TRIP + PLATE + 365 days
There are moments in travel when you want something familiar. Not because the local food has disappointed — in Hong Kong it rarely does — but because the contrast itself is interesting, or because the specific product you want exists only in a particular store. The Marks & Spencer Food at Hollywood Road in Central … Read more
There are brands that exist primarily online and brands that reward visiting in person. On Running — the Swiss performance footwear brand that has become one of the more interesting success stories in contemporary athletic footwear — falls into the second category. I stopped at the On store in Central during an afternoon walk through … Read more
Central has two faces. The first is the one most visitors see — the financial towers, the Mid-Levels Escalator, the restaurants of Soho, the bars of Lan Kwai Fong. The second is the one that exists one block behind the main thoroughfares, in the narrow lanes that the city’s development hasn’t yet fully absorbed. Graham … Read more
Tsim Sha Tsui moves at a pace that requires occasional interruption. The harbor promenade, Nathan Road, the MTR — all are efficient and purposeful in the way Hong Kong is efficient and purposeful. Kowloon Park is the interruption: a large public park occupying a significant block of land between Nathan Road and Austin Road that … Read more
The Avenue of Stars announces itself before you arrive. Walking south from the Tsim Sha Tsui hotel area toward the harbor, the skyline across the water becomes visible between the buildings — and then the promenade opens up, the full width of Victoria Harbour in front of you, the Hong Kong Island towers rising on … Read more
There comes a point in any multi-day Hong Kong trip — usually around day three — when the appetite for Cantonese food, however excellent, needs a reset. Not because the food has been bad — it hasn’t — but because the palate, saturated with the clean savory flavors of Cantonese cooking, begins to crave something … Read more
Wellington Street in Central has a particular quality in the early evening — the office workers have largely dispersed, the tourist crowds haven’t yet arrived for the Soho dinner rush, and the street settles into a brief calm between its two busiest periods. It was in this window that I found Tsim Chai Kee: a … Read more
Some food reputations are built on nostalgia and maintained by inertia — the famous restaurant that was once excellent and now coasts on its name. Tai Cheong Bakery is not that. I visited in the evening, stopping after dinner at Tsim Chai Kee nearby, and found an egg tart that justified every word written about … Read more
There are two ways to approach a beloved traditional food. The first is to replicate it faithfully — to honor the form and the recipe that have worked for decades. The second is to understand what makes it good and apply better technique to achieve a more refined version of the same thing. Bakehouse chose … Read more
The final morning of a Hong Kong trip has a particular quality — the awareness that you’re eating your last meal in the city before a long return journey, the desire to end on something that captures what the visit has been. I chose Lan Fong Yuen on the morning of January, walking from the … Read more