Typical Hong Kong Food

This is typical Hong Kong meal. Since I don't often eat at local places and I usually prefer noodles I don't know too many restaurants that serve the typical rice dishes that typify real local Hong Kong food. Lately I eat a lot of local food at the University dining place, but it usually leans more towards fast food style 烧味, noodles and international dishes. It's like 大家乐except it's run by a different company, 美心. We actually have two restaurants that are run by 大家乐 but I don't go to them often since one of them is further away. The one that is close by, I go to sometimes, but 美心 is too convenient to give up.

I ate on campus for dinner today because by the time I left the lab it was late and I was getting hungry. The meal was pretty simple but it typifies real Hong Kong food: a main dish, soup, rice and tea. Often there will be veggies too but this meal didn't have any. The main dish today was scrambled egg with char siu (烧肉). The soup is boiled for a long time and usually contains a combination of meat (often with bone), veggies, herbs and carrot. My favorites usually contain carrots, white turnip or winter melon. The main dish and soup were good, but the rice was too hard. Often at fast food restaurants it's easy for the rice to go hard, especially by the end of the day. At lunch though I often see them refilling rice at the 烧味 counter, meaning that it's nice and fresh. Another trick I've seen them use at 大家乐 is to continually add water, but that also runs the risk of making the rice too soggy. In a family style meal obviously there are more main dishes and everyone has their own bowl of rice, and maybe soup.