Taking a bite out of two worlds

Up until about 20 years ago, Britain had a bad reputation for its food, around the world and at home. Many people considered it stodgy, underseasoned and unimaginative. The writer W.Somerset Maugham supposedly said: "To eat well in England, you should have breakfast three times a day" - although their afternoon tea is also very good.

But Hong Kong cuisine owes much to the influence of our former colonial rulers. Without them, we might not have had such delicacies as our egg tart, milk tea, pancake and various meat pies and sandwiches.

"The British influence on Chinese food dates back to the 19th century," says William Mark Yiu-tong, as he carefully dissects a dai bao, or big bun, at his regular table at Luk Yu Tea House on Stanley Street in Central. Turning the bun upside-down, he eats the bottom first, saying: "This is the best part because all the [meat] juices have soaked into the [steamed bread]."

Mark, who was born in 1936, has spent much of his adult life promoting Chinese cuisine, as a journalist, an author of cookbooks, a restaurant consultant and president of the Federation of Hong Kong Restaurant Owners.

The jovial foodie first visited Luk Yu more than 60 years ago - the restaurant celebrates its 80th anniversary this year - and now eats dim sum there every day.

He continues: "Chinese [cooks] borrowed British ideas for dishes, but used Chinese ingredients. What they made was not the same, but it is something similar.

"Most [Chinese] restaurants in Hong Kong serve, to a certain extent, fusion food. It's nothing new. Take Luk Yu - it started serving fusion food right from the beginning; it has been serving the same old thing for 80 years.