Tai Wai, 2681-2212
Full Gold House
Renovated in 2007, Full Gold House was one of the first cooked food plazas to get a facelift during the Link REIT renovation project. The birth of this restaurant is actually quite special—it was designed with suggestions from ordinary people in the neighborhood. Owner Woo Ka-shing comes from a family of neighboring cha chaan teng owners and he wanted to address the residents’ complaint that there was no “proper” Chinese food available in the estate.
They’re most famed for their Chiuchownese dishes—the marinated goose is made with a home-made savory sauce and the pan-fried crispy noodles with vinegar and sugar served on a sizzling plate is as good as any of the super-famous Chiuchow restaurants in Sheung Wan, but it only costs $42.
Cooked Food Plaza, Sun Tsui Estate, Tai Wai, 2699-1680
Ming Lee Congee and Shing Tai Noodle
If you’re looking for some truly old school flavors in an even more heart-warming neighborhood, check out Ming Lee Congee at Oi Man Estate’s Cooked Food Plaza—run by the cute couple Lee Chun-hing and his wife, the little shop was recently in the news for serving free bowls of congee to the elderly. Although they had to limit the offer due to the massive demand (seniors can only receive free congee now from 9-10am), it still attracts large crowds. Their best sellers are sampan congee, fried noodles, or steamed rice rolls with fried Chinese breadstick or dried shrimp.
Finally, another tasty shop found in our increasingly rare mushroom huts is Shing Tai Noodles in Lok Wah Estate in Ngau Tau Kok. They’ve been known for their bouncy homemade fish balls for more than two decades already.
Ming Lee Congee: Cooked Food Plaza, Oi Man Estate, Ho Man Tin, 2712-1577
Shing Tai Noodle: Cooked Food Plaza, Lok Wah Estate, Ngau Tau Kok, 2799-3710